Daily assumed you were playing for dollars and max coins. He collated and sorted the resulting wins and losses according to various criteria. The numbers presented here are for the results at the END of the hands. The 10% figure represents that 90,000 scores were better and 10,000 worse (although to be sure there were several ties).

The scores here are all losses, because you're going to lose at this game far more than 10% of the time. But when you're trying to determine ³can I survive this game when the going gets tough,² these are the numbers you should look at.

			5,000 Hands
	Return	Variance	10%	5%	1%
10/6 DDB	100.07%	42.18	$2,570	$3,065	$3,890
9/6 DDB	98.98%	41.98	$2,810	$3,310	$4,125
9/5 DDB	97.87%	42.17	$3,085	$3,570	$4,400
10/7 DB	100.17%	25.26	$1,995	$2,425	$3,175
9/6 JB	99.54%	19.51	$1,425	$1,670	$2,120
			25,000 Hands
	Return	Variance	10%	5%	1%
10/6 DDB	100.07%	42.18	$6,205	$7,710	$10,285
9/6 DDB	98.98%	41.98	$7,545	$9,010	$11,580
9/5 DDB	97.87%	42.17	$8,940	$10,450	$12,985
10/7 DB	100.17%	25.26	$4,855	$6,045	$8,120
9/6 JB	99.54%	19.51	$4,395	$5,035	$6,155
			100,000 Hands
	Return	Variance	10%	5%	1%
10/6 DDB	100.07%	42.18	$12,585	$15,960	$22,035
9/6 DDB	98.98%	41.98	$17,925	$21,240	$27,405
9/5 DDB	97.87%	42.17	$23,530	$26,880	$32,970
10/7 DB	100.17%	25.26	$9,695	$12,340	$17,050
9/6 JB	99.54%	19.51	$10,865	$12,815	$16,045

For each of the categories, Daily performed the calculations for three different Double Double Bonus pay schedules, and also 10/7 Double Bonus and 9/6 Jacks or Better for comparison purposes. Looking at these numbers, it's possible to conclude several things:

a. Within a given game, pay schedules matter. Every decrement in the amount you receive for a full house or a flush adds up. Even if you only really hope to obtain four aces, you'll end up with a lot of the lesser hands as well.

b. When you play games with a high variance, you win more on your good days and lose more on your bad days. This becomes less of a factor over time, and the return on the game becomes more important. Notice that you will lose a lot less for 9/6 Jacks than you will for 10/6 DDB or 10/7 DB at 5,000 hands, even though 9/6 Jacks returns less than 100% and the other two return more than 100%. At 100,000 hands, however, the losses for 9/6 Jacks have surpassed those for 10/7 DB and are approaching those of 10/6 DDB. If we extended this chart out to 250,000 hands, for example, you'd be losing more at 9/6 Jacks than the other two games.

c. Notice that 100,000 hands isn't CLOSE to being enough to letting the average catch up to you. Even though you're a favorite at 10/6 DDB, you'll be behind more than 3 royal flushes 10% of the time. It's no wonder that you regularly hear players complain about their bad fortune. At any given time, a large percentage of them are losing.

d. These results assume you play the games perfectly. This is a contrary-to-fact assumption for most players. If you play only 98% or 99% accurately (which is true for most players), your results will be MUCH WORSE than these numbers indicate.

e. The bad scores for 25,000 hands are slightly more than twice as large as the ones for 5,000 hands. Why? Because who's hot and who's not changes regularly in video poker. Just because you lost big yesterday is no sign at all that you will continue to lose in the future.

f. We assumed skill level was perfect here, and the game choice was excellent. Still, these players lost. The idea that if you play well you'll always win and if you've lost that means you've played poorly simply isn't true. Good players lose most of the time. But when they do win, hopefully their good scores more than make up for their previous losses.