12/1/2005
Last month I wrote a couple of columns about gift cards. This week I want to talk about one of my favorites. You can have Starbucks –- I’ll take the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf any time. Why? For one thing, having a nice choice of drinks that are fat-free and with no sugar added is a real luxury. And since I have a never-ending number of their gift cards from my play at the Palms, it’s also a very frugal luxury for me!
If you have many more Palms points than you can use up in the usual Palms outlets, you might be interested in finding various ways you can use them at the Bean (as it’s affectionately known by its fans). You can buy drinks and fancy pastries and bulk coffee and tea with comps for the Bean you’ve obtained at the slot club desk, using your points. A handy idea is to get a comp to buy gift cards in larger amounts (you can get a food court comp for up to $100 in one day), then you don’t have to waste time going to the slot club desk and getting a comp every time you want a drink. Plus, you can use these gift cards in most other Bean stores and give them as gifts to others.
Go to www.coffeebean.com/locator to find the Bean outlets in California (123), Nevada (12), and Arizona (9). Click on “International Outlets” and you’ll find them in many other countries as well.
One new outlet in Vegas not yet listed on the Web site is at the corner of Flamingo and Rainbow, in a freestanding building in the Albertsons strip mall. Notice on the Internet list that there are two in the Venetian and one in both Green Valley Ranch Casino and the District nearby. There’s also one in the Desert Passage Mall at the Aladdin that’s not listed. The only ones that I know for sure that don’t take the gift cards are the ones at the Rio and at the airport, the latter a major disappointment since I always like “one for the air.” (I’ve been known to actually use real money at the airport outlet to buy my favorite drink, a frosty orange-juice mixture called a Sunrise, but don’t tell anyone; I don’t want to ruin my frugal reputation.) I’d appreciate an e-mail if you find others that aren’t company stores and don’t take the gift cards.
A California friend, David, informed me that all the Beans serve kosher food. He sent me this interesting article, at http://tinyurl.com/e2agk, about the history of this chain.
There are also other ways you can use your points at the Palms as gifts besides Bean gift cards. Obviously, if you take someone to dinner, whether at the food court or one of the Palms restaurants, you can use your points to pay the whole bill. But sometimes you’d like to share your points with someone else so they can use them when they aren’t with you. One way is to get a comp to the movie theater where you can buy gift certificates (in $5 denominations) that can be used both for movie tickets and for food at the movie concession stand in all Brenden Theaters, in or out of Vegas.
The most versatile Palms gift card can be “bought” at the gift shop with your points. There’s a daily limit: You can use your points to buy no more than a total of $100 in gift cards in any one day. This card can be given to another person, who can use it in any Palms outlet that takes the Discover credit card, which includes all the restaurants (except in the food court), the spa and salon, and the gift shop. It can also be used to pay for a hotel bill.
12/8/2005
• Did you know that NY-NY has little red apples instead of hearts on their playing cards? (Get it? The Big Apple.)
• Why do so many casinos keep the temperature at a “freezing” level in the summer, then complain about their electric bills. The hotter it gets outside in triple-digit Vegas, the more likely you should bring a parka and gloves in order to play in comfort.
• I don’t know how I got along before I could surf the Internet to find good video poker playing opportunities and keep up on all the current slot club promotions.
• Good sign I saw in NY-NY, advertising their ESPN Zone restaurant: “Food so good you’ll pray for overtime.”
• I like the newest made-up word in the gambling field, “racino.” I wonder who gets the credit for this neat name for a casino at a racetrack.
• The best-named road I’ve ever been on is in Colorado, a back way out of the little gambling town of Central City. Its official name is Virginia Canyon Road, but it’s usually referred to as “Ohmygawd Road.” It was recommended to us by someone (whose health is in danger if I ever see him again), who described it as “scenic.” If a narrow curvy gravel road with steep rock walls on one side and plunging canyons on the other –- with no guardrails –- is your idea of scenic, well, you’ll be a happy traveler. I don’t think I ever prayed harder and promised God more perfect future behavior.
• Do you know what the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino was called immediately prior to it being re-named the Golden Gate? The answer is Sal Sagev (Las Vegas spelled backwards!).
• The Bellagio Fountains, largest water fountain in the world, has 1,198 water devices submerged in the lake. When the fountains are in action, some jets of water race across the lake approaching speeds of 600 miles per hour.
