Wolfin's Casino Guide (Poker)

[wolfin]

After spending a long time grinding at poker, I have noted down several patterns that work for me. I searched for casino guides as well, but could not find anything in depth enough that could help me win more. Do take note that this is MY way of playing it, and I by no mean imply that it will work for everyone. I play at the 100 chip bet and have won 3.7mil in the past 3 days, so I'm confident in it. This guide will not make you always win, but it is a reliable way to earn chips.

I will not include anything on slots or bingo as they are 100% luck based games. I write this guide based off the 100 chip bet, and any winning values are represented by that. If you are playing the 1 chip or 10 chip bets, prize values will be different.

This guide begins with the most basic of information for anyone who is unfamiliar with the game. All numbers in brackets represent cards (2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K,A). The Higher-or-Lower section is broken into two parts, one for when you have less than 1,000,000 chips, and one for more.

Wolfin's Casino Guide to Poker


General Information:
Always 2 CARDS for Higher-or-Lower for the best odds. The casino card deck consists of 52 cards plus a Joker. The Joker is a wildcard that can be any one card that suits your hand best. You don't need to choose the value, the game will do it automatically. The Ace is a card that can have the value of either 14, above the king, or 1, below the 2. It however cannot be used to bridge the gap between a King and a 2 in order to create a winning hand. (In Higher-or-Lower, the Ace always has a value of 14, above the King)



Winning Hands:
Two Pairs - A pair is two cards of equal value. This winning hand contains two such pairs. (3,3,5,5)

Three of a Kind - Any three cards of equal value. (8,8,8)

Straight - Five cards of consecutive value. They can be of any suite. (5,6,7,8,9) (8,9,10,J,Q)

Flush - Five cards of the same suite. They can be of any value.

Full House - Having a hand containing a pair and a three of a kind. (4,4,4,J,J)

Four of a Kind - Any four cards of equal value.

Straight Flush - Five cards of consecutive value and of the same suite.

Five of a Kind - Four cards of equal value and the Joker. The joker makes up the fifth card of equal value.

Royal Straight Flush - A winning hand containing a (10,J,Q,K,A) of the same suite.



Dealing Cards and Keeping
This is quite possibly the easiest part of the game. There is a considerable amount of luck involved, but your actions determine the chances of getting a winning hand.

After dealing five cards, look for several patterns. I have tidily listed all types of hands you will be dealt below, and the best option on what cards to select to keep. Don't worry when you don't win a hand of poker, This is bound to happen a lot. I tend to only win a hand of poker averaging around 1 in every 5 times.

Winning Hand - A hand that contains any winning combination of cards. Select all the winning cards to keep. This will often allow one or two new cards to be dealt and have the possibility to increase your base winnings. Turning a three of a kind into four, or two pairs into a full house. There is no risk in this. If you have all five cards in a winning hand, keep them all and congratulations.

Single Pair - If you only have a single pair on hand, select these two cards and have the other three redrawn. You want to either draw another card of equal value to increase your pair into a three of a kind, draw a second pair, or a joker.

Four of a Suite - This means when you have four cards in your hand of the same suite (Hearts, Spades, Clubs, Diamonds). Select these four cards to keep. You will have a 20.8% chance that the new card will be of the same suite as the other four, or a joker, and create a flush. There is also a small chance that the new card will be of a different suite and create a 'straight'. This depends on the cards you already have on hand.

Three of a Suite - A hand that contains three cards of the same suite, but no pairs. There are two options with this hand. The most straightforward is to choose the three cards to keep, and get two new ones. There is a 4.8% chance of drawing two new cards of the matching suite, and a small chance of creating two pairs or a three of a kind. The second method is the same as the method for a "dead hand"

Three of a Suite + Joker - This is equal to a Four of a suite and you should always choose these four cards to keep. There is a slighter larger chance to draw a card of the same suite, and still an opportunity to create a three of a kind if that fails.

Four in a Row - A hand where you have four cards of consecutive value (4,5,6,7) and no pairs. You can choose these four cards and try to get a final card in creating a 'straight', but only do so when the four consecutive cards do not include an Ace (A,2,3,4) (J,Q,K,A). This is because you would have to draw a 5 or a 10 depending on the hand, equating to a chance of 8.3%. If the consecutive cards are not at the lower or upper limit of the deck (5,6,7,8) you have double the odds, 16.6%, as you can draw either the card valued below or above to create a 'straight'. (4,5,6,7,8) (5,6,7,8,9). If you are not confident, or it is the case of the former, use the method for a "dead hand".

