In baseball, a player “goes for a cycle” if he hits a single, double, triple, and home run in one game. These don’t happen too often — just twice in the 2025 Major League Baseball season, for example. The more at bats a player has, the more likely he can get these four specific hits in a single game.
There is no direct analog in video poker, but several of us have called hitting royal flushes in each of the four suits in a single “trip,” to be a cycle. The word “trip” is somewhat open to interpretation. I accomplished my first one in a day, playing 10¢ Hundred Play 8-5 Bonus Poker some 25 years ago at the Silverton when they had a promotion where the player could earn a Rolex watch if he played some large number of points in a month. I don’t remember why I felt it necessary to do this in one day, but I played many hours and earned the Rolex and the cycle. I didn’t write about my cycle at the time because I felt doing it on Hundred Play was “unfair.” You do, after all, collect a royal every hour or two in that game, so collecting a lot of royals is not a major accomplishment.
In 2026, I had a chance to do it on a single-line game. Last week I wrote about braving the weather to reach Harrah’s Cherokee for an 11-day trip. Although I played some slots, my video poker game of choice was $5 NSU Deuces Wild.
On day 2, I connected on a royal flush in diamonds. I usually do not take pictures of my royals, and I didn’t this time either. On day 3, however, I connected on a royal flush in spades — this time memorializing it with my iPhone camera. On day 5, I hit a royal flush in hearts and, for the first time, began thinking of completing the cycle. On my trips of this length, I usually connect on one or two royal flushes, so with six days left, I had a decent shot at collecting at least one additional one.
Hitting a royal, though, is not the same as hitting a club royal. All royals on this game pay the same $20,000, no matter the suit, but I wouldn’t qualify for the cycle unless it was specifically in clubs. And even if I did, I didn’t have a picture of my diamond royal flush, so I would have no “proof.” I decided this wasn’t a problem. Even if I had a picture of the diamond royal flush, there would be no proof that I was the one who hit it and did so on this particular trip. If someone wanted to doubt what I claimed, there would be plenty of room, with or without a picture.
I thought about how far I would go to hit this royal. On a hand such as K♣ Q♣ A♠ 3♣ 6♠, for example, it’s about a 4¢ mistake for the $5 five-coin player to hold the suited KQ rather than throw everything away. Most NSU players ignore the penalty cards on this type of hand, I believe, and hold the KQ. Making this mistake would give me a 1-in-16,215 chance of getting the club royal and completing the cycle on this particular play. While it would only be a slim chance, it would still be bigger than the zero chance I would have if I tossed all five cards. Plus, if and when I do indeed hit the club royal, nobody is going to ask me what five cards were dealt to me on the hands that ended up being royals.
I decided I didn’t want to change my strategy. If the royal comes while I’m playing correctly, great. If it doesn’t, so be it. But I wasn’t going to be making intentional misplays (even those worth very little) in order to accomplish this feat. What I would do, I decided, was play longer hours. Instead of my normal $150,000 coin-in per day, I would play $180,000. This wouldn’t be cheating at all, at least not to my mind.
It’s one thing, of course, to claim the high ground with an “I’d never do that” promise when it’s hypothetical. There are a number of different hands similar to the one I listed above — but they don’t happen very often. I did get a couple of these hands after I was down to only needing one more suited royal to complete the cycle, one in hearts and one in spades, but nothing in clubs. I wasn’t really tested as to whether I would fudge correct strategy to complete my goal.
Before a hand arose causing me to think about “being flexible” in my strategy, the machine took the decision out of my hands by dealing me a club royal. A dealt royal is a 1-in-650,000 hand event. A dealt royal in clubs is only ¼ as likely as that. But that’s what happened.
As it turned out, I accidentally left my iPhone in my hotel room that day, so I couldn’t take a picture of the hand. I asked the slot attendant if she could take a picture of it and text it to me. Well, no, personal cell phones weren’t allowed for employees when they were working. They used iPads at this casino to process jackpots, and to be sure the iPads have cameras, but it’s a limited Wi-Fi that they use which only allows internal communication within the company.
However, she could AirDrop the picture. I had heard of AirDrop before, but had never used it and wasn’t sure how it worked. But I was told that if I brought my phone within the five remaining hours of this lady’s shift, I could get the picture via AirDrop. I agreed. It didn’t occur to me at the time to leave the royal on the screen for a half-hour while I walked 15 minutes each way to my hotel room. They probably would have agreed to that, but I don’t know for sure.