• From an Internet friend: The Four Queens not only still has coin machines, they still have a “”change cart”” being pushed around the casino by a “”change girl.” When I play there and she walks by pushing her cart asking, “”Change? Change?”” I want to say, “”Hell yes, make me thirty years younger and forty pounds lighter with hair.”” That would be a nice change.
• From www.thedealersnews.com: The term “Helldorado” was conceived in 1881 when miners wrote that instead of finding their “Eldorado” of riches, they ended up washing dishes or doing menial jobs, finding their “Helldorado” instead.
• The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
• I collect gambling/casino/Vegas quotes; here are some I like:
By Mike Caro, poker expert: “In the beginning, everything was even money.”
Reported in Casino Player by a Missouri gambler, on the state’s debate over whether riverboat casinos should still be required by law to leave the dock. “Baby, I ain’t here for a boat ride.”
By the president of the Hard Rock, when asked whether the room where John Entwistle of The Who died would be set aside and marked in any way, “I think a room a guy dies in is not a positive marketing opportunity.””
12/16/2005
Do You Need to be Perfect?
I get a lot of questions about whether it’s really necessary to try to learn computer perfect strategy, including all penalty-card situations, for every video poker game you ever play. These days I answer that question somewhat differently than I used to.
When Brad and I started playing VP 15 years ago, we learned JoB from Lenny Frome’s simplified strategy charts, which had no penalty cards. But then we switched to full-pay Deuces Wild and gradually learned the penalty-card situations, because we played almost no other game for many years. When we went up to dollars, we switched our core game to Double Bonus. We played it so much for so many years at the higher denominations that we learned Dancer’s professional strategy, which included the penalty cards.
However, the VP world is different now. If you play often, and if you’re trying to look for the very best plays, you probably need to branch out from your core game and learn to play others. I still recommend that you learn to play one game at a time and then, very slowly, add others – and keep practicing with the software as you switch back and forth. But I recommend that most people stick to simplified strategies.
More and more VP players, even frequent and skilled players, are choosing the Frugal Strategy Cards by Skip Hughes and the Frugal Video Poker software. Both give simplified strategies (Skip’s cards are based on the ones in FVP) that don’t take penalty cards into consideration, but cost you very little in EV (expected value, or the theoretical return of the game). Simplified strategies allow players to learn more games, a growing need for present-day advantage players.
Of course, you can practice in the Perfect mode with Frugal VP if you wish, instead of the simplified Strategy mode without penalty cards; you have that choice. Some players like the challenge of playing as “”perfectly”” as possible. And some high-denomination players are playing with such a small edge that they feel they need to squeeze out as much EV as possible. Personally, I’d rather limit my choices to plays with a high enough EV that I already have a pretty good edge without having to go to the 2nd or 3rd decimal place where knowing penalty-card situations might just barely make the play positive.
Here are a couple of hints for those who want to learn, for whatever reason, the Perfect strategy, especially for a very difficult game like DB. Get Dancer’s Winner’s Guide for that particular game, which contains all the details and explanations you need to master it at a “professional” level. Also, you might find it easier to study one penalty-card situation at a time, only picking up the next one when you have the first one down pat so it’s second nature. For a long time, when Brad and I first learned DB, we had a “Rule of the Day” on which we’d concentrate. (And we still use that same technique when we need to play a game we haven’t played for a while.)
However, I strongly believe that most people will play a simplified strategy more accurately than if they tried to learn a perfect one. And, more important in most cases, slot club and promotion benefits make up a good part of the EV of a total play. Therefore, you can probably play faster (without sacrificing accuracy) with a simplified strategy and gain a lot more with those extra benefits than you’re losing in ignoring penalty-card situations. As Skip Hughes says so often, your time is probably spent better in scouting for better playing opportunities than by trying to learn every little penalty card play.
Since Frugal Video Poker, the first to have both a tutor and a strategy-generating feature, came out, I’ve used it exclusively for a non-penalty-card strategy when learning a new game. I especially like it for generating a simplified strategy when I’m making up charts for Multi-Strike. That game, in which you constantly switch among four strategies, is already hard enough to play, so I don’t
12/22/2005
Brad and I are enjoying the holidays this week in Columbus, Georgia, with the Frugal Princess family – my daughter Angela and her Army Ranger husband Steve, and our beloved grandchildren, Zachary and Kaitlynn. It used to be that we couldn’t wait to get to Las Vegas and now we enjoy the opportunity to get out of town once in a while. But it’s still our favorite city in the whole world, so while we’re gone, here are some interesting quotes about it.
