Category: Video Poker

Often, I’ve heard players tell a video poker story of a time when their score was positive on a given day, but then they “got greedy” and ended up with a negative result. The phrase is usually accompanied by some self-loathing. Perhaps, “Why did I let myself do that again. I know better!”

I almost never say that, although I’ve certainly had my share of experiences where my score went south after I was ahead for a while. Today I want to look at that term.

I’m not going Gordon Gekko on you and proclaiming, “Greed is good!” As I’m using it today, greed is a negative trait.

Let’s also accept in general that winning is good and losing is bad. Then losing intentionally would be a bad thing. One more premise we must accept is that gambling scores go up and down. We can all recount what happened over the last half hour. None of us can accurately predict what swings will happen in the next half hour.

To my mind then, so long as I am playing a game that exceeds 100% in theoretical return, and playing to the best of my ability, when I lose, it’s just a circumstance I cannot control. I know it’s going to happen sometimes. Frequently, even. I just don’t know if it is going to happen today or not. 

If I hated myself after each loss, then I’d be in a psychologically unhealthy profession. Losing is just part of the game.

Most players, of course, aren’t playing games where they have the advantage. They either can’t find good games, don’t know how to play them well, or possibly are in the mood to play and don’t really care whether or not they have the advantage. For players like this, if they’re just thinking about the royal flush without accurately considering the cost to get it, then yes, perhaps that could be said to be “greedy.” But that’s not the way most players use the term.

As best as I can tell, some players who use the term simply mean they lost and aren’t happy about it. Perhaps they’re telling what poker players refer to as a bad beat story. If that’s the case, no big deal.

Others, perhaps, are justifying their loss by admitting to a “personality defect” (i.e., greed) which has the effect of saying that this is not really their fault. They are still good people who have occasional lapses.

But the fact is that they are going to be losing again and again and again — interspersed by wins sometimes. Every gambler goes through this. Even winning ones. It isn’t that you’re greedy. It’s that you’re playing a game with ups and downs.

Perhaps they use the term because they are poor losers. While nobody likes to lose, getting really, really upset about it probably suggests you should consider not gambling. Knowing you’re going to get upset over and over again because that’s the nature of the game isn’t the healthiest way to lead your life.

I’ve read several authorities who claim that having regular sleep hours is the healthiest way to lead your life. Whether these experts are correct or not, I haven’t lived my life that way. For the past 30 years, my life has revolved around when and where the best video poker plays are.

If the point multiplier starts at midnight, I’ll be there. At 3 a.m.? That’d be okay. I’ll make it. An appointment at 8 a.m.? No problem. Another appointment at 1 p.m.? That’s okay. Meeting for dinner at 7 p.m.? Sounds good.

Obviously, I need to sleep some of the time. So, I sleep when I can, set the alarm as needed, and get to wherever I need to be. Friends and colleagues learn not to call me at such ungodly times as 10 a.m. or maybe 3 p.m. because I might be sleeping. It’s better to text me something like, “Call me when you’re awake.” Some days I take three different naps. And, because I’m a male senior citizen, sometimes I wake up more than once just to go to the bathroom.

I take a medication that makes me slightly drowsy. I’ve asked my doctor for a non-drowsy version, but he thinks the one he gives me is the perfect one for my health condition. So, I take it at night — just before I go to bed — but if I’m only sleeping three hours this particular night because of a promotion, the drug is still in my system — at least a little.

The net effect is that when my alarm goes off, my body doesn’t immediately become wide awake.. If I’m going to gamble intelligently (or do anything else intelligently, for that matter), I need to make sure I’m awake before I proceed.

My three methods of waking up are showers, physical exercise, and mental exercise — in any order, often in combination. Showers are self-explanatory. My go-to physical exercise for years was jumping jacks. When my hip joint deteriorated and eventually was replaced six months ago, that was out. Plus, now I’m going to need arthroscopic surgery on my left shoulder, so even though I can now jump up and down, sort of, swinging my arms over my head is painful and will possibly aggravate the tear in my rotator cuff that’s already there. Depending on the time of day, I often I suggest walking around a block or three with Bonnie — which is good for a number of reasons.

For mental exercise, I do a variety of things. If I’m going to be playing a video poker game for which I don’t believe my accuracy is at least 99.9%, I’m studying that game — both by looking at the strategy and practicing on the computer. I wish Video Poker for Winners still worked on my computer, but I make do with WinPoker. I select hard hands so as to review the hands that are the most difficult. Or, I start from particular cards so that I know all the exceptions. 

