When Liam W. Daily and I were devising our strategy cards and Winner’s Guides several years ago, we noticed that in many games, the value of certain 3-card straight flushes was similar. In 9/6 Jacks or Better, for example, KQ9 (two high cards and two insides) is worth $3.21, JT8 (one high card and one […]
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Is This Fair?
The specifics of the following are fiction. But similar situations have happened numerous times. Let’s say there’s a drawing at a casino, with about 50,000 tickets in the barrel. I’ve hammered away at a $25 machine for 15 hours and have 800 tickets myself, resulting from $800,000 coin-in. A lady in green, on the other […]
Good Thing the Machine Malfunctioned and Shoul...
Author’s note: I am posting two articles today, September 9, and none next week. This article tells of a September South Point promotion that is good for the player community and will expire September 30. Therefore I didn’t want to delay it another week.
First Things First
This article was first published in 2005. The specific game I was playing is no longer found at this particular casino — and now I’m married to Bonnie rather than Shirley. But the point the article makes is still a good one to remember. I was playing NSU Deuces Wild one evening recently at the […]
A No Brainer — Or So I Thought
This past Saturday, August 23, the Palms casino in Las Vegas hosted a $50,000 slot tournament. This was a tournament where, so far as I know, extremely limited skill was required. As long as you were hitting the button whenever the reels were stopped, you were going to get the maximum score that your particular […]
Contemplating Foxwoods, Part 2 of 2
Check out Part 1 of this story here. I’ll wait until you come back. I asked John to provide me with a number of things before I flew to Foxwoods, including: a. A photograph of the pay schedule and denomination. A one digit mistake in how much a flush pays, for example, can change whether […]
Contemplating Foxwoods, Part 1 of 2
I received an email from somebody, “John,” who wanted to know if I was willing to pay a finder’s fee for information about a $5 video poker game on the East coast that had so far slipped under everyone’s radar. He thought the game was worth more than $200 per hour. I know John and […]
Thinking Like a Casino Manager
Winning video poker players DO NOT think the same as casino managers. While there is no one “right way” to think, it’s wise to remember that casino managers often are the ones who make the rules. Sometimes players need to shift their thinking cap in order to understand those rules.
Lessons Learned as a Programmer
Author’s note: A somewhat similar version of this article appeared in 2005. The argument remains valid. During the 1980s, I worked in the computer departments of three different corporations. As I explained in my autobiography, Million Dollar Video Poker, I needed to go to work as a computer programmer because I was not sufficiently successful […]
More Interesting Hands in Bonus Poker
I memorized 9/6 Jacks perfectly almost 20 years ago. (I knew the strategy very well before that, but there were some rare hands that nobody had written about and it took me a while to find them all.) It’s fairly simple, as video poker games go, and the exceptions aren’t numerous or difficult. Additionally, I’ve […]
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