In my classes, I often get out-of-town students. Whether I am teaching Quick Quads, Ultimate X, Deuces Wild, or whatever, there are often students who decided long ago that they are going to take at least one Bob Dancer class — and this is the week they’re in Vegas. Often, they come with a video […]
Posts tagged Bob Dancer
When You’re No Longer Welcome
Let’s assume that your local casino has taken away your player’s card, meaning you can no longer receive most of the benefits from playing there. For the sake of today’s discussion, you are still allowed to play there without a card if you like. Further, assume that you insist on playing with an edge or […]
Storyworthy – A Worthy Book
Most of my articles relate somehow to gambling. This one doesn’t. Today is a rave review of a book I’ve recently read that has affected me deeply. I haven’t given up on writing about gambling. Just not today. I’m a fan of storytelling in the spirit of those told at The Moth, a storytelling group […]
What Would You Do?
In the 1970s, I was a backgammon player in Los Angeles. Decent enough player, but not great. One of the semi-regular players at the Cavendish West was a guy named Steve. Steve was a so-so intermediate player — but he cheated. After a while, word got out and he couldn’t get into a game because […]
A Scholarship Offer
In last week’s column, I reprinted a seven-year-old article I wrote about Edward Thorp saying that gambling is a tax on ignorance, which I would amend to being a tax on the ignorant and the lazy. Soon after I wrote that, John Chang (former long-time manager of the MIT blackjack team) appeared on GWAE and […]
A Tax on Ignorance
This article was originally published by me on July 24, 2012. Someone recently commented on it to me and I went back to check it out. I feel the article has stood up well over the past seven years and is worth revisiting, partly because many of my readers today weren’t readers way back then. […]
Take Care of Your Money
As I told you last week, I was recently reading Colin Jones’ new book, The 21st Century Card Counter, preparing to interview him for the GWAE podcast. Although Colin is addressing his comments towards blackjack players, a lot of the general information is useful to video poker players as well. Today’s column was inspired by […]
How Often Do You Test Yourself?
I was recently reading Colin Jones’ new book, The 21st Century Card Counter, preparing to interview him for the GWAE podcast. Colin has been on the show a number of times and runs the Blackjack Apprentice Group which teaches players how to win at blackjack. When referring to while he was running a blackjack team, […]
The Most Important Thing in Being a Successful ...
There are a number of aspects to being a successful video poker player. Let’s list the major ones: 1. Know how to play the game(s) competently. 2. Play the game(s) without making unnecessary errors. What I mean is that you’re able to concentrate and translate what you know into how you play. 3. Obtain and […]
Those Who Don’t Know History are Doomed to Repe...
The title quote is attributed to Edmund Burke, among others. But it applies to something that happened in Las Vegas recently. I didn’t see it all and there are parts of the story I don’t have, but the part I do have is plenty interesting. On Wednesday, July 17, I received a text from a […]
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