Three in the Row - Treat as a "dead hand".

Just a Joker - This is a hand where there is a Joker, but no more than two cards of any same suite and are not consecutively valued. Choose to keep the Joker and choose a single number card. I recommend choosing either a 4,5, or 10 for the number card if it is available. I have noted that those three cards tend to frequently appear. I'm baised, but don't choose to keep a royal card (J,Q,K). No matter what hand has a Joker, remember, the Joker is your friend, always choose to keep it. 

Dead Hand - A hand where there is no positive outlook. There are no more than two cards of the same suite, and they appear as a haphazard bunch of misfits. Choose a single card to keep and redraw the rest. Again, I recommend a 4,5, or 10, and **** the royalty. If you are feeling lucky, choose two number cards to keep.



Higher-or-Lower (Less than 1,000,000 chips)
Always choose to play this when you get a winning hand. It is invaluable to earning money. What I am describing is the two cards higher-or-lower, not the single card option.

When playing with a 100 chip bet, the maximum you can earn is 50,000. This doesn't cap the amount you will earn at 50,000 chips, but prevents you from continuing on once your winning go over it. You still get paid the full amount. The best you can hope for is a Four of a Kind winning hand, in which case you will get the chance to earn 96,000 chips at once if you go all they way (double of 48,000).

This game is simple, you are given a card in the left, and you have to choose if the face down card on the right will be higher or lower. You have the chance after winning a bet and doubling your winnings to stop and take the total chips, or continue again. Always press continue if your winnings are less than 20,000 chips, it is worth more to try go higher than lose a measly amount of chips. When you are still low on chips, taking less is fine, but afterwards your earnings will be too small and progress will be slow.

Apart from the first time you do the bet, the card on the left will always be the card that was on the right in the previous bet. This is how the game works, and helps you decide in choosing to continue on or not.

This is a game that is heavily influence by probability, and you can make the most of that. If the card on the left is between 2 - 6, the next card has a high probability of being higher. Vice versa, if the card on the left is between the Jack and the Ace (J,Q,K,A), the card on the right has a high probability of being lower. If the card on the left is between 7 - 10, it is what I like to call an "unsafe card", and can go either way. If you have more than 20,000 chips racked up in the bet, leave and take your winnings. If you have less, trust your gut instinct and choose between higher or lower. I would generally choose higher for a 7 or an 8, and lower for a 9 or 10.

There are plenty of games you will lose, especially when you get that low probability of a low card going lower, or a high card going higher. One thing to not in this game is that the 2 and the Ace are your best friends. There is nothing lower or higher than them, so you cannot be wrong. You may get a draw (the card on the right is equal to the one on the left) and waste a round, but you can't be wrong.


Higher-or-Lower (More than 1,000,000 chips)

After you earn 1,000,000 chips and unlock Lady Christina at the Casino Cage for 77,777,777 chips, you may start to notice that the game is working against you. It is incredibly frustrating at first, especially when the game of higher-or-lower begins to seemingly defy probability and constantly throw you curve balls. The good news is that you can forget about running away with your chips when an unsafe card (7,8,9,10) appears. Always aim to get 50,000+ chips each win.

First, I want you to forget about probability when choosing whether the next card is going to be higher or lower (except with a 2,3,K,A). If you are focused on the probability, you are going to become a very angry person, if you aren't already. I say this for a reason. Based off my observation and estimation, the face down card on the right is no longer based off the probability of a single card in a 52 card deck, but instead a probability of direction. I have no evidence to support this, and could very well be incorrect, but once I decided to look at it from a new perspective, my winnings did increase.

I will introduce two new terms in regards to discussing the higher-or-lower game after you have earned 1,000,000 chips. They are "Rebound" and "Pass Through". Rebound is when the card on the right is first lower, and then higher in the next bet, or higher and then lower (2 -> 9 -> 5) (Q -> 4 -> J). Pass through is when the card on the right is first lower, and then lower again in the next bet. Being higher twice is the same (3 -> 7 -> J)(A -> 6 -> 3).

Apart from the first bet, you need to focus on predicting whether the card on the right will rebound (You just picked higher, and the next will be lower), or if it will pass through (You picked higher, and the next will be higher as well).

Very often in this game you need to be playing a game of rebound, constantly switching between higher and lower. What you must predict is when the game will decide to pass through. It may pass through twice as well, but rarely does it do so three or four times in a row.

