I recently read aloud to Bonnie my Million Dollar Video Poker autobiography. As many of you know, it’s the story of how Shirley and I netted $1 million playing video poker during a six month period only seven years after beginning with a $6,000 bankroll.
Part of my reason for reading the book was to share with Bonnie some of my history, and part of it was to allow me to see what has changed in the ten years since I wrote it. Today I’m far more knowledgeable about video poker than I was then, but I wanted to see if there were some “lessons” in the book that I might have forgotten along the way. I was also interested in seeing how my approach has evolved over the past decade.
What struck me immediately is that I don’t play as much as I used to. During the million dollar six months, I was playing 60 hours a week of high stakes ($5 Five Play and $10 Five Play, mostly) video poker, in addition to teaching classes, writing articles, and (very occasionally) going on consulting trips. Those were long hours where I had to be at my best all of the time.
Today I occasionally play for 5-6 hour stretches a few times a week. At the end of those sessions, I’m fatigued. If I play 3-4 hours in the morning and have a social function in the evening, I always try to nap for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Simply put, my endurance isn’t what it used to be.
The reason “why” is a combination of several factors. Part of it is my age. I was 53 during my million dollar six months and I’m 66 now. Another part of it is my health. Although I’m still healthier than most men my age, those years of spending so much time in smoky casinos have definitely taken a toll on my overall health.
Part of it is necessity. If I “needed” to put in long hours, I would, whether I wanted to or not. If I were in “survival mode,” I’d play longer. But I’m not, so I don’t. Part of it is that I’ve gotten out of practice — which might be fairly phrased as “getting soft.” I’m not used to playing long hours anymore, so it’s a lot harder to do than it used to be. A last factor is that most promotions today aren’t as juicy as they were back then. Give me an $800-per-hour promotion today and I’ll work really, really long hours again!
The change in my physical conditioning over the past 13 years may well be different than yours. Still, something similar happens to most of us. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, your time may well be coming!
Why am I bringing this up? Well, it has to do with which promotions I decide to pursue. If a promotion is so good that I’m sharing a machine with somebody, I limit my exposure to 4 or 6 hours at a time. This is a lot briefer than the continuous time I used to sit in front of a machine during a good promotion.
If a casino is particular smoky, I avoid it altogether. I will sometimes take a slightly lesser EV if I can spend less time but play for higher stakes and still get the benefits I want. If a casino doesn’t have suitable games at stakes that will let me do this, I stop going to that casino. If my play ‘must’ be done one day a month (such as the approximately once-a-month 2x point days at South Point), I will get there at midnight to play for four hours, go home and nap for a while, and then go back and finish my play. Years ago I would play straight through for 15 or more hours.
It’s possible I’ve come across as whining about my physical decline. If so I apologize. That’s not my purpose here. My purpose is to show by example how I am my own coach. A coach in a team game decides on who goes in and plays at which time. A basketball coach wouldn’t ask a 6′ player to defend a 7′ opponent, nor would he ask his big, strong, slow guy to defend the other team’s speedster.
A coach needs to monitor each player’s minutes in the right situations so that the player can be effective not only in that game, but also during the entire season. Since I’m my own coach, I’m the one who gets to monitor my own minutes. And my season might last twenty or more additional years. Still, within the basketball metaphor, I can still be a superstar player in the right, limited, circumstances.
Most of my readers don’t have outside coaches. Therefore, we each need to continually evaluate OURSELVES as well as the slot club, games, promotions, etc. It’s a part of the winning process that we don’t talk about very often.
Toby Keith sang it best. “I ain’t as good as I once was. But I’m as good once as I ever was!”
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