My game of choice is baccarat. My average hand last time was about $350 per hand. I started to play Pai Gow poker for fun. I usually play $25 per hand. Should I gave them my card when I play paigow poker? Will this bring my average bet down and ultimately affect my comps?
I don't for that kind of play. the amount of theo that you'll get is so little, it won't matter. and the lowering of the avg bet can hurt.
I will defer to those with more knowledge and experience (ie losses :Þ) but I read so often on this board that what matters is the ADT where D stands for daily not the ABT where B stands for Bet. So surely any bet contributes something +ve to your ADT and as long as you also bet close to the same amount on any day at your usual level at the Baccarat table then playing a few hands or an hour or 6 at a much lower bet at Pai Gow should add ( maybe just a fraction) to your ADT and therefore not adversely affect your rating. Bottom line is if you play 5 hours of Baccarat at $350/hand and then play 1 hour of Pai Gow at $25/hand your rating should be higher than if you only played the 5 hours of Baccarat. Is that not the theory at least? Or do I misunderstand how the system works vis a vis table games and ADT?
This has been discussed a few times. There is certainly a view that theo is all that matters. This was confirmed by at least one host. I still avoid lowering my average bet. If I play 4 hours of BJ at $250 a hand and then throw in a couple of hours of craps at $25 a hand, I have a rating of $175 for 6 hours. That generates a higher theo than just the 4 hours of BJ. But somehow I would always prefer to be considered a $250+ player than a lower player who puts in more hours at the tables. I would not give my card at the craps table. I have no real evidence that one way is better than another, but I try to give the 'impression' that I am a higher stakes player who sometimes falls short on the hours expected, rather than a 'journeyman' who generates a rating through wildly varied staking on different games. As shifter stated, the extra $25 play will not make much difference to theo, so I do not feel I am missing out and I might be benefiting.
just to add something else, that's all about impression, which of course doesn't matter to the computer, but does matter when you have a human (host) looking at it. they look at much more than just theo when they are figuring out what to offer you and a higher avg bet, even with a slightly lower theo, can help you get a better offer from them.
This screwed me over a bit my last trip. I won overall but I lost literally every single time I played lower stakes unrated, and that added up to a few thousand which they won't see me as having lost. I lost every craps session where I bought in for $500 and didn't get rated because I didn't plan to stay long and I figured only around $25-$50 of my bet would be rated since most of it was on odds and I got wiped out each time within a few shooters. Same with lower limit BJ, even though I won 100% of my higher limit sessions. Problem is I'm sure hosts will tell you to just give your card for any play. That is going to be the corporate line, they want you to use your card as much as possible. And logically it makes sense that theo is theo. But then there's that human element. With my average bet of around $200 I don't know if its low enough where it wouldn't really matter if I average in lower play, or if its low enough where it matters EVEN MORE that I don't average in lower play. Conundrums...
actual loss really means nothing in terms of your comps until it gets into the low-mid 5 figures and really doesn't mean much until you're into 6 figures. so some small unrated losses really aren't going to hurt you most of the time. also, that's unusual to lose that much playing low limits, so that kind of thing shouldn't happen much. if it happens to you all the time, you should stop doing it.
There's a lot of things I shouldn't do. If I didn't play any VP or craps I would have come home with a 5 figure win. It got to the point where I'd buy in at a craps table and feel 100% certain I was going to lose it right away. My girlfriend would stupidly ask why I keep playing as if a degenerate has any good reasons.
well, if you think it's not accurate, at least correct it with your experience in how smaller losses positively affected your comps.
I gotta disagree with this to a certain extent. As I've mentioned, I know I play at a level right on the cusp of being able to get comps at the places I want to stay. MLife is opaque to me, I always have to call because I never get offers in my account. But CET is much more transparent. Their system as exposed in the TR comp availability calendars reacts swiftly and sensitively to changes in play levels. So I've seen my CET comp availability go down noticeably after a lower-than-normal play trip. On the other hand, I've had a couple of CET trips where I did something stupid like martingale trying to break a bacc streak and lose $3k in 5 hands, or burn off $1,500 in a slot machine at $20 a spin in 30 mins. and get nothing. Those mistakes devastated my bankroll for those stays, but I didn't see my comps go down significantly. Now, you can say that's because I have a history, and that may be true. But if that was the reason, I also wouldn't expect to see my comps go down after only a slightly lower than normal trip. So I gotta think that a big loss, even if $3k is not big in the overall scheme of things, factors into it somehow. Like you get an "S" code for "Stupid, lets get this guy in here again." :evillaugh
i dont know about mgm but harrahs takes any loss into account for comps. i notice i get better comp offers after losing trips than winning trips even though my losing trips sometimes have less play. i will get a lot of freeplay and suite offers,its the same for my dad who gambles regularly. so i would make sure they always knew how much money i lost even if it was just a little bit and for harrahs a few thousand dollars is not considered too little maybe it is for mgm.