Pass Through Card
If the card values are in the lower range (2 - 5) and the card on the right is only 1 value higher, this is a very good sign that the game will pass through. Another card to note is 7. This card is what I call the "Pass Through Card". It will pass through most of the time. (3 -> 7 -> 10) (9 -> 7 -> 4) and can be relied on to do so. Do not think that because 8 is only one number away, that it is the same. It is not.

Rebound Card
When there is a larger gap between the card on the left and the one on the right, there will very likely be a rebound in the next round, but that isn't always the case. The number 6 card is what I refer to as a "Rebound Card" and will frequently rebound, including when coming from a lower number. (4 -> 6 -> 3). 6 is the card that I hate the most, especially when I was looking at it with probability. I estimate from my memory that when going from a lower card to 6, the following card was lower 70% of the time. 

The number 10 card also has the characteristics of a rebound card, and can easily go (K -> 10 -> Q). This card however cannot be relied upon to rebound, but it is one to be wary of.



That is all I have for this guide. I hope it helps you grind that casino for chips without being at risk of losing it all in bingo or slots. I will also say this once more, **** the royal cards.

[myskaros]

I'd have to say that in something that's largely "luck based" or we otherwise cannot determine the nature of the algorithm, you can believe what you want to believe as long as it works for you. However, I disagree that the game is actively working against you. Think about it: in any probability based scenario with a win/loss outcome, the more times in a row you try to guess correctly, the less likely you are to be correct on the next try. If you flip a coin once, you might guess correctly. You might even guess right 3 times in a row. But, assuming it's truly a 50% coin and you're not doing anything to rig the outcome, it's just incredibly unlikely to guess correctly many, many times in a row. Consider that high/low on a 1x winning hand requires you to guess right 9 times in a row. Sure, you have very good odds on many cards, but even on a first-draw King you "only" have a 86% chance of getting a low. There's a less than 50% chance of getting 5 lows on a King in a row. And consider that if you get a King on hand 5 or hand 8, your odds are even lower, since there are fewer cards in the pool.

What I'm saying is, this is a game where you're earning 50k-100k chips per hand, max, and trying to get 10+ million. That means you need to win a jackpot 100-200 times at minimum, and that's only if you get a winning poker hand on every round. You're more likely to lose chips from dead hands, so that's more wins needed. If you're playing high/low 300-400 times, that means you're going to lose on a King guess 42-56 times. And guess what you tend to remember more, the times when you get a win with a King, or the times you lose?

Simply put, because you're playing so many games, that's exactly the reason why you should only play towards probability. Because that means you can more accurately predict how many times you'll win on a guess, over a large sample of hands. If you use other rules to determine how to guess, you're setting yourself up for failure. Using probability as a measure means that even when you lose, you can tell yourself that it's just bound to happen due to the sheer number of games you're playing.

Sure, with your method, you might guess some correctly, but is that really because of some hidden programming pattern, or is it more likely because you want to believe you've cracked an imaginary pattern? Without hard data to support that the game no longer chooses cards at random after a certain point, it's safer to assume that it's always random, and thus that probability simply dictates that you can't win them all.

[wolfin]

It is luck based, but our choices can affect our probability of winning. The point you make near the end does quirk me a bit. Believing I've cracked an imaginary pattern? I don't mean to sound rude or offending, but I never claim such a thing nor do I believe it. I don't take offence to your thoughts, I can tell you put a considerable amount of thought into it to reply with such a large context.

When I say it seems like the game is working against you, I'm talking about the times it seems to go against probability. Take the number 6 for example. there are four cards below it, and eight above it. Including the number itself, there is a 31% chance it will be lower, 62% that it will be higher, and the final 7% that it will be equal. By probability, it should be higher about six times out of ten. When it however is lower those six times out of ten, this is what I call against the probability. I completely understand that I, and everyone else, will remember the times we lost more, but I can't believe that it would be such a significant difference.

If I had seen someone else had believed that the game seemed to "start working against you" after passing the 1 million chip marker before hand, or I believed that on my own, I probably would thing of it as pure superstition. But when I noticed and felt that myself, then saw comments that I wasn't the only one (to the point their words were speaking my mind), it creates some doubt. I don't believe that the probability factor in the game is changed, just that it is more randomized and the conventional methods of relying on probability is less effective.

As for the entire thing being random, that is very well likely. There is also the probability that I could win 100% of the time or never win even a single hand. That would just be Murphy's Law.

Whether the game slightly changed after that milestone. Considering that I noticed it after such a specific point, and that I hadn't been the only one, I wouldn't rule it as being impossible. I would still call such thoughts a theory, a fictional thought, unconventional thinking and seeking reason in squiggled line, but not impossible.

