Category: Advice for Players

Author’s note:  Last week I began a “Part 1 of 2” series about Maria Konnikova’s book The Confidence Game. It is a reasonable expectation on your part that Part 2 would appear today.

It’s better for today’s article to appear one week before the classes begin rather than the day of. The review of the book is not so sensitive — so the review was pushed back.

Beginning Tuesday, July 3, at noon at the South Point, I’m starting another 10-week semester of free video poker classes (http://bobdancer.com/seminars). I’ve taught several dozens of these semesters. Many of you have attended one or more of them. Still, some people have never attended and want to know if it is worth their while.

The first thing you will learn is how to find a game where you have a reasonable chance of success. In modern casinos, there are several hundred varieties of video poker games available. Some are decent. Most are not.

In the first class, Jacks or Better, you’ll learn how to find the 99.54% version, and leave the 98.45% and 97.30% (and worse!) versions alone. To be sure, the house still has an advantage when the game pays “only” 99.54% — but with the slot club (0.30% at the South Point), mailers, promotions, etc., it’s very close to even. Even if the house has a slight advantage, it is MUCH better to play this version than one of the others.

Learning how to find a good Jacks or Better game gives you hints on how to find a good game of another type — such as Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, etc., but each game has its own “magic numbers” with respect to how much you get paid for the full house and flush. And Deuces Wild games use an entirely different method of figuring out which one is best. Each week the classes start with “How do you find the best type?” of whatever game we are teaching that week.

The second thing you will learn is how to play these games once you’ve found them. Each game is played differently. If you attend several of the classes, you will learn how changes in the value of each of the pay schedule categories affect the strategy. For example, games with flushes returning 7-for-1 are played differently from those returning 6-for-1 which are played differently from those returning 5-for-1. You’ll have examples of all three this semester. The value of the straights, two pair, and even certain four of a kinds require systematic strategic changes as well.

You will learn things that are almost always true — such as, a suited QJ is more valuable than a suited KQ, and a KQ and KJ have exactly the same value. These things apparently are not common sense for many players. The explanation for “why” these things are true is very simple and most adults can understand once they hear.

Nobody expects you to master all the games after attending one of my classes. Many players attend a semester or two of classes to get a feel for what’s out there, and then they specialize in one or two of them. Different games appeal to different players and different games are available for different stakes. Figuring out which ones meet your preferences and bankroll requires gathering some information — but through these classes, that information is available.

You are introduced to two different “novelty” games — namely Ultimate X and Quick Quads. Many semesters we also teach Multi Strike — but the games are rotated, and that game didn’t make the cut this time. These games are popular — yet a bit more complicated than other games. I personally enjoy them and play them.

One week every semester covers one game at the advanced level — and this time that game is Bonus Poker. At the advanced level you learn why K♠ J♥ T♥ 8♣ 4♦ is played differently than K♠ J♥ T♥ 7♣ 4♦, and numerous other close plays. It’s not for beginners and some players believe life is too short to learn the game at this level. But I’m somebody who believes it’s important for my success that I attempt to master all games at this level.

In the last class, “Secrets of a Video Poker Winner” which will be taught on September 4, we will cover for the first time how the 2017 tax bill changes your liability for W2Gs. Nobody likes taxes — but at a minimum you need to be aware of how the changes in the law affect you.

The last thing to discuss is what the class will not do. You will not be able to sit in class for a few hours and suddenly become a video poker expert. It doesn’t work that way. To get good requires a lot of study and it takes time. You will be provided with a roadmap that you can follow, but how closely you adhere to that roadmap is totally up to you.

Still, even if it’s not your goal to become an expert, learning a little will allow you to get a lot more bang for your gambling dollar. Video poker is a game where players with average intelligence can become good enough to gamble fairly even with the house. That’s simply not true for most other gambling games. But it does require study to get good enough to be at this level and for many, these classes are a good place to start.

On the website gamblingwithanedge.com, there are numerous things posted — including my blogs and all of the GWAE podcasts. There are other bloggers on that site as well. One of the features of that site is that there is room for comment.

In a comment to my March 27, 2018 blog, “Liz” wrote, in part:

Many gamblers think they are “advantage players”, meaning they think they have an edge. I see six classes:
1. Gamblers like Dancer who have the edge but won way more than average
2. Gamblers who have the edge but won way less than average or even lost because they didn’t play enough or ran out of money

The remaining categories dealt with those who do not have an edge. When I first read this, I wondered if indeed I was in the first category and, if so, what did it mean. That’s what today’s blog is about.