But the AirDrop worked so I have the picture which I’m sharing here. The way you know the royal was dealt is that above each card it says “HELD.” If I had to draw one or more cards, there would be fewer than five “HELD” indications.
So, I ended up getting the cycle. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! Plus I am now tech savvy enough to use AirDrop!
In my career, I’ve had a number of “braggable” jackpots in casinos. Not that I needed another one, but this one was very welcome and very likely the last time I will ever complete a cycle in one trip! This was my first extended trip of 2026, and it starts off my year with a nice plus score.
Often when someone experiences a rare hand, or combination of hands, the question of “Just how rare was this?” arises. That strikes me as a worthy topic for next week’s blog. After all, if I can’t get at least two blogs out of this, it couldn’t have been all that rare!
Congrats. I would have thought a professional could hit the royals sequentially as well as the suits in order by rank. Spades first then hearts, diamonds and finally clubs. I’m sure the money spends the same but better luck next time. 🙂
I never knew suits were ranked, thanks!
You are over-royaled. Stop while you’re ahead, or you’ll be complaining about losing it all by the end of the year.
There is always a big losing streak following your best lucky streak. Better quit.
The guy has been over-royaled his whole career.
Some math here boggles my mind. If we take Bob’s statement that he play $180,000 coin
-in per day to accomplish this, that take 7,200 hands a day. Even playing 800 hands per hour, which Bob said he is able to play, it would take nine hours of this truly grueling level of play to achieve that. Nine hours of a grueling 800 hands per hour is surly exhausting considering the number of times that a hit of $2,000 would stop him, but maybe he has a way of playing through this without the machine locking up, him being paid, etc. This is grueling play after grueling play for anybody, even for Bob who is used to this. And to do this for ten days adds to the grueling schedule to boot. Even then, that totals to 72,000 hands which would indicate 1.8 royals only if counting about 40,000 hands per royal on average, or about that. On top of this (in my opinion of super-human strength and endurance) hitting four royals with an expectation of 1.8 royals (who cares about one in each suit) is super lucky, probably less likely than zero royals. That’s a lot of gruelings, super-human endurances, and many other assumptions makes Bob a Video-Poker Superman. As unlikely that this is, maybe he is, and super lucky as well. But congratulations Bob, you are a Video-Poker Hero!!!
He plays NSU, the only time machine locks as of 2026 is when he hits a royal (1 in 43000 hands) or 4 deuces (1 in 5300 hands). He is way over-royaled, gotta quit as my suggested or he will lose all back.
Henry, what really boggles the mind is watching him crank thru his sessions. Every time I go to Cherokee my first stop is the VP machines where he plays to see if I’m in for a treat during my visit. It’s the most intense focus I’ve ever seen. He pops on those headphones and goes to work. It really is amazing to watch.
Mike: You made the same point three different times in a few hours — namely since I’m over-royaled I should quit while I’m ahead.
I disagree strongly with that and I’ll respond with an explanation in a blog — probably in April. As it turns out, I have five or six unpublished articles “in the bank” and responding to you will need to wait it’s turn.
You might still disagree with my reasoning once you read it — but hopefully you can wait until then to tell me to stop gambling. Every reader has already learned your position on this subject.
Hello, Bob. Please don’t waste your time trying to educate or correct Mike. It’s hopeless. Over more than a decade of articles, you have explained so very many, many times that true gambling is a continuous process, essentially infinite. It’s definitely not a stop-and-go thing. The only reason to stop, other than already reaching, say tier point levels (this would be temporary anyway), is that you don’t want to gamble anymore for some other reason. Or, of course, Horrors, that the Doomsday Clock struck midnight. Quitting while you are ahead, for lack of some wording that I don’t want to write under my own name, is ludicrous.
It’s more content to write about and keep the backlog going. At least Bob won’t run out.
Henry, you are the hopeless one. Hope you will get a losing streak soon so you will know it better.
Agree with Henry. Love reading about your experiences. I was under the impression that each play is a separate play, has no relation to the hands that came before it, and no relation to the games after it. “You never know” is absolutely right. You can play the probabilities and use 100% correct play, but there is no guarantee you will win or lose at any given time. Pretty cool about the cycle. What would the cycle be on a slot machine?
“but there is no guarantee you will win or lose at any given time.”
You silly goose…you do know the hand that gets your money back occurs much less frequently than a dealt two pair, don’t you?
Another “cycle” is hitting every payline in a single sitting. Certainly doable in a JOB schedule, a bit harder in a deuces schedule, harder yet in and becoming really unlikely in a DB or DDB schedule.
I’ve done it twice with a JOB schedule.