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<\/p>\nI 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.<\/p>\n
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?”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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.)<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
For the record, these are the types of hands I would play differently in 9\/6 BPD than in 9\/6 JoB:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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\u2663 J\u2663 9\u2665 8\u2666 3\u2663. Did she distinguish between that hand and hand ‘b’ in the chart? I didn’t know.<\/p>\n
Or how about A\u2665 J\u2660 Q\u2666 T\u2666 8\u2666? The proper play is AJQT in both games. Did she distinguish between this hand and hand ‘e’ above? Again, I didn’t know.<\/p>\n
Or in hand ‘g’, if the 6\u2666 were the 6\u2660, it would change the JoB play but not the BPD play. Did she care?<\/p>\n
Or did she consider Q\u2663 J\u2663 T\u2665 9\u2666 9\u2663? 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!<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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?”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2,3,7,6],"tags":[430,681,205,684,680,683,214,682,263,196],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
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