There are people who have never liked mathematics or been particularly good at it. Would that attitude or lack of ability make success at video poker more difficult? I believe that mathematically-challenged players rarely get very good at this game.
This might be surprising. After all, the math at video poker isn’t very difficult, but it’s a winning player’s constant companion. Let me give some examples of how I regularly use numbers:
a. Pay schedules are important. The difference between receiving nine credits per coin for a flush compared to eight per coin is worth $30 an hour or so if you’re a single-line dollar player. This use of numbers isn’t exactly “math,” but it’s related and it’s important.
b. Each game has an optimal return. To decide which game to play you need to know the returns of the top two or three games at each of the casinos you frequent. Using Video Poker for Winners or other software to figure this out is easy enough, and it’s acceptable to write down these numbers and take the list with you, but you need to have this information at your fingertips.
c. Each slot club offers a different amount of cash back or free play Casinos rarely tell you that their club returns a half percent. What they tell you is that it takes $5 to earn a point and for every thousand points they’ll give you $25 in cash. Can you determine whether that gives you an advantage if you are playing a game that returns 99.73% to start with?
d. If four sevens pay an extra 100 coins, can you figure out what that adds to 8/5 Bonus Poker? How much is a 4000-coin bonus for a royal in diamonds worth? Is that worth more or less than double points at the casino next door?
e. If you get a scratcher for every 4-of-a-kind, and estimate each scratcher is worth $2 on average, can you determine what that adds to the game?
f. If the casino doesn’t offer cash back, but will send you six bounce back checks for $50 if you play $80,000 per month, can you determine how much that is worth and figure out how much play it will require?
g. One casino is giving away a car and another is giving away $25,000 in cash — and the drawings are at the same time. Can you read the rules and figure out which of the two provides you with a better opportunity?
h. On progressives, can you figure out how high a royal on 9/7 Double Bonus Poker has to be before the game returns 100%?
i. Can you figure out how fast a progressive meter is running?
j. Let’s say you have four months worth of weekly data for a “senior drawing” — where players earn tickets and 15 get called winning various amounts. Can you figure how much that drawing adds percentagewise?
k. If you’re trying to learn an advanced strategy, you’ll find many examples where there are “and” conditions (such as there must be a flush penalty “and” a straight penalty of a certain size for an ace to be better than a suited JT in Bonus Poker). There are also “or” conditions (such as there must be either a flush penalty “or” a straight penalty of a certain size for you to hold an unsuited KJ over a suited JT in the same game). The ability to keep these distinctions straight is correlated with mathematical ability.
You get the idea. Using simple math is very important to determine WHICH GAME is best to play NOW. If you ALWAYS play one particular machine at one particular casino you don’t need to worry about these things, but players who do this are rarely winners. Casinos are always competing with each other trying to get you to come in and play. Sometimes one casino offers the best deal. Sometimes it’s another casino. Figuring out which casino offers the best play this week is part of the game.
My experience is that players who are good at math make these calculations almost subconsciously. It isn’t that difficult to put things into numerical context if that is your frame of reference. Players who aren’t good at math tend to avoid these calculations altogether. In general, people who aren’t good at something tend to rationalize that being good at it isn’t important. They tend to use such phrases as “you’ll win if you’re lucky but not if you’re unlucky.”
It’s possible to make up for a lack of mathematical ability if you have a mentor. Let’s say the decision-maker in the family (we’ll say the wife — it could be either) is good at math and she’ll make the decision that today we’ll play at this casino and next week we’ll earn jackets at that casino and later we’ll . . . . If her husband knows how to play and is able and willing to follow the script, he can be a valuable partner.
Can someone who hasn’t been very good at math turn it around and become good at video poker? Of course. But it will require a sustained effort. How badly do you want to win?
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