Learning a Second Game — Part II of II  

Last week I began a discussion of learning NSU Deuces Wild once you already knew 9/6 Jacks or Better. If you missed that article, it’s not hard to find.

If you’re going to or from a game covered by the Dancer/Daily Winners’ Guide series, that’s by far the most efficient place to start. You can learn the games systematically and completely by using those guides. It shortens the learning process considerably as much of the heavy lifting is done for you.

So, however you did it, we’ve reached the stage where you have a decent strategy and you know how to read it. It’s now time to practice, practice, practice on the computer.

How long do you need to practice on the computer? It depends on how good you want to get and how good of a student you are. If you wish to play at the professional level (which will be true for a small percentage of you), you need to practice until your accuracy level is in the 99%+ range — at least. If your goal is to play the game reasonably well, then a lower accuracy level will suffice.

If this is truly the second game you’ve tried to learn (which is what the article presumes, but lots of people reading the article will not be in that exact place), you will need to study considerably more than if this is the 15th game you’ve learned. The more games you know, the more you’ll find cases where “this game now is just like that game.” But if you don’t have that depth, and none of us did when we started, it’s going to take more study.

Different computer products have different learning tools built in. In Video Poker for Winners, you can ask the computer to show you hands at the Beginner level, the Intermediate level, and the Advanced level. It allows you to get better without becoming overwhelmed by being confronted with the most difficult hands at the start.

In WinPoker, there is a “Hard Hands” section. You can set it for whatever difference you wish between the correct play and the second-best play. If you set it for 3¢ while playing NSU, for example, you’ll never see the hand 3♦ 4♦ 7♦ K♣ Q♣ because the diamonds are more valuable than the clubs by considerably more than 3¢, but you will see 3♦ 4♦ A♦ K♣ Q♣ because that’s a much closer play. If you would have played the first hand incorrectly, then you’re not quite ready for this tool yet. But when you get the basics down, it allows you to concentrate on the hands that are likely to give you trouble.

WinPoker has another tool I use where I can plug in two or three cards and the machine will start with those and deal others. For example, in DDB, J♥ T♥ A♠ can go either way depending on the other two cards — and there are LOTS of possibilities with straight, flush, straight flush, and kicker penalties to either the hearts or spades or occasionally both.

If you start with those three cards and just let the computer deal, you can focus on a relatively tough combination and get it down. To be sure, sometimes you’ll be dealt pairs or trips or even a 4-card royal which isn’t a hand that should give you a problem at all. But you’ll get the relevant hands enough of the time that it becomes an efficient way to learn it.

On a personal note, I use both products. They each teach me in different ways and both support my goal of efficiently learning to play accurately.

Now we’re at the stage where you’ve learned to play “well enough” on the computer. It’s time to go to the casino. There is something about playing for real money that focuses your concentration.  You’re going to run into hands while playing that you don’t remember from practice. So, keep note paper handy and write such hands down. Do the best you can in the casino, consulting a strategy card if you have one, but be sure to look up the hands on the computer when you get back home. There will be times where you either mis-read the strategy card or mis-remembered the correct play. Checking when you get home will help correct either or both of those errors.

At this point, you’ve reached the stage where you can play the second game in the casino competently. You now must go back and relearn the first game! Because you’ve learned that J♥ T♥ is more valuable in NSU than Q♠ J♠, you must re-learn that the opposite is true in JoB. There will usually be concepts that got “overlapped” in your brain. It’s going to take some retraining to be able to keep them straight.

By the time you’ve gotten your knowledge of JoB back up to speed, you may find you’ve forgotten your NSU. Like they instruct with shampoo, rinse and repeat.

Finally, once you’ve got both games “mastered,” you still need to periodically review. In my case, I know a variety of games well, but I’m not equally up to speed in all of them. I usually know beforehand what game I’ll be playing on a given day. I’ve been doing this for 24 years and have written about all of these games and have taught classes in all of these games — and I still need to review if it’s a game I haven’t been playing recently. (Part of my experience is offset by the fact that at 71 years of age my memory isn’t what it used to be.)

Probably you will also need to review.

At a university, many professors study harder than the students do. The same in video poker. I will never reach the stage that I no longer need to study — and I already know a lot more than most of my readers ever will. Continual study is part of the price of playing the game well.