Most of my readers know that I married Bonnie last May. As in every marriage, you need to learn to adapt to each other’s peculiarities. Bonnie and I are both senior citizens which is good news and bad news. The bad news is that seniors are pretty set in their ways and have had time to develop a LOT of peculiarities. The good news is that neither of us sweats the small stuff quite as much as when we were younger. At least most of the time we don’t.
Continue reading Conditional Approval
Author: Bob Dancer
Comparing Quarter Ten Play — 9-6 Jacks or Better versus 9-7 Double Bonus
I’m going to talk about a friend named “George” in this article. George is actually a synthesis of three different people. I’ve incorporated certain words and ideas from each of them into George.
George plays about $3,000,000 a year of quarter 9/6 Jacks or Better (JoB) Ten Play at the Palms. He plays about $7,000 per hour through the machine, so that much play requires about eight hours a week at that casino. Or, more likely, George plays sixteen hours a week twice a month with no play at all for the rest of the month. Continue reading Comparing Quarter Ten Play — 9-6 Jacks or Better versus 9-7 Double Bonus
Attending the 2015 Blackjack Ball — Part II of II
This is the second part of a story about this year’s Blackjack Ball. If you didn’t read last week’s installment, check it out here
The game of 21 Questions as devised by Max Rubin is very difficult. Success requires some specific knowledge, often some mathematical ability, and a lot of fortuitous guessing. In 2013, I won this part of the competition (only to blow out quickly in the skills contest). In 2014, my guessing hat must have been on backwards and I didn’t do well at all. In 2015, I barely missed qualifying for the finals. In fact, if I had only correctly answered the question that I had submitted, I would have advanced to the skills contest. I’ll soon describe how this happened. Continue reading Attending the 2015 Blackjack Ball — Part II of II
Attending the 2015 Blackjack Ball — Part I of II
Every year, somewhere in Las Vegas, there’s a gathering of blackjack professionals, past and present, along with some gambling attorneys and a few other miscellaneous gambling professionals, including one video poker writer. Predominantly male, many bring wives or dates, but most come alone. Perhaps it speaks poorly of how often I get out of the house, but it’s a high point of my social calendar. The 2015 version of this event occurred recently. Continue reading Attending the 2015 Blackjack Ball — Part I of II
Going Down in Stakes
I’ll begin this article by discussing live poker. Some of what I’m going to tell you is hearsay. I’m not a strong player at poker — but I believe what I am saying is true. When we discuss video poker later in this article, I’m on more solid ground. Continue reading Going Down in Stakes
What She Thinks Makes Sense
Bonnie, my wife of almost eight months, knows very little about intelligent gambling. Although she has assisted during a few semesters of my free video poker seminars, she concentrated more on running the projector accurately rather than evaluating what I had been teaching. Learning about gambling is simply not a priority to her.
After we returned from our cruises on December 14, I decided to start sending her text messages showing every jackpot I hit that was more than $8,000. That was a number picked somewhat arbitrarily–although it’s a target hit with some regularity, it’s still rare enough to be special. Continue reading What She Thinks Makes Sense
You Can’t Hope Your Way to Victory
I recently saw a Northwestern Mutual commercial which aired during the college football playoffs. Although it ended as an advertisement for their insurance company, the part that interested me said:
There are no accidental champions.
You can’t hope your way to victory.
Titles aren’t won at the end of the season.
They are won in the offseason. Continue reading You Can’t Hope Your Way to Victory
Whose Money is it Anyway?
You’re going on a two week vacation and back home you frequent a number of casinos. Let’s say they give you $40 a week in free play. How do you deal with that?
Some casinos, not many, will hold the money for you and let you collect it when you get back. Some casinos, again not many, allow at least some of their customers to pick up their free play any time during the month. If your regular casinos are like this, there’s no problem. You simply pick up your free play before and/or after your trip. Continue reading Whose Money is it Anyway?
Airline Fare Redemption
For the sake of discussion, let’s say I lived somewhere in New York and regularly flew to Las Vegas to play for big stakes. Further, let’s say the airfare cost me $600.
If I play enough at one casino, sometimes I can get them to pick up the airfare. It’s a lot harder than it used to be, but it’s still possible. Continue reading Airline Fare Redemption
How Do You Interpret?
As I wrote last week, Bonnie and I recently returned from a comped cruise on the Norwegian Dawn. Laundry service was included in the package, and on one particular night both of my long pants had been sent to the laundry. I had expected the laundry to be returned prior to dinner, but such was not the case. I had some clean Bermuda shorts, but no long pants.
There are two main dining rooms on the Dawn — the Venetian and the Aqua. The Venetian is larger and has windows overlooking the bow of the ship, but the restaurants themselves share the same galley and have identical menus. As far as most of the passengers are concerned, the two dining rooms are equivalent. Continue reading How Do You Interpret?