Author: Bob Dancer

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Counting the Same Thing Twice

I received some emails from a player, call him “Sam,” who was trying to talk himself into playing 8/5 Double Double Bonus Poker Multi Strike, a game that returns 97.07% when played well. It returns far less than that for most players because the game requires four separate strategies to play correctly.

As most of you know, Multi Strike is a game where you pay 20 coins for four lines before you start. If you get no score on the bottom line, the hand is over. You’re out 20 coins.

Should you at least get your money back on the bottom line, you get to play the second line at double stakes “for free.” It’s not actually free. It’s simply that you’ve already paid for it.  Five of the coins you initially paid go for playing the second line, which happens about half the time, at double payoffs.

Score on this line and you get to play the third line at 4x. Score on the bottom three lines and you get to play the top line at 8x. Each of these two lines were pre-paid, five coins at a time. Periodically, to make the math work, you get a free ride on one or more of the lines which allows you to move up to the next higher line whether you score on the current line or not.

Sam had read enough of my writings to know that I would not be a fan of a game that paid so little. You can play it if you want, but for me, the game plus the slot club, plus the various promotions must exceed 100% to be playable.

However, Sam argued, if he