In May 2000 I was a guest in the home of my brother Dick and his wife Lisa, who at that time lived near Houston, Texas. My then-wife Shirley was off on a women’s religious retreat and I chose to spend time with Dick and Lisa rather than being a temporary bachelor in Las Vegas.

Without going into specifics and with me as the exception, my family is largely very conservative, especially when it comes to religion. I’m the only gambler in the group and in many ways have been a non-conformist compared to the others. On the second day of my visit, the discussion got around to video poker and my success — or lack thereof. Continue reading Risk and Uncertainty in Video Poker

I regularly read “how to win” discussions from a variety of disciplines. I was recently re-reading David Sklansky’s The Theory of Poker and came across the following:

“Any time you make a bet with the BEST OF IT, where the odds are in your favor, you have earned something on that bet, whether you actually win or lose on the bet. By the same token, when you make a bet with the WORST OF IT, where the odds are not in your favor, you have lost something, whether you actually win or lose the bet.” Continue reading Would You Rather Be Lucky or Good?

I’ve used the “animal versus animal” jungle metaphor to describe video poker in the past. Let’s play around a little bit more with that analogy today.

Some people think of the casino as the lion in the jungle and the players as the smaller prey, but I don’t think of it that way at all. I see the casino as the owner of the jungle, and the players are all animals within that jungle. The bigger animals have an easier time surviving than the smaller animals. Continue reading More Tails from the Jungle

I participate in a study group of bright gamblers. You’ve heard of Richard Munchkin who often attends the group. The others are not particularly well known to the general public and even if you’ve heard of them, for the most part they don’t want their names bandied about.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, there were only four of us there (Munchkin couldn’t make it that day.) The other three all graduated from prestigious schools that specialized in math and science. Continue reading Should Have Kept My Mouth Shut

Recently on vpFREE, a man (I think) with the pseudonym “nightoftheiguana” (NOTI) posted “I think Bob Dancer has admitted to going bankrupt at least once. Perhaps he can say something on whether or not it is something he would risk doing again.” (NOTI regularly posts knowledgeable information regarding the Kelly criterion and various alternative strategies on how to best play video poker based on your goals.) When I wrote out the draft to my response, I saw it covered more than 1000 words, which made it more appropriate to run here than on vpFREE itself. It will likely get posted there eventually anyway. Continue reading Going Broke