I belong to a local gym and every year there’s a big influx of exercisers in early January. A large number of people, apparently, make a New Year’s Resolution that “this year” is the one where they eat smarter, eat less, and exercise more. By mid-February, the gym population is pretty much back to normal. It’s one thing to MAKE a resolution. It’s totally another to STICK to one for a lengthy period of time.
A similar example would be that most people who do really well on a particular diet find themselves putting the weight back on after a period of time.
Within this context, then, is it sensible to make resolutions about video poker? What should they be? And how do we keep them over time?
Many video poker resolutions fall under the category of discipline. Only play when you have the advantage. Be well rested and well prepared when you play. Don’t drink before or during your play.
For whatever reason, these kinds of things are easy for me — virtually common sense. Having a drive to win is key to success. I’m not sure you can successfully “resolve” to do better at this. It’s in your personality or it isn’t.
Transformations changing your core way of doing things are rare — but not impossible. We all know of alcoholics sobering up — people giving up smoking — others losing significant weight and keeping it off. If your goal is to suddenly acquire discipline and always toe the mark, I wish you strength and good luck. But success isn’t very common.
If your goals are more on the lines of “reread Winner’s Guides for all games played,” or “attend classes again,” or “practice on the computer for one hour every week prior to playing,” or “scout at least one-half hour a week to find other good games to play,” then these goals are obtainable. Even if you eventually give up on some of these resolutions, some of the knowledge you accumulated will remain.
What’s the difference between the sets of goals? The first set of goals says, basically, “I’m a bad person and I’m going to change this year.” The second set of goals says, “Video poker is a tough game to beat, but there are steps I can take to improve my chances and these are those steps.” A clear road map always makes reaching your destination easier, and the goals listed in the previous paragraph might form the basis of a pretty fair map.
A lot of players believe they do not need to study video poker any more. They’ve played the game for a long time and they know it well.
This might be true for a few people, but it’s certainly not true for me — and I suggest it isn’t true for you either. I’ve studied video poker for thousands of hours. But there are always new games and new promotions. For example, in the past year I played 9/5 Jacks or Better, 8/5 Bonus Poker Multi Strike, 8/5 Bonus Poker Quick Quads, 9/7 Triple Double Bonus, 8/5 Bonus Poker with a 5,000-coin royal flush, 8/5/35 Bonus Poker, 8/5 Bonus Poker with an 8,000-coin royal flush, 9/6 Double Double Bonus with a 5,000-coin royal flush, and Double Bonus Deuces Wild — all for significant stakes (which necessarily must be personally defined), and all with promotions that made the games positive. (There were other games played at “out of the way” places that aren’t common knowledge. I’m not going to tell you about those in this list.)
Many of these games are closely related to other games, but that means I need to spend extra attention to the differences. The more games you know well, the easier it is to learn others. But “easier” doesn’t mean “easy.” It takes work. And you can resolve to do this work more often in 2011 than you did in 2010.
If you didn’t play any new video poker games in 2010 compared to the ones you played in 2009, you’re probably running out of places to play. Between removal of games and numerous casinos removing players, positive results today requires different skills than success last year.
You can complain about how tough it is (many players choose this route), or you can resolve to do what it takes to keep up. And then keep that resolve. I prefer this approach.