{"id":120804,"date":"2020-04-21T09:35:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T16:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=120804"},"modified":"2020-04-21T09:35:26","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T16:35:26","slug":"another-lesson-from-square-dancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Lesson from Square Dancing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve been writing these articles for more than 20 years and sometimes need to draw inspiration from all sorts of different places. Today\u2019s inspiration comes from square dancing — but the subject matter will soon shift to gambling successfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The square dance callers (the people who stand up in front of the dancers and tell them what to do) in Las Vegas are probably adequate. Nothing special. It\u2019s rare when one of our callers is paid to call somewhere else. At big conventions, when dancers from several states come together and dance to the best callers, our callers are never among those asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Periodically, however, we \u201cimport\u201d callers from elsewhere for a dance or two. Recently, before the virus shut things down, Michael Kellogg (my favorite caller — but opinions vary), who\u2019s based in Southern California, came to town to call a Friday night general dance and a Saturday afternoon advanced dance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the advanced dance, we had 22 dancers show up. Since it takes eight dancers (four couples) to make a square, we had two squares while six dancers sat out for eight minutes.\u00a0 We then rotated and another six dancers sat out. Then we all took a 10-minute break.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kellogg needed to teach several calls simply because the Las Vegas callers don\u2019t do a good job of covering all the possible calls at a given level. I knew 95% of what he was teaching — which put me among the better dancers. Some of the dancers knew less than 50%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it was Bonnie\u2019s and my turn to sit out, we pulled up chairs near the floor and paid attention to what Kellogg was teaching. This guy clearly had something to say. I never knew if he\u2019d say something I didn\u2019t know until I actually heard it. So, I listened to everything. I am undoubtedly one of the most knowledgeable dancers locally, but still I hung on every word because I wished to become better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When other dancers had to sit out for eight minutes, most of them went into another room to chat — about whatever. They would only put up with so much learning during the day. If they weren\u2019t physically dancing, they couldn\u2019t see the value of trying to learn something. They couldn\u2019t see the value of refreshing their knowledge to brush up on something that they might have forgotten — or never known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s switch to video poker now. Many players are like these square dancers. They study a little. Get to 98% accuracy. And then stop studying. They want to win. Some even practice on computer software occasionally. But until they demonstrate a willingness to continue to study, they will likely never be winning players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clint Black sings in a song that, \u201cLove isn\u2019t something that we find, it\u2019s something that we do.\u201d The same goes with winning at gambling. You don\u2019t get to a winning level and then stop thinking about it. The practice and study must be a career-long commitment if mastery of this is your goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I signed up recently at masterclass.com, which I\u2019ll write more about later, where a whole lot of famous people give a course about the subject they know best. I\u2019ve taken six of the courses so far (which average about 15 hours each), and EVERY ONE talks about how getting good is a lifetime commitment. You have to practice, practice, practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I accept that hard work is the price at being excellent at something. I\u2019m always surprised at those who think \u201cwishing it were so\u201d can take the place of working at it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t seem like such a complicated concept, but perhaps it is to many people.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been writing these articles for more than 20 years and sometimes need to draw inspiration from all sorts of different places. Today\u2019s inspiration comes from square dancing — but the subject matter will soon shift to gambling successfully. The square dance callers (the people who stand up in front of the dancers and tell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Another Lesson from Square Dancing by Bob Dancer","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2],"tags":[428,196],"yoast_head":"\nAnother Lesson from Square Dancing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Another Lesson from Square Dancing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve been writing these articles for more than 20 years and sometimes need to draw inspiration from all sorts of different places. Today\u2019s inspiration comes from square dancing — but the subject matter will soon shift to gambling successfully. The square dance callers (the people who stand up in front of the dancers and tell […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lasvegasadvisor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-21T16:35:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-04-21T16:35:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\",\"name\":\"Gambling With An Edge\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":300,\"caption\":\"bob dancer's weekly column\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/\",\"name\":\"Another Lesson from Square Dancing\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-04-21T16:35:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-04-21T16:35:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/another-lesson-from-square-dancing\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Another Lesson from Square Dancing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\",\"name\":\"Bob Dancer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Bob Dancer\"},\"description\":\"Video Poker Expert\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/author\/bob-dancer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120806,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120804\/revisions\/120806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}