I just did a quick read of the rules. If I haven't misunderstood
how the game is played, an optimal strategy will involve many hands
that call the raise with draw odds, and then recover some equity
by betting after the flop (favourable implied odds from +EV hands
against the opponent's known distribution). With the exception
of big pairs and perhaps some potentially dominating hands (e.g.
AK), the preflop all-in is not a very powerful action, because a
mere 60-40 advantage reduces the leverage considerably, and must
abandon the implied odds from optionally flat betting one unit on
the flop and turn.

The good news is that it is not a difficult game to solve, because
the EV can be computed for each case against the known distribution.
I suppose the game designers did this when defining the game, to
ensure a guaranteed profit against optimal play (and much better
against typical humans, who are much weaker than they imagine).
However, there have been many promotions in the past where the
house failed to do the math properly, and ended up taking the
worst of it, so it might be worth looking into.


On 4-Mar-07, at 3:33 AM, JRWashington wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am interested in a program which optimally solves the wager works
> casino game of Texas Hold'em shoot out, I am also interested in the
> variance but not as much as the ideal strategy. My expectation is
> that the optimal strategy would be all in or fold. The rules and the
> bot behavior can be found
>
> http://casino.virgingames.com/GameDetails.do?menu=STRP&gameid=0068-0
>
> Bottom line is there are 2 possible pot states, you are effectively
> always the small blind as one of the bots will always raise, leaving
> either a 3 unit pot or a 4 unit pot.
>
> The you have the option to go all in, or fold, the bot will always
> call your all in. An all in is worth 8x your ante so makes either a
> 19 unit pot or a 20 unit pot and seeing 5 cards.
>
> The eval example would almost seem to do everything you need, apart
> from, picking the stronger of the bots hand to play with.
>
> I am willing to pay upto $50 (by paypal most likely) for the house
> advantage with an all in or fold, a proper strategy table/or
> application for an all in or fold strategy, and the source code with
> compilation instruction and code comments.
>
> If the optimum strategy is not all in or fold (eg it is call and play
> down the streets), then, I will pay $100 if you are prepared to solve
> that - and provide the same as above - application, HA and source with
> comments, as it looks like more work.
>
> Many Thanks,
>
> John.
>