There are definitely certain skills necessary to be a successful gambler, but in addition to the skills, your mindset is important as well. Playing games well, whether for money or not, requires thinking in a way that the general public usually does not.
A few weeks ago I was watching an NFL game — I think it was Denver vs. Arizona but I’m not sure. A wide receiver had caught the ball and was running toward the end zone with the nearest defender 20 yards behind him. The player “naturally” ran into the end zone for a touchdown. The much smarter play would have been for the receiver to run out of bounds on the one yard line instead of scoring. I shook my head in dismay at the player’s short-sightedness. I suppose “professional game player” means something quite different to football players than to video poker players.
Let me set the scene: It was a close game and the defensive team was out of time outs for the half. What this meant was that the coach of the defensive team could not challenge any play. (A challenge is where play is stopped while the referee looks at umpteen video recordings of the last play to make sure it was called correctly.) The reason for this is that if you lose a challenge, it costs you a time out. If you don’t have any time outs, you can’t challenge. But video reviews of certain plays are automatic during the last two minutes of each half and also immediately after every scoring play.
Anyway, the quarterback threw a pass to the wide receiver — who fell to the ground while catching the ball. The rule is that if his knee is still on the ground when one of the defenders touches him, he is “down by contact” and the play is over. If he is no longer on his knees, then the defense has to tackle him or drive him out of bounds in order to stop the play.
So the wide receiver was getting up after making the catch. A defender came over to touch him — and it was really, really close whether the receiver’s knee was still down when the defender touched him. The wide receiver seemed to know 100% that his knee was down when he was touched, because you could see from his body language that he slowed down to a trot believing the play was over. When he stopped running toward the end zone, all the defenders stopped chasing him as well. But since the officials didn’t blow a whistle to stop the play, the receiver correctly picked up speed again and ran toward the end zone while the defenders were still stopped in their tracks.
On close plays, NFL officials purposely err towards letting the play continue. It’s better to let the play go on and correct it later by a challenge rather than to erroneously blow a play dead when it should still be live. Since it was a very close play, it’s understandable why the officials didn’t stop the play.
But this was a special case because the defensive team didn’t have the right to challenge. If the wide receiver scored a touchdown (which he did), the play was automatically reviewed and this player knew that it would be brought back. But if the player intentionally (even without the defense anywhere nearby) ran out of bounds on the one yard line, then the play would be over. And it couldn’t be challenged. It is far better for your team to have the ball on the one yard line than it is sixty or so yards back up the field. If the play would have stood as called (unlikely), going out on the one yard line still wasn’t terrible. It is not as good as scoring (fumbles and interceptions happen; penalties and/or goal line stands sometimes occur) but first and goal on the one yard line is the next best thing.
It is a strange situation where it’s better to end the play voluntarily instead of trying to increase the score, but this time is was undoubtedly correct. In the heat of the battle, the player’s thought processes weren’t sufficient to make the correct play. He just “automatically” went to score a touchdown — which he should have known wouldn’t count.
Do many football players know the idiosyncrasies of the rules sufficiently and have the correct mindset to make this play? I’m not sure. These guys are chosen for their superior athletic skills, not their mental acumen, although some are first-rate both mentally and physically. To me it was second nature. I was yelling “run out of bounds” to the TV screen, even though I had no wager in action and didn’t really care who won the game. I never had the athletic ability to play professional sports of any kind, but I do have the mindset skills to compete as a professional game player.
I can teach you how to play the hands. I’m not sure if understanding the need to ALWAYS look for an additional edge is teachable or not. As good as I think I am, I’m continually trying to get better at it. I learn from many of our gambler guests on the Gambling with an Edge radio show. They’re usually not video poker players, but all of them give examples of looking for an edge in their own games. The more of such situations I hear about, the more likely that I’ll be able to rise to the occasion when the opportunity arises.
Each situation is a little different than the ones that came before. If you’re always searching for the advantage, and you have lots of examples in your mind of how to do this, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll see the next opportunity before someone who isn’t actively looking for it. And THAT’S a big key to gambling success.
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