Pachi Seller Asserts: What's Skill Got To Do With It?

[rupan777]

Let's also not forget the most important skill with any game associated with gambling:


When to stop.

[pfurman]

I'm obviously very new to all of this, but my experience coincides with Rupan & cwstnsko.

I've also wondered - along with eye shooting and switching the order of hitting the stop buttons - if putting in tokens in different ways affects the small prize outcomes, as well as hitting those "two 7's in a row, with the third 7 just one spot higher or lower" outcomes. I have no idea if the machines are sophisticated enough to react to how or when more tokens are added, but sometimes I wonder if, in an actual gambling situation, the machine can tell if someone is about to quit and then sends a tease/small win to get the person to put in more tokens/money. So sometimes I try different patterns of adding tokens, just to see if it makes any difference. I can't really say that I've seen that it does, but I'm still experimenting.

I also agree that sometimes the non-video machines are more engaging, and even meditative. When I really just want to concentrate on numbers, and trying to hit three of the same numbers in a row, I fire up Arra King, because along with the main reels, it also generates 3 numbers in each of the two LED windows on each side of the one-balled pachinko camel. I have to be energized and alert to play it, but when it matches up just right, it's definitely one of my favorite machines.

And I don't know. Maybe it's all just imagination at its best. But it certainly seems to me that there is skill involved, at least at certain phases of game play. From what I've read at Big Bear's, site, there are times when the machine is going to do whatever it wants to, and even the best eye shooters are wasting their time trying to bend it to their will. But then the machine relinquishes control for certain "grace periods", during which time it does make a difference who's playing/shooting.

I think I can see that very clearly when I'm watching my b/f play. I can definitely see him zoning in, get the first two in a row, and then WHAMO! He nails the third one clean! Maybe watching from behind him I get a little different perspective than when I'm right in front of the reels myself. But it's wild watching him time the stops. I can see/think as fast as he can, and so I can watch it all develop. But I'm not quite as fast when it comes to actually hitting the stop buttons myself, although I do pretty well on some machines, especially the big reel ones, like Don Don King. We had to set that a couple notches below 6, cause it was gettin too easy. :-)

Well, at least one thing I can say without fear of contradiction: I can play the machines a heck of a lot better than I can solder!!

[rupan777]

I wonder if, in an actual gambling situation, the machine can tell if someone is about to quit and then sends a tease/small win to get the person to put in more tokens/money.

For pachinko machines at least, this is possible. Some machines are programmed to hit a reach at a higher rate (say, 10-12%) on the final spin in memory as a sort of attract mode feature.

[ocpachinko]

I'll vouch for Rupan on the Pachinko side...this seems especially acute after a large number of consecutive banked spins to "save" an apparently departing player.

Of course, my Pretty Band also pays off for my 4 year old daughter seemingly at will, using its sensitive "underage girl player" image analyzer secretly built into the quick-stop hand sensor...I think...

[slotter]

Yep, my machines have the "underage girl player" sensor, too. My daughter gets a lot more payoffs than anyone else in the family.

[pfurman]

I can tell you right now that if you take away eye-shooting on the Spin Luck and the Harley in their bonus games, you're never going to win at them. This is one reason I gravitate towards the IGT machines as they bring this into play more often. Yamasas, I would say that you might as well have it auto-stop as eye-shooting is a waste of time.

Wow, that's very interesting, because I played Yamasa's "King of King Pulsar" earlier today for the first time. B/F said he was getting frustrated with it because he'd been playing it on and off for a couple of days and hadn't hit anything yet. I played a few games and noticed that it was unusually easy to see the 7's with the frog, because a white flash was quite noticeable every time the reels went around, on all 3 reels. After that, I started aiming for them, even though there were no visible winning signs. I just wanted to practice hitting as many of them as I could. After about 10 games, still without any visible winning signs showing, I hit 3 of those 7's/won a BB. B/F heard it, came out of the kitchen, looked at the 3 7's; looked at me; kinda rolled his eyes; then proclaimed: "Yeah...after I got it all primed for you to hit. You're just lucky is all".
Then I asked him how come when he hits, it's skill, but when I hit, it's luck. He thought about that for a second or two. Then he pinched my butt and smiled.

[slotter]

At least ya got a nice pinch!

[pfurman]

At least ya got a nice pinch!

Heheheh. I know it's just his caveman way of saying: "You ROCK, mama!!" (Cause I could see the twinkle in his eye when he was smiling. If I hadn't seen that twinkle......then he'd have seen my caveWOman ways!!)

But...as it turned out...