However you define these things, there’s got to be a category in the middle of these two. The first one says “way more” and the second one says “way less.” Surely there are APs who have won less than “way more” and more than “way less.” This middle category is likely bigger than the other two put together.

How much you win each year is income. How much you’ve won and held onto is gambling bankroll which is a measure of wealth. I assume Liz was speaking about accumulated bankroll.

Accumulated bankroll is a lifetime achievement award. I’ve been doing this since 1994. I have been successful since then and have continued adding to my accumulated wealth. It stands to reason that I would have accumulated more than someone who started in 2015.

How much you started with surely is a factor. I started with $6,000 back in 1994. Many other players have started with more.

How good of a saver you are is important. In the years that I’ve been playing, it’s been both me by myself and me with two wives (at different times.) All three of us are very frugal. For every $100,000 we brought in, we spent perhaps $40,000 and invested the rest. Over decades, that added up.

Without going into details, going through a divorce is detrimental to the bankroll.

Someone with extra income that they deposit into the bankroll account makes that account increase faster than someone without extra income. That income could be from a job, alimony, inheritance, sale of an asset, royalties, or selling your services. Social security or disability payments or retirement income may be added in as well. I’m sure there are other sources of income that I’m leaving out, but those who have some accumulate bankroll faster than those who don’t. And the mix of income sources is different for every player.

Your investment strategy (and results) matter. Timing matters. If you invested $100,000 in the stock market in 2003 you have quite a bit more than if you invested that same amount in 2000. Even so, if you’ve kept that money in until today, in either case you have more than $200,000 today.  

How good are you at avoiding taxes? Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion isn’t.

If you’ve had “average luck” over your playing career, your results will be average if that average result happened on all of your stakes. But if you’ve been very lucky for quarters and somewhat unlucky for dollars, overall you might be in the hole. In my Million Dollar Video Poker autobiography, I wrote of a six-month period where I was luckier than average on pretty large machines.

There’s always the question of skill versus luck and I don’t know how to come up with an exact number. In drawings, I’ve won more than $1 million over the years. But I’ve participated in a lot of them. I only entered when I thought it was a good deal. I’ve read the rules closely and paid attention to ways to gain an advantage over players who haven’t read the rules. I’ve bent tickets in casinos where that seemed to work. I put physical tickets into full barrels just before the drawing took place, knowing full well that the drum was too full to thoroughly mix the tickets. I’ve played for the drawings when other things were going on as well — such as point multipliers, or additional drawings, or earning annual tier credits, or something. How can anyone say how much luck was involved in my results and how much skill?

There are no records anywhere of exactly how many tickets have been in each barrel and whether my results have been better or worse than average in drawings. There are also players who play $500 a week and enter the same drawings where I play $200,000 a week, and to those people, it appears that I’m the luckiest guy in the world.

Keeping your welcome in casinos is a big part of success. Over time, all successful players lose their welcome at various places.  Avoiding or delaying your exodus is valuable, as is talking your way back in.

Belonging to a relevant network of informed players is valuable. There’s a balance between sharing enough information to stay networked and sharing everything. There are people you can swear to secrecy and those you can’t.

Just plain scouting is valuable. In every casino, things are different today than they were a year ago. If you’re not aware of those differences, you can’t make informed decisions.

Players differ in their risk aversion. For a given bankroll, some players will bet bigger than others. Some of these bigger players get wiped out, but most don’t. The smaller players won’t get wiped out, but they won’t earn very much either. There are disadvantages to wherever you position yourself on this.

I’m going to talk about this more next week, including how close to the cheating line you are willing to go. Do you ever cross it? Some players have prospered using techniques that the rest of us consider “foul play.” But they have prospered nonetheless.

Liz’s paradigm has some merit, but it’s impossible to figure out these things exactly. Every AP has a different game plan than every other one, and their results are very hard to compare.

On a recent videopoker.com forum post in mid-December, one member, “George,” posted the following. It was in a thread that at the time was discussing players offering advice to players who sit next to them:

For the last few weeks, I’ve been hitting one particular promo spread among a few casinos. I’m going to guess well over 100 hours since Thanksgiving.
Never once, not a single time could I even tell you what game the person next to me was playing. Not if they played it well, just what they were playing.

George is a local Las Vegas player who I think plays quarters. I’m going to assume he plays at that level in the commentary that follows.  