“”Las Vegas is the most honest fake city in the world.”” –Frank Scoblete
“”Vegas is becoming an adult pinball palace.”” –Mark Pilarski
“”To the devoted climber there is the lofty peak of Mt. Everest; for the avid golfer there is the wind-swept fairway at St. Andrews; and for the gaming devotee there is the neon-studded allure of Las Vegas.”” –Marvin Karling Ph.D
“”Las Vegas is operating on the lower levels of human need–money, sex, and power. –Ian Andersen
“”Las Vegas is loaded with all kinds of gambling devices. Dice tables, slot machines, and wedding chapels.”” –Joey Adams
“”It’s mathematically impossible to win (long term) at a game where the other side has the advantage. Vegas was built by players trying to disprove this fact.”” –Bob Dancer
“”Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas … with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.””
–Hunter S. Thompson
“”I sometimes think of Las Vegas as the Jerusalem of chance. A holy city.”” –Frank Scoblete
“”There are only two sorts of people walking the streets of Las Vegas at 2 a.m. on a winter’s night: muggers and broken souls not worth mugging.”” –Anthony Holden
“”The one phrase you’ll never hear used to describe Las Vegas is ‘understated elegance.’”
–Barry Meadow
“”Las Vegas suffers from all those infrastructural maladies and offers every ounce of the promise. For the immigrant with no English, the autoworker with no assembly line, the desperate hunch player with a fatally flawed dice system, it is the place for fresh starts, second chances, and last stand.” –John L. Smith
“”Las Vegas is the only place in the world where you can get tanned and faded at the same time.”” –Sal Sagev (this is anonymous, Las Vegas spelled backwards)
“”More people miss more flights out of Las Vegas than anywhere else.”” –Andrés Martinez
“”Las Vegas is a magnet for the exploration of human darkness.”” –Adam Fine
And now an only-in-Vegas news report, from the Internet: “It seems that there was a robbery spree of convenience stores overnight and into the wee hours on Friday morning. One of the potential targets was a store in Green Valley, and the masked gunmen entered brandishing automatic weapons and demanding money. One of the perps approached a fellow who was playing video poker in the store and demanded his wallet. The VP player turned it over to the crook, who immediately saw that it contained no money. Apparently, around this time, a bread truck pulled into the lot to make an early-morning delivery, spooking the robbers, who fled the store. Our true trooper turns back to his machine and continues to play. He holds a T,K hearts and calmly draws the J,Q,A for a $1,000 royal. Only in Vegas.”
(My thanks to Terrence “”VP Pappy”” Murphy for providing me with many of these quotes, from his extensive collection of quotes about gambling and related topics.)
Happy holidays to all!
12/29/2005
I don’t have a regular column for this week and here are my TOP TEN excuses … er … reasons:
10. I’ve been spending some of the holidays with my grandchildren and they keep me pretty busy. (All grandparents will accept this excuse!)
9. I’ve been out of town and not near a casino part of the time – and that got me out of the gambling mode and mood. (Out of sight, out of mind.)
8. My computer was tired of writing about casino and gambling topics and went on strike and crashed.
7. I OD’d on comped holiday dinners and party food and need time to recover on a toast diet.
6. I’m having my usual end-of-the-year stress about throwing away all the expiring coupons that I didn’t have time or energy to redeem.
5. It’s about time to pull together my 2005 gambling records and figure out what I need to give to the IRS.
4. I need to take time to make a serious New Year’s resolution list about slowing down and not scheduling Brad so much to do – that one artery in his heart just can’t take a 7th stent – and I can’t take making one more 911 ambulance call.
3. This is a 5th Friday in the month and I dilute the EV of my monthly paycheck. (I wonder if this is a good time to ask Anthony for a raise?)
2. I would like to give my long-suffering editor, Deke Castleman, a week off from removing too many exclamation points! (Deke, you can leave that one in – it fits okay, I think.)
And the number-one excuse … er … reason why I don’t have a regular column for this week: I HAVE JUST FINISHED WRITING ANOTHER BOOK AND I’M SICK AND TIRED OF WRITING. (More news later about this new book and when you can see it on the shelves of your local bookstore.)