{"id":3920,"date":"2016-07-19T09:49:25","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T16:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=3920"},"modified":"2016-07-19T11:45:24","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T18:45:24","slug":"you-have-to-work-it-out-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/you-have-to-work-it-out-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"You Have to Work it Out Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get dozens of video poker emails a month from people I\u2019ve never met. Often the emails are similar to the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cI play Double Double Bonus. From a hand like KK773, I hold the kings and a friend tells me to hold two pair. Which is right?\u201d<\/p>\n

I typically answer that it\u2019s correct to hold two pair — and the answer would be easy to obtain using video poker software or by consulting a strategy card or Winner\u2019s Guide<\/i>. If they wish to get better at video poker, they need to be able to check these things out themselves.<\/p>\n

If I get a similar question from the same person, perhaps this time it might be, \u201cI play Double Double Bonus. From a 3-card royal and a high pair, I always hold the 3-card royal. A friend tells me to always hold the high pair. Which is correct?\u201d<\/p>\n

This time I answer that if you\u2019re playing a game where the flush pays 5 for 1, it\u2019s always better to hold the high pair. If you\u2019re playing a game where the flush pays 6 for 1, it\u2019s usually better to hold the high pair, but not always. You should check out the hands on a computer or consult a Winner\u2019s Guide<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Further, I inform him that it is not my role in life to answer questions he can easily find out through the use of computers and books. In addition, I\u2019ve noted his name and email address and will no longer respond to emails from him.<\/p>\n

Often the person writes back with an \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d Sometimes the person writes back and tells me what an arrogant, selfish, money-grubbing $%#@#!@ jerk I am. So be it. Although I attempt to treat people fairly, I don\u2019t feel that because someone bought a strategy card from me three years ago (and for which my \u201cprofit\u201d was probably $1 not including the hundreds of hours spent \u201cperfecting\u201d the card) I am obligated to be at their beck and call forever. Insulting me is not a good method for convincing me to continue as their \u201cAnswer Man.\u201d Occasionally these same people will continue to send emails, which I continue to ignore. Sometimes they have even asked the Las Vegas Advisor and\/or videopoker.com to forward their emails to me. They do get forwarded and I continue to ignore them.<\/p>\n

Video poker takes time to master. To get good at it, you need to study systematically. There are almost 2.6 million unique hands, but \u201conly\u201d about 5% of that many hands when you call the suits 1, 2, 3, and 4 instead of clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades. Why this makes a difference is because A\u2663 K\u2660 Q\u2660 T\u2665 3\u2660 will be played exactly the same as A\u2666 K\u2660 Q\u2660 T\u2663 3\u2660 or any of the 22 other ways you can have \u2018KQ3\u2019 of any suit 1, A of any suit 2, and T of any suit 3. (And yes, I\u2019m neglecting those rare games where a royal in spades pays differently than a royal in hearts, diamonds, or clubs.)<\/p>\n

The questions themselves were reasonable. You MUST learn the answers to them in order to play well. But a part of the process is being able to look them up for yourself. It\u2019s not a trivial task, but it isn\u2019t that hard either. And it\u2019s the kind of thing that gets easier the more you do it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a variety of software products available. I personally use Video Poker for Winners, WinPoker<\/i>, and Wolf Video Poker<\/i> — in addition to using the free tools available at wizardofodds.com. While there\u2019s a huge amount of overlap among these tools, each has a bit of functionality the others don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

To get good results using any of these tools requires some practice. At a minimum you should wallow around the program enough until you can find out how to play any hand, find the return on the game, practice with the program correcting your mistakes, and enter a new pay schedule into the software. That\u2019s at least 90% of what most players use the software for.<\/p>\n

For me, in addition to the above, I want to study the special cases where a simplified strategy doesn\u2019t play all the hands correctly to my standards. You certainly don\u2019t have to study to this degree, but the information is available if you do.<\/p>\n

If I always am there to answer these questions, it\u2019s a waste of my time and you never learn how to do it yourself. Call it \u201ctough love\u201d if you like, but you need to learn to look up these things yourself.<\/p>\n

I will continue to respond to occasional, polite emails and continue to ignore the ones that aren\u2019t so occasional and\/or not very polite. Helping you get started is part of what I do, on a pro bono<\/i> basis. Becoming your private tutor is an entirely different matter.<\/p>\n

Also, if you attend the free classes at the South Point on Wednesdays beginning August 10, we regularly go over there how to look up these things on the computer. If you\u2019re fuzzy on how to do it now, you\u2019ll be quite a bit more proficient after going to class.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get dozens of video poker emails a month from people I\u2019ve never met. Often the emails are similar to the following: \u201cI play Double Double Bonus. From a hand like KK773, I hold the kings and a friend tells me to hold two pair. Which is right?\u201d I typically answer that it\u2019s correct to […]<\/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":[29,2,6],"tags":[733,428,737,741,220,736,740,562,734,742,735,196,418,738,739],"yoast_head":"\nYou Have to Work it Out Yourself - Gambling With An Edge<\/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\/you-have-to-work-it-out-yourself\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"You Have to Work it Out Yourself - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I get dozens of video poker emails a month from people I\u2019ve never met. 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