It wasn't until many trials and errors that I came up with the process of rebound and follow through. If the process is entirely random, which you are probably correct on, it is like a good luck charm that works when you believe in it.

Would you think it would be better if I included a note with the (More than 1,000,000) section that if you believe the process to be the same as before, please use the previous section and consider this a good luck charm if all else fails?

[myskaros]

I intended my preface of "do what works for you" to kind of soften my own thoughts from taking on a lecture-like tone, but it kind of got out of hand. I wasn't trying to attack you, apologies if it seemed overly hostile. In defense of, well, the human race, all people are ingrained to look for patterns, because that's how we stay alive and gain advantage throughout life. I wasn't meaning to offend with the "imaginary pattern" statement, and you stated that you didn't take offense, but I do want to clarify that, despite what I wrote, I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with looking for patterns, I just ascribe personally to Occam's razor/parsimony, which is that the simpler explanation (it's simply random and we are just imagining patterns where none exists) is most often the correct one.

As an anecdote, I usually pick either high or low and always guess that way on 7-8-9, simply to establish an immutable rule for myself so that I don't overthink things and get frustrated. However, when that choice should be more or less 40-60% accurate but I notice that I lose on 7-8-9 10-20 times in a row, I certainly think to myself "well, if that's how it's going to be, I'll go low on the next card." And then I pick low and it ends up being high.

The thing about statistics is that they are only accurate for large sample sizes. In your analysis of 6, it is incorrect to say that "6 times out of 10 it should be High," but rather "when analyzing a large sample, the data trends toward 6 out of every 10 trials being High." You also didn't mention that if you get a 6 on the 5th hand vs. the 1st hand, there are 5 other cards that are no longer in the pool and the probability has changed. Another factor is that for every person who has a string of bad luck when guessing on 6, there's likely someone else out there who has good luck on 6, which, looking at large samples, will help average things back to the aforementioned 62%. You and 10 other people having anecdotes about bad luck is a drop in the bucket compared to the true playerbase of say 1 million players (they claim 10 million, I'll err on the side of being too low since it still supports my point).

In the end, I guess do whatever you want to do. I just feel that, as a new player, I happen to be familiar with statistics and standard card games, but if I were to read something about weapon grids (which I only recently learned more about), I would likely believe it were probably true and might miss a later correction if someone else contested it. That's why I felt the need to post.

[meiun]

Jul 6, 2016 10:26:58 GMT 8 myskaros said:

I intended my preface of "do what works for you"...

Played poker to get Christina and have at least 1000x 100 chip high-low since. So far played Around 900x 1000 chip poker high-low. It's too hard to record every single action by hand; however I recorded the cards "out of play" and the "high-low" probability of 6, 7 and 10 each time they came up in a table by hand.

The "pass-through" and "rebound" seem to be accurate. However on the 1000 chip table it seems to be the exact opposite so far. I lost almost 4m at the 1000 table before switching to the inverse. Other than that the cards behave as said above a staggering amount of the time.

It's not random if you can define its probability. It's not even "random", in a RNG/common parlance sense, if it has clearly weighted behavior. No one would call loaded dice "random". It's perfectly possible to work out if and how a card is weighted with enough samples.

The major point here is that it's not specifically looking for a pattern. You find a weighted probability by simply looking for the absence of pre-established probabilities. Then you look for the weights. Just like with weighted dice and dealers stacking the deck.

[wolfin]

I am currently playing the 1000x poker table as well. I am going to start creating a log of what happens in a table at one point to get some data. For now, I am primarily going off instinct to guess highs and lows.

Of course, the guide I wrote is based on before the game was updated and 100x bet was the largest poker table.

[wolfin]

I have started recording down some figures, broken down in cards per house and total per card amounts. It also includes rebound and pass through percentages, but that data is only practical for between 6 and 10. So far at around 150 samples.

It is still early to have conclusive percentages, as most figures are only between 10 - 20 samples per card, but some form of statistics are starting to emerge. To say that the game is not 100% chance isn't inappropriate at this point. The low cards (2-5) are showing a much higher chance of the next card being lower than they should be while the high cards are almost the same vice versa. The most notable are 6 and 9, which have a much greater percentage for the next card to be higher.

Of course, there is still a big fat Murphy's Law in the equation so it is still not accurate beyond reasonable doubt.

[simohalo]

Honestly, the more chips you have, the more you get screwed over. At least that's what I noticed when I hit 55 mil.