Legally, I need glasses to operate a car. Barely. In Nevada, you need to be 20-40 in both eyes (if you have two eyes) to drive without corrective lenses. My eyes are 20-40 in one eye and 20-60 in the other. I see better in the daytime than I do when it’s dark. I’m confident I can drive safely — but if I get pulled over for something, I might have an additional problem if I’m not wearing glasses.
Continue reading A Search for GlassesAuthor: Bob Dancer
How Do You Do This?
A player, “Joe,” wrote a mailbag question to [email protected], and I decided to answer it here rather than on the air.
It seems that this player has found a 99.8% video blackjack game among a bank of machines with much tighter blackjack games and bad video poker pay schedules.
Continue reading How Do You Do This?Comparing 9/6 Double Double Bonus with 9/6 Triple Double Bonus
I participate on the videopoker.com forum. On this forum, there are many recreational players. Some regularly go back and forth between Double Double Bonus (DDB) and Triple Double Bonus (TDB).
The games are not the same at all. To compare them, I had to pick pay schedules. I picked the second-best pay schedule in each case: 9/6 DDB returns 98.98% when played well and 9/6 TDB returns only 98.15%.
Continue reading Comparing 9/6 Double Double Bonus with 9/6 Triple Double BonusA Look at Double Double Bonus Poker Plus
Perhaps this is a very old game, but I just saw it for the first time recently. It looked interesting, so I thought I’d analyze it.
I was playing $5 NSU Deuces at Harrah’s Cherokee and had just hit four deuces for a $5,000 jackpot. Always nice, but it’s a once-every-5,356-hands event on average, so it’s not all that rare.
Continue reading A Look at Double Double Bonus Poker PlusIs This a Good Deal?
I’ve had a relationship with Anthony Curtis for more than 25 years. Mostly it’s a business relationship, but over the years we’ve also become friends of sorts. Not best friends, but friends nonetheless.
I received a telephone call from him at about eight o’clock one Saturday evening recently. I took the call, of course, but this was a surprise. I would definitely not be his first choice on a call like, “Hey, I’ve got an extra ticket to the Raiders game tomorrow. You interested?”
Continue reading Is This a Good Deal?One Time I Made a Deal
A few weeks ago, I posted a blog about not making an agreement with a player I didn’t know. (Did you notice that that blog was the first time I used an interrobang‽) That reminded me of a time I did make a deal. It wasn’t a deal where I had the advantage, but it was a deal to reduce variance.
It was at the Palms when it was still owned by the Maloofs. Perhaps 2007 or 2008, I’m not sure.
Continue reading One Time I Made a DealWould This Be a Better Strategy?
Assume you’re playing 9/6 Jacks or Better and you’re still at the stage in your playing career where you need to regularly consult a strategy card. You’re dealt 2♠ 3♥ 4♣ 6♦ 9♠.
Experienced players know you throw all five cards away. But this is not an experienced player we’re talking about. This is a beginner — at least to this game. At least to the ranks of players who play using a computer-generated rule. The unsuited 2346, a 4-card inside straight with no high cards, is held in some games. Such a player might well ask: “Is this particular 4-card inside straight held in this game?”
Continue reading Would This Be a Better Strategy?An Opportunity or a Predicament?
It’s been a long time since I addressed this subject. The opportunity to actually do it hasn’t happened recently, so you should know that the situation I’m about to describe is fictitious, not factual. Still, the situation does happen periodically and knowing how to handle it when it does happen is worthwhile.
I’m playing $2 NSU at the South Point and a lady next to me is playing $1 9/6 Double Double Bonus. She’s dealt A♦ J♦ 3♦ Q♦ K♦. She doesn’t know me, but since I’m playing my game rapidly (by her standards) she assumes I’m knowledgeable and she asks me whether she should hold four or five cards?
Continue reading An Opportunity or a Predicament?Why is There a Difference?
You’re playing dollar Double Double Bonus with progressives on both the royal and aces with a kicker (AWAK). On the hands we’re going to talk about today, the only thing that matters are quads and full houses, so assume AWAK pays $2,200 and a full house pays $45. If you’re not familiar with the game, trips pay $15 and aces with the fifth card not being a 2, 3, or 4 pay $800.
I’ll start with the three hands in question, where suits don’t matter:
- AAA45
- AAA44
- AAA43
Video Poker and The Golden Rule
According to Wikipedia, “The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one wants to be treated. It is a maxim that is found in most religions and cultures. It can be considered an ethic of reciprocity in some religions, although different religions treat it differently.”
I’m not here to debate religion. Consider, however, the following:
- A juicy promotion begins at midnight. There are only a few machines that pay well during that promotion. This means only a very few players will get to play the good machines during the promotion, and most will be shut out. You get to one of those machines at 6 p.m. and play the machine slowly. This guarantees you will get to play the desirable machine and others won’t. After midnight you play much faster.
- Perhaps the same situation as above, perhaps a different one. You make a deal with another player to “take over” your machine while you sleep, and then give it back to you. Eight to ten hours later, you return the favor. This keeps the machine “in the family,” and others who want to play it, can’t.
- It’s a drawing with physical tickets. You’re a proponent of the theory that folding the tickets before putting them into the barrel gives you a better-than-strictly-random chance to win. But anything that increases the odds in your favor, decreases the odds of other players.
- A restaurant where you get comped meals has the policy that on your birthday, you get a free piece of Death by Chocolate cake, with forks for everybody else in your party so you can share. You claim about four birthdays a year at each restaurant that has a policy like this. This dishonesty reduces the profits of the restaurant owner for your benefit.
- At one casino, playing $20,000 coin-in a month maximizes the benefits you receive. You obtain ten multiple IDs and have a player’s card in each of them. This way, you can get far more benefits from this casino than the casino had designed.
- A casino ends a multiple point promotion at midnight, but so long as your card is inserted prior to midnight and remains inserted, you continue to get multiple points long after the promotion is intended to conclude.
- You believe that casinos are sleazy organizations and don’t deserve to be treated honestly. So, you look for ways to cheat them.
- Someone has left $20 worth of credits on a machine. You insert a $100 bill into the machine, play a few hands, and cash out for $115.
- There are only a few “good” machines available on a progressive bank. You want them for your friends. So you bring out foul smelling cigars and begin to smoke them in the vicinity. When other players leave in disgust, your friends sit down, and nobody smokes anymore.
- A floor supervisor taps you on the shoulder and asks if the $100 bill on the floor behind you belongs to you. In truth, you have no way of knowing. But your answer is, of course, “It must be. I pulled money out of my pocket and must have dropped that one. Thank you!”
- You’re too sick to go to work and expose people you know to your illness, but not too sick to go to a casino and expose strangers.
- You are dealt three aces and hold them, except you know you didn’t hold the third ace firmly. You draw the fourth ace, but the third ace “unholds.” Even though you know it’s your own fault, you call the slot supervisor over anyway and complain about stick buttons.