I know George a little and I believe that he is seriously attempting to win at video poker. I have no knowledge of his actual scores, but I know he studies and attempts to play the best games using appropriate strategies. He pays attention to promotions and in this particular example believes he has found an edge.

I don’t know with certainty the particular promotion George has been playing. But I certainly know about believing a casino-promotion offering is so good that I’ve gone in and hit it almost every day until it’s over. I’ve had that experience more than 100 times in the past 23 years. I know well the tunnel vision that can result from this — where nothing and nobody else matters.

I’ve come to the conclusion that for me personally, such tunnel vision is expensive. Being at least minimally aware of my surroundings is important. Let’s look at why, to me at least. As they say, your mileage may vary.

1. I’m going to assume that George’s tunnel vision included totally ignoring other players to the point of incivility. That may well not have been true with this particular player, but it is with some. One reason I’m using the fake name “George” is that it allows me more artistic license. If the real George wishes to identify himself in the comments on gamblingwithanedge.com and say I’ve pegged him wrong, he is welcome to do so. But this article is meant to be about a behavior of many players rather than one player in particular.

 

1. I believe you need to be generally aware of your surroundings — including other players. This would include, at a minimum, a nod or a “hello.” It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to anybody, but basic manners make the world go ‘round. Even if you sit down next to a “chatty Cathy,” it’s not that hard to say you really need to concentrate and can’t talk and play at the same time.

There will be times when you accidentally leave your jacket on your chair or leave uncashed credits on your machine. Your odds are much better at getting those things back if there’s at least a basic level of friendliness.

There will be times that the machine you want is busy. If you have some sort of positive relationship, even a minor one, it’s easier to get the current occupant to agree to give you the machine when he is done. Your reputation follows you around. Players will respond better to a “Quiet George” than they will to a “Grumpy George.”

 

1. A more important reason for at least being aware of other players around you is that they are often your best source of casino information. Even if you’re the most knowledgeable guy around, nobody knows everything. However good this current promotion is, it’s possible there is a better one somewhere else. Or a good one coming up that requires you to do some preparation (such as get a player’s card in another casino or perhaps learn a new game). It can be very cost effective to share information with a limited number of other players who play in approximately the same casinos at roughly the same stakes as you do.

 

You don’t want to share information with everybody. It’s wise to have some secrets. But to figure out with which players are worth sharing, you need to evaluate them. That evaluation includes which games they play, when they play, and how competently they play.

As a quarter player, if the person next to you is playing nickels, you can basically ignore them as a person with whom to share information. In most casino locations, nickel pay schedules are so bad that anybody willing to play them is almost always clueless. That player’s goal is to gamble as inexpensively as possible and he doesn’t have the knowledge to recognize that in most environments, he’ll lose less playing the best quarter games than playing most nickel games.

If your neighbor is playing quarters, you need to look at the game he is playing. On most multi-game machines there are a variety of games. If the player is not playing one of the top two or three games, again he can be ignored — assuming you’re a player who wishes to win. Winning may or may not be possible on the best pay schedule or two. It is virtually never possible on lesser pay schedules.

If this player is playing on a game you’re unfamiliar with, you should take note of what it is — perhaps 8/5 Super Double Double Bonus. When you go home, it’s easy to check out how much this game returns. It’s possible that it is a better game that what you are already playing.

You need to eventually evaluate this player’s play. On occasion, glance over and watch a hand or two. It won’t take long to conclude whether the player is basically competent or not.

If you identify the player as playing the right game and playing it competently, this person is at least a potential ‘friend’ with whom to share information. If you identify the player as not ‘up to par,’ that’s useful too.

Over time, you’ll get to know a number of potential allies. Depending on your personality and preferences, some will be a better fit than others. To see if they’re interested, share something you know (e.g. “Have you heard of the new policy at Sam’s Town about xxxx”). If they seem interested, share this information with them and see what comes in return. Some people are very good at taking all the knowledge you’re willing to share and sharing nothing in return. You don’t need friends like that.

This is a lengthy process, but to me it is very valuable.

George is enough of a “regular” at several casinos that others know him. If he is at least minimally friendly, he’ll have a number of unofficial allies. If he totally ignores everybody, he’ll have a much harder time in casinos. If he wants people with whom to share information, he’ll have some basis for making an intelligent decision about whom to trust.

This isn’t rocket science and everybody’s style is a bit different. But to be so absorbed in your game that you see nothing around you is not a good idea.