The TomSki Index (TSI) is a tool to help determine the attractiveness of alternative video poker opportunities. It relies on a concept known as Certainty Equivalence. (CE). The idea behind CE is to determine the risk-free alternative to a gambling proposition. For example, suppose you were offered a chance to wager $100 on the flipping of a coin. Let the odds be such that in the long run you would win $10 per wager. Assume you have a $1,000 bankroll. How much would I have to offer you to decline this bet? Would you take a sure $2? $3? $5? With CE and optimal Kelly betting, the answer is $5.05.
The TSI uses the same approach as applied to video poker. If you find a $0.50 Pick"em Poker game with 0.67% Cashback, is this a better play than a $1 full pay Deuces Wild if your bankroll is $10,000? Many pros simply look at the dollar per hour win rates when evaluating this question. Under this method at 650 hand per hour, the Pick"em game is worth $10.02 per hour and the $1 Deuces Wild is worth $24.76.
So the choice is clearly the Deuces Wild game, right? Not necessarily, because there are other factors to consider. The variance for Deuces Wild is much higher than Pick"em. This means you will have higher up and down swings which will increase your chance of going broke. In fact, the risk of losing your whole bankroll in the $1 Deuces Wild game is 27.07% compared with only 2.54% in the $0.50 Pick"em game. When these factors are taken into account, the TSI rating for the $1 Deuces Wild game is 3.77 but Pick"em has a rating of 7.03. Thus Pick"em should be your game of choice in this situation. The TSI rating should be thought of as a $/hr certainty equivalent. Always choose the game with the highest TSI rating and for which you know the proper strategy.
The TSI rating software will allow you to calculate the TSI rating for most games. The first item of input in the return percentage of the game. For full pay Deuces Wild enter 100.762 into the box. If the casino offers Cashback at a rate of 0.2% for this game, then add this to the total and enter 100.962% instead. The next input item is the one unit variance for the game. This number is not readily available and is somewhat complicated to calculate but can be done using a spreadsheet if you know the proper formulas. I have provided a look-up table for some of the more common games. After finding the number you need, enter it in the box. For the denomination, enter the base coin unit. Enter 1 for dollars, 0.25 for quarters, 0.05 for nickels, etc. Then in the coins bet box, enter how many coins you are wagering per hand. Five is the most common number. For triple play games, only enter the number of coins bet per line. Usually this will be 5, but some of the newer triple play games allow bets of 10-coins or more per line. An adjustment will be made later in the hands-per-hour entry.
In the hands-per-hour window, enter your estimated playing speed. Be sure to take into account the real world situation. For example, the 17-10 Loose Deuces machines at the Reserve are set at a very slow speed. Playing 400 hands-per-hour there is probably the best one can do. On most other machines one can usually play 600-800 hands-per-hour. If you are playing triple play machines, enter the total number of max. bet hands-per-hour in this box. If you are a 600 hands-per-hour player on a one line machine, then you are most likely about a 500 base hands-per-hour player on a triple play machine. So this would be 1500 total hands-per-hour. Thus, enter 1500 in the hands-per-hour window. For the final input value, enter your playing bankroll in dollars. (not unit bets) So if you have $2500, enter 2500. The term bankroll can be hard to define. Is it the money in your purse? The money in your bank account? The amount you are willing to lose? The value of all your assets? I leave it to the user to best determine this amount for their own financial situation.
Once all the input values are recorded, simply click the "Run" button and the TSI rating will be calculated. The window to the left will then show the TSI rating for all bankroll amounts from $1000 to $1 million in increments of $1000 up to $100,000, and then in increments of $25,000 up to $1 million. This is for convenience so you won"t have to keep entering different bankroll amounts.
Sometimes you will see a negative TSI rating. This means that you should avoid playing the game as it is too risky for your given bankroll. This is especially true if alternative positive rated TSI games are available. If however, you are determined to play, and only negative rated games are available, still pick the game with the best TSI rating. A note of caution. At the extreme negative end of the TSI scale, games with a high variance overwhelm the percentage return component in the formula. Thus you might see an 8-5 Jacks or Better progressive at $11,000 rated higher than one with a $12,800 royal when playing on a small bankroll. However, once your bankroll is large enough to bring these games to positive TSI ratings, you will always see the higher progressive rated as the better game.
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