{"id":5336,"date":"2017-02-28T09:45:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T17:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=5336"},"modified":"2017-03-01T14:48:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T22:48:01","slug":"youre-not-ready-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/youre-not-ready-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019re Not Ready Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Immediately after one of my classes at the South Point, a man, \u201cJoe,\u201d came up to me and asked if I would mentor him in becoming a professional video poker player. He told me he had plenty of bankroll and wanted to turbocharge his learning process. He had heard that I would do private consulting for $250 an hour with a two-hour minimum and that did not present a problem for him.<\/p>\n

I had another engagement after class, so we scheduled a lunch date for the near future. Although I have food comps at casinos, I preferred having the conversation at a local Applebee\u2019s where the chances of being overheard by other players was far less. I don\u2019t pay retail for food in Vegas very often, but this was one of those times.<\/p>\n

In the time before I met with Joe, I tried to figure out what kind of person I would be willing to mentor. Assuming he had the bankroll, I figured the main criteria were:<\/p>\n

a. His personality was acceptable to me. This isn\u2019t a particularly high bar to cross, but there are a few people I just don\u2019t enjoy hanging out with. I didn\u2019t want a long-term relationship with somebody like that.<\/p>\n

b. He was smart enough. Video poker is applied math. Not everybody is capable of learning it at a high level.<\/p>\n

c. He had some history of success at the game and could study on his own. When I\u2019m consulting with somebody two hours at a time, I don\u2019t really care how good they are when they come to me. I\u2019ll spend the two hours doing my best to improve their skill and knowledge level. But a mentoring relationship is a longer-term affair and spending dozens of hours while moving somebody from beginner to intermediate isn\u2019t how I want to spend my time.<\/p>\n

Okay. After Joe and I ordered lunch, I asked him where he lived and how he got his bankroll. I had spoken to Joe a few times previously and he passed the personality test, such as it is. He had sent me a number of emails over the past few years with questions and\/or suggestions for the Gambling with an Edge<\/em><\/strong> radio show. These emails led me to believe he was smart enough to succeed at this.<\/p>\n

Joe told me he was 49 years old, lived on the East Coast, and had recently inherited more than $2 million. He planned to retire from the Air Force Reserve in a few months and was looking at how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

Joe had listened to a number of the radio shows and it really sounded like I enjoyed my life more than he enjoyed his. Plus, he had read my Million Dollar Video Poker<\/em> <\/strong><\/a>autobiography and was fascinated with the life of a gambler. He decided he wanted to invest a portion of his inheritance, maybe $200,000, to see if he had the aptitude to maybe be the next Bob Dancer.<\/p>\n

I asked him how many of the Winner\u2019s Guides<\/em><\/strong><\/a> he had closely studied. He told me he had purchased a set but had yet to open them up. I asked him how much time he had spent with a computer program such as Video Poker for Winners<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. He told me he hadn\u2019t purchased a copy of that yet but it was next on his list.<\/p>\n

I told him he wasn\u2019t ready for mentoring yet. In the next six months, I suggested he learn two games at the professional level — perhaps Jacks or Better and NSU Deuces Wild. Using the Winner\u2019s Guides<\/em><\/strong> and the software, this wasn\u2019t such a formidable task. But neither was it a trivial one.<\/p>\n

Then, I wanted him to spend at least two weeks straight in Las Vegas or another casino city gambling 30 hours a week. At the end of that, if he still wanted me to mentor him, he knew how to get in touch with me. I would give him a test on the two games, and if he knew the games at a high level, we could revisit the mentoring idea.<\/p>\n

Joe was in love with the idea of being a gambler, but he hadn\u2019t had any actual experience. It\u2019s hard work to get to the professional level at one game — let alone two. Playing 60 hours will turn out to be a boring experience for many people.<\/p>\n

Video poker is a grind-it-out affair. It\u2019s one thing to be fascinated by what appears to be a glamorous life. It\u2019s another thing entirely to go through the process of getting good at some games and then successfully playing those games for 60 hours without going totally bonkers.<\/p>\n

Can Joe do this?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. If he can\u2019t, he was never going to be a success at gambling anyway. If he can master two games and still be interested in being mentored after some real-life experience, then at least he will be going into this with his eyes wide open rather than looking through the rose-colored glasses he seems to be wearing today.<\/p>\n

On one of our radio shows, Richard Munchkin told us that he periodically gets these kinds of requests from people wishing to learn blackjack. Richard tells them to learn basic strategy completely for four different games — i.e. with or without standing on soft 17 and with or without the ability to double after splitting. Once they know all four of these basic strategies, come back and see him again.<\/p>\n

Richard tells me he\u2019s never had somebody come back to him with these four strategies memorized.<\/p>\n

I guess Richard\u2019s experience influenced how I dealt with Joe. The task I gave Joe is more difficult than learning four basic strategies — each of which is more than 90% identical with the others. Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild are games very different from each other.<\/p>\n

Still, if Joe passes this test, he\u2019ll be a worthy student and I won\u2019t mind at all working with him.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immediately after one of my classes at the South Point, a man, \u201cJoe,\u201d came up to me and asked if I would mentor him in becoming a professional video poker player. He told me he had plenty of bankroll and wanted to turbocharge his learning process. 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