Ask the Slot Expert: How do you choose when your choice doesn't matter?

Rarely in life do you have to choose between two options and it doesn't matter which one you pick. Door A or Door B. They're both either a year's supply of tuna fish or new cars. Pick one or the other. It doesn't matter.

How do you choose which one to pick?

Playing NSU Deuces, you'll find many instances in which the strategy gives you the choice of holding two sets of cards, each with the same Expected Value (EV).

Consider this hand:

5♣ 7♦ 8♣ 9♥ J♣

The strategy says you should hold one of the two inside straights. Granted, going for an inside straight isn't really something to get excited about, but it is still just slightly better than tossing the hand and hoping for a better outcome.

The following table shows the EVs of your top three choices:

The EVs of both inside straights are equal, so how do you choose which one to hold?

When I first started playing NSU, I chose based on whim. I had no criteria or logic or rationale. Sometimes I held the lower hand. Sometimes I held the higher hand.

It seemed like I frequently drew the card I needed for the inside straight I didn't hold. If I held the the 5-low combination, I would get a 10. If I held the 7-low combination, I would get a 6. I frequently said to myself that I should have held the other combination.

One combination may be better than the other for that particular hand because of the replacement card, but in the long run it doesn't matter which combination I held. To eliminate the woulda-coulda-shoulda with this type of hand, I devised my rule for inside straights.

When given the choice between two inside straights, hold the higher one.

I'm not going to complete the hand any more frequently than if I always held the lower hand or used some other method to determine which combination of cards to hold.

Following this rule, though, I don't blame myself for making a bad choice playing a hand. (I'll admit that sometimes I say it's too bad that my rule isn't to hold the lower hand, but what are you gonna do?)

What are you going to do? When you're in this situation, how do you decide which of two equal options to pick?

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