How Do I Answer?

I was playing 9/6 Bonus Poker Deluxe at the South Point on a double point day. A lady I’ve known for years, “Sandy,” sat down to play at the machine next to me. She’s a fairly recent widow and I knew her husband as well. We’re friendly, but not close friends.

She told me, “I haven’t played this game in years. Somebody told me you play it just like 9/6 Jacks or Better except you go for inside straights more. Would you agree with that?”

And I was stumped. When I’m learning a strategy, I study all of the penalty card situations. There are several of these that are different in BPD than in JoB. Did Sandy play JoB at that level? I didn’t know. Did she want to know BDP at that level? I didn’t know that either.

What I did say was, “That’s approximately true, but there are a number of exceptions. If you want to set up a study appointment we can go over the distinctions, but right now I’m working and I need to concentrate on what I’m doing.”

She said okay and played a few hands. Then she started asking about Bonnie. So I repeated. “Really, Sandy, I need to concentrate. Playing video poker, especially on a double point day, is not a social activity for me. It’s work. If you need to chat with somebody while you play, maybe you should go sit next to somebody else.”

She probably thought I was rude (and maybe she was right!). I didn’t care. She might have been on vacation, but I wasn’t. She was quiet the rest of the time she played, other than gloating a bit when she hit a royal (which is not a crime.)

My thought is that you need to learn a strategy BEFORE you get to the casino. Learning a strategy takes time, and any shortcut strategy somebody else gives you verbally is just that — a short cut. Verbal strategies are prone to misinterpretation.

For the record, these are the types of hands I would play differently in 9/6 BPD than in 9/6 JoB:

Some of these are definitely related to holding inside straights more in BPD, but others aren’t. There are a lot of other hands involving inside straights that you play the same in both games, such as: Q♣ J♣ 9♥ 8♦ 3♣. Did she distinguish between that hand and hand ‘b’ in the chart? I didn’t know.

Or how about A♥ J♠ Q♦ T♦ 8♦? The proper play is AJQT in both games. Did she distinguish between this hand and hand ‘e’ above? Again, I didn’t know.

Or in hand ‘g’, if the 6♦ were the 6♠, it would change the JoB play but not the BPD play. Did she care?

Or did she consider Q♣ J♣ T♥ 9♦ 9♣? In both JoB and BPD you play QJ, but in Double Double Bonus and many other games where two pair gives you your money back, you play QJT9. It is a straight draw so Sandy’s rule of thumb would have been to go for the QJT9. Which would have been wrong!

In a few hours I was ready to quit and Sandy was not. (I had played a long time before she showed up.) I told her, “I’m through concentrating. If you still want to know the differences between the games I can tell you now.”

When she said yes, I basically gave her what was in the chart above. She stared at me blankly and then asked, “Are you mad at me?”

I wasn’t. But I still didn’t know how to answer the question. I did tell her that if what I just gave her was more than what she wanted, I’d be teaching the game at the more basic level on March 2 at noon at the South Point.