You Need the Right Tools

I was playing $5 NSU at Harrah’s Cherokee sometime last year. A man I didn’t know, who said his name was Archie, sat down next to me and started playing the $1 version of deuces wild on the same bank of machines.

He was dealt WWQJ3, where the W indicates a wild card (i.e., a deuce) and the bold italics indicate that all the cards were suited with each other. He looked at me and asked if he should hold all five cards (a flush) or maybe throw away the 3 and go for the wild royal flush. I told him I didn’t know for sure. I had never played that game before.

“Anybody who plays $5 deuces wild can play $1 deuces wild,” was his reply.

“It has nothing to do with denomination,” I told him. “At this casino, the $1 deuces wild pays 100 coins for wild royals and 60 coins for 5-of-a-kinds. The $5 deuces wild pays 125 coins and 80 coins for those same two pay schedule categories. The $1 version is more than 2% tighter and many hands are played differently between the two games. 

“The return on 5-of-a-kind isn’t a factor on this hand, but the return on the wild royal definitely is. 

“I’d need to study the $1 game to know how to play each hand,” I continued, “and since the game pays so little, I know I’m never going to play it in a casino. Why should I bother to study a game I’m not going to play?”

“But I don’t know how to play this hand,” Archie continued.

“Not my problem,” I told him. “I’m here to play my own game. I didn’t come to the casino today to help you play a terrible game.”

Five minutes later, he asked me about another hand. And then another a few minutes after that. After telling him twice more that I wasn’t there to help him, I didn’t even acknowledge his further questions. I cashed out and went to play on the opposite side of the bank of machines. If he followed, there were other $5 NSU machines elsewhere in the casino.

Later that day, Archie came back near me, but this time he had a couple of buddies with him. One of them had obtained a deuces wild strategy card and they were using that card to tell them how to play the hands. This was fine with me. They were not asking for my assistance.

The thing was, the deuces wild strategy card they were using must have been for a game called full pay deuces wild. This is a game where the pay schedule categories, from wild royals to flushes, pay 25, 15, 9, 5, 3, and 2. The machine they were on paid 20, 12, 10, 4, 4, and 3 for the same pay schedule categories. Nothing matched up! I’m guessing more than 20% of the hands were played differently between the two games. I didn’t actually see the card they were using. It might have been one they bought from me!

In addition, they had trouble figuring out how to read the card. The right number of gaps with straight flush draws takes some time to get correctly. These guys were trying to figure it out on the fly — and their results were predictable.

Using the wrong strategy card turned a 97.6% game into one that might have paid 96%, although this was probably better than not having the card and guessing all of the time. Plus using the card for every hand slowed them down so they weren’t playing many hands — which meant they weren’t losing quite so fast.

I didn’t say a thing to them. I could have told them they were using the wrong card, but from earlier experience with Archie I believed that saying anything would give him permission to start asking a lot of questions again. And I didn’t want that.

I don’t know how much they lost — but it’s certain that they did lose. Even with good pay schedules of deuces wild played well, if you don’t hit four deuces or a royal today, you’re going to have a losing session. And with only 100 coins for a wild royal and 60 coins for 5-of-a-kind, your score is going to be even worse. A royal would have locked the machine up and these guys would have whooped and hollered if they connected on four deuces. They didn’t.

The lessons were clear — at least to me. Play better games, use the correct strategy, and practice before you get to the casino. Still, if they guys were once-every-two-years players, and the money lost was small change for them, perhaps they went about it the right way. Studying might have ruined the fun for them, and studying makes more sense if you’re a more frequent player.