If I’m going to be making a slot run, I’ll review all of my strike numbers. I have numbers for more than 60 games. The ones I see every day I know by heart. But there are some games I only see occasionally — so I forget the numbers if I don’t review them.

If I’m playing a video poker game I know well, I might amuse myself on the website www.extremesudoku.info. It provides harder-than-average puzzles, and after I’ve done one or two, I’m awake.

I do drink coffee in the morning and take a slew of vitamins that I think are working, but there are those who say that vitamins are just a way to have expensive urine. I’m not sure.

If I’m driving to where I am going to play, I’ll often sing along to the songs I play. I don’t need my voice warmed up in order to play video poker well, but there’s something about waking up my voice that also wakes up my whole body.

And then I go to the casino — do my best — and take what I get.

Online, I read one person (I’ll assume a male) who said he lives across the street from a casino, and he plays to win. That’s all I know about him. He may live in Las Vegas where there are 20 or more additional casinos within a relatively few miles. He may live in a place where the next closest casino is 60 or more miles away. I’m going to address the latter situation, whether it applies to this particular player or not.

For a period of time when I had a “real job,” I used to walk to work — which I found beneficial for a number of reasons. I’d get exercise and have more useful time to spend than did others in the office who drove an hour or more each way to work. Some of those benefits apply to a casino being right across the street. But there are major differences.

Texas Hold’Em and other poker players sometimes refer to “outs,” which can refer to the number of unseen cards in the deck that can lead to that player winning. Sometimes it’s one card only (such as it must be the K♠); sometimes it can be many cards (e.g., any heart, any four or any nine). The more outs you have, the better your chances are of winning.

Similarly, sports bettors know that if you can only bet at one sportsbook, your chances for winning are very slim. If you can bet at any of 10 sportsbooks, and carefully pick and choose among them on the best price for a given game, your chances of coming out ahead are much better. Plus, if you win too much at one, you can stay away from it for some period of time. Many sportsbooks restrict winning players.

For video poker players, casinos themselves can be considered “outs.” The more outs you have, the better your chances are for winning.

Many casinos, of course, are basically unbeatable at video poker. Period. The best games there return less than 98% and the slot club and promotions don’t return nearly enough to make up for that. Possibly there are progressives that are sometimes positive. Sometimes there are variations of Ultimate X which can yield a return of more than 100% if the previous player left it in that condition. But those are short plays that don’t happen with dependable regularity.

A few other casinos, think South Point, for example, but there are others, have slightly positive games 24/7 which become even more positive during certain promotions. But these casinos usually restrict players who consistently win and/or only play during the juiciest promotions.

The “best” circumstance for players is to know of several such casinos and play among them according to which one has the best deals currently. If one casino has 10x points on Mondays and has beatable games, play there on Mondays. If another one has good drawings on Saturday nights, plan your life around playing enough to earn drawing entries and showing up there most Saturday nights. Until you win a few times. Then take a few months off. If one casino gives you a big bonus for the first $20,000 coin-in you play in a month, and nothing additional thereafter, it makes little sense to camp out there every day.

It also helps if you have more games than just video poker that you know how to beat. In keeping with the theme of this blog, each additional game you can beat can be thought of as an out. Although casinos can be quick to kick out successful blackjack players, winning at many other games in a casino is tolerated. For me, my fallback game is slots. Other players are good at poker. Still others have table games they know how to beat. Most games in a casino can be beaten under the right conditions — but knowing those conditions and finding them isn’t trivial. And there might be many other knowledgeable players who are also scouting for those conditions, meaning they don’t last long when they arise.

For me, while I still play a lot in Las Vegas, I also know of good games out of town. Some are “fragile,” meaning if I tell my readers under which conditions I go to play my out-of-town secret games, the casinos would adjust and change either the games or the conditions that make them positive. But I do share the information with a few people who in the past have shared valuable information with me. Sometimes I have paid “finders fees” to players who let me know of good opportunities.

When one lists the secrets to success at video poker, such things as outs and being networked to players who help you are not usually listed. But to me, they are important.

Although I’ve discussed this subject many times over the years, I think I’ve got some additional things to say about it that I haven’t written before. In this discussion, I want to include quitting for the day, and the difference in changing machines between video poker and slot machines.

