I’ve been teaching video poker classes fairly regularly for 14 years in Las Vegas so another semester beginning soon is hardly earth-shattering news. Still, the new semester is different in a few respects.
The semester will be on Wednesdays, beginning at 1 p.m. For the past few years, Tuesday has been class day. Whichever day is chosen, I’ll get people wanting it on a different day because of their particular schedule. The biggest reason for changing days of the week is some casino employees always have the same days off, and a different subset of them get Wednesday off than Tuesday off. For people with “regular” jobs, neither day midweek is convenient. For retired folks, it doesn’t matter very much.
While the classes will be at South Point, where I’ve been teaching two semesters a year for four years now, the location within South Point will be different. The class will be held in the Grandview Lounge, which is at the southern edge of the property and is next to the poker room. Our theory is that players in the casino will see the class taking place and might drop in and participate. We’ll see. If this doesn’t work for one reason or another, we’ll go back into the Show Room in classes next year.
Compared to last semester, this time I dropped 9/5 Super Double Bonus and 9/7 Triple Double Bonus and am teaching 9/6 Bonus Poker Deluxe and a brand new class. These classes are all relatively lightly attended and so I regularly rotate them.
The new class is Advanced NSU Deuces Wild. NSU (which stands for “not so ugly”) is a 99.73% game found at a number of casinos. “Advanced” means I’ll be covering all of the penalty card and other special situations in the game. There will be a pre-requisite for this game. You must have had the Intermediate NSU class previously or the class will be way too difficult. It’s going to be the honor system as to whether you’ve met the pre-requisite.
Advanced NSU adds about 10¢ per hour in EV to the dollar single-line player compared to Intermediate NSU. It will take you hours to master Advanced NSU — and if you’re like me you’ll need regular refreshing. Strictly in terms of dollars and cents, many players choose not to go this route. They believe the Intermediate strategy is “close enough.” Still others would like to learn the Advanced NSU strategy but find it is too difficult.
The problem I have with the 10¢ an hour figure is that people are willing to assume that they play the Intermediate NSU strategy perfectly. I have found that players who don’t attempt to learn the penalty card situations rarely practice the Intermediate NSU strategy enough to have it down perfectly.
Players who are striving to learn the more difficult strategy find themselves reviewing the Intermediate NSU situations frequently enough that they get closer to perfect Intermediate strategy than those whose final goal is correct Intermediate strategy. I believe most of us fall short of what our goals are, and if we shoot for higher goals, even if we fall a little short we get better results than if we shoot for lesser goals.
For me personally, I’ve probably played 400 hours for $125 or more per play on this game. Learning advanced strategy was worth more than $1,000 extra to me compared to being content with a lesser strategy. Now I have this knowledge and I’ve been requested to share it. So I am.
These are the type of distinctions we’ll be making in the class.
Compare A♥ K♣ Q♣ 9♥ 7♣ and A♥ K♣ T♣ 9♥ 7♣. In one hand we hold two cards and the other one we hold none. Do you know which is which?
Compare W 5♥ 6♣ 7♠ J♥ and W 5♥ 6♣ 7♠ K♥. The correct plays are not the same. Why?
Compare W 6♠ 7♥ 8♦ K♠ with W 6♠ 7♥ 8♦ K♣. In which one is it correct to only hold the deuce?
Compare W A♥ T♥ 8♥ K♣ with W A♥ T♥ 8♥ Q♣. How come they are played differently?
Look at W 4♥ 5♥ K♥ T♣, W 4♥ 5♥ K♥ 9♣, W 4♥ 5♥ 3♠ K♦, and W 4♥ 5♥ 3♠ J♦. In which two of these cases do you hold W45?
How come K♥ Q♥ T♦ 3♥ 8♣ is played differently than K♥ Q♥ T♦ 3♥ 4♣?
When does a hand begin 6♥ 7♥ 9♣, along with two other cards, and the proper play is 6♥ 7♥?
This will give you a good idea of what will be covered. If nit-picky differences drive you crazy, stay away. If concentrating hard for three hours will make your head hurt, you should skip the class.
But if you’re interested in learning the fine points, this is a rare opportunity. Even if this isn’t “your game,” learning how to read the Level 4 Dancer Daily strategy cards in this game will allow you to understand the information on these cards for other games as well.
For those of you considering coming to the regular classes, they cover the basics of each particular game and are nearly as difficult as what has been presented here. The class schedule may be found at http://www.bobdancer.com/seminars.cfm.
The classes are free and anyone at least 21 years of age is welcome.