Contest Strategy VP.com

I'm referring to VideoPoker.com, of which I am a non-paying Member.

Basically, they have these daily contests (which seems to be the only thing someone who is not paying can play) by which you can play 5 Games, or 8 Games (if you have played five the previous day) plus a contest spanning multiple days towards the end of the month.

In any event, with so many people playing, the Top Score is almost always stupidly high, so would my best strategy be to maximize ER (Playing a game like Double Double Bonus) or would it be to hold complete nonsense (from an EV standpoint) in order to maximize the probability of hitting a Monster hand. For example, if I have Trip-7's and Two Aces, should I hold that for the FH * 3, or just hold the Aces to maximize my probabillity of getting four Aces?

Keep in mind that the High Score is usually in the 20,000+ range whereas (Playing Triple Hands) the overall amount, "Bet," 5 * 3 * 100 (Hands) = 1,500

My goal, of course, is to win and the EV is positive because I will win free stuff and it only takes about twenty minutes a day (five games, when the computer is slow) and is more fun (to me) than VP in a casino.

So, given the goal to win, play well and hope for Variance, or take shots that are foolish from an ER standpoint?

I play in these tournaments every day. I've been in the lead a few times but never ended the day in front. Your best bet is triple double any time it's offered. If you look back at all the past winners and their best hands it's always 4000 coins x 3 hands or 50 or 100 hands and 9 out of 10 times it's 4 Aces with kicker being dealt(you could check they have past winners hands for non members to view). Your best to play the best possible poker and hope you get the one monster hand. The winners are usually determined by the 99 other hands and how you play. If you get the Big hand you still must beat 10 other Big hands, so play your best and hope your secondary scoring is better than the competition. But to play for the Big hand wont happen, you just have to hope it happens when you are already having a pretty good round. If they don't offer triple on that game then go to double double. It's usually 1 monster hand and another pretty big hand. So the answer is keep the full house and hope to be dealt a royal or 4 aces w/kicker.

Agree, you need to get a monster dealt hand to have a chance to win because so many people play the tournaments. My only dealt royal in my life was on that site, in a triple play tourney, and I didn't win that day!

Yeah, as others have said, with a multihand game, try to find TDB or some other game that offers a royal equivalent for a premium hand and pray to god you get dealt one of those hands. With the number of hands being dealt in these contests, multiple people are getting it daily.

I sometimes play these contests but have never even made it into the top 10. Nevertheless, my order of preference for the game to play (based on which ones are available) is as follows:

1) Royal Aces
2) Triple Double Bonus
3) Joker Poker where Five of a Kind pays 4000 coins
4) Super Aces
5) Double Double Bonus

#1 is better than #2 because you don't need a kicker to get the 4000-coin prize.
#2 and #3 are almost equal in terms of how likely you are to end up with a 4000-coin hand (either dealt or after the draw when using maximum-return strategy).
#4 is better than #5 because you don't need a kicker to get the 2000-coin prize.
#5 is the last resort.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. It sounds like I should just play correct VP.

Thanks also for the list, JB, I'll keep that in mind.