I’ll cover video poker machines first.

1. The primary reason to quit a machine is I’ve reached my objective. As I write this, South Point gives a free spin for $1,500 coin-in several days a week. That is, once you reach $1,500 coin-in, you go to a promotional kiosk and hit a button to claim your prize, averaging about $25. If I decide to be playing there that day, I’m not going to quit before I reach that goal — although there may be a reason to change a machine, which I’ll discuss later. 

When I play at Caesars properties around the country, they give you 10,000 Tier Credits (TCs) as a bonus when you accumulate 5,000 TCs or more in a day. (This is $50,000 coin-in for most video poker. At some casinos it requires more than $10 coin-into get a TC on their loosest games.) TCs are worth a little, but not much. Still, getting the bonus is worth something and I rarely stop before I reach that level.

Sometimes casinos will have a point multiplier of some sort with a limit. If the game is worth playing, it’s usually worth playing for the maximum. Here I’m speaking for myself only. If the multiplier tops out at $25,000 coin-in and you’re a single-line quarter player, you’re not going to be able to get to the max.

Sometimes casinos have the multiplier only between certain hours. If the multiplier ends at midnight, for example, I’m usually not playing after that. These multipliers can be valuable, and I’m usually playing games that are negative without the multipliers — so playing without multipliers or other promotion isn’t something I do.

Every casino has some sort of system where if you play a certain amount of coin-in you get a level of benefits. These programs are not always explicit, but with experience and talking to other players who play games similar to what I play, I can usually get an idea. I learn, for example, that if I play xxx amount per day or per trip, I’ll get better mailers in the future than if I play less than that.

Sometimes I’m playing a progressive where the royal is quite a bit above 4,000 coins. If somebody hits the royal (sometimes me — but it’s usually another player), I’m off of the machine.

Sometimes there’s an external ending point. For example, I might have a dinner date with Bonnie, or maybe I have some other appointment. That provides another stopping point.

You’ve probably noticed a common theme here. I’m in the casino for a reason. I’m not there to lose and I’m not there just to kill time.

2. Sometimes I’ll want to change machines but still keep playing for the day. This could be because the machine has a sticky button or some other glitch, perhaps the chair is too high or too low, maybe a smoker or Chatty Cathy just sat down next to me. In these situations, if another machine is available without these difficulties, I’ll move.

Note that my score is not on this list. Whether I’m up or down two royals is not a reason to change machines. I’m looking forwards, not backwards.

3. Sometimes I’ll just need to take a break. Perhaps I’m tired or maybe I’ve made a misplay. My reputation is that I play like a machine and never make a mistake. The reality is much different than that. At age 77, I make far more mistakes than I did 25 years ago. That’s the sad truth of aging. 

On a long play, if I don’t get up and stretch periodically, I’ll really feel it the next day. So, I take breaks periodically.

4. There are video poker games with very short plays. I don’t usually vulture Ultimate X machines, but sometimes a positive one is visible as I walk by. Depending on which version of Ultimate X we’re talking about, this could be a one-hand play. I make it and then move on. If it’s just one hand, I usually don’t even insert my player card. In general, Ultimate X vultures are not profitable to the casino and some casinos use that as a reason to kick you out.

5. Changing slot machines is very different than changing video poker machines. Slot machines are a smart play only a small percentage of the time — and usually the hitting of a certain bonus round signals the end of positivity. It could be that the machine, like the hypothetical Red Bob machine I discussed a month or so ago, has a Mini, and Minor, and a Major meter. If I’m playing until the Minor meter goes off (because the meter is higher than the minimum acceptable for a play,) and if the Mini or the Major hit before the Minor goes off, that’s just great, but I keep playing. Now if I need a break, perhaps to visit the restroom, I pay a floor person to watch the machine because if I don’t, another advantage slot player will move in and play, and I won’t get the machine back.

Sometimes two meters are slightly too low to be a play by themselves, but the combination is high enough. Then I’ll play until either one of them go off. If the other one hasn’t become high enough to be an independent play, I’ll leave.

Unlike video poker, in slots, whether there is a point multiplier today or not usually doesn’t affect when I quit. The multiplier may add another half-percent or so, which is nice, but I’m playing a game when it returns 105% or more and at that point the slot club is irrelevant. I may very slightly lower my strike numbers during a multiplier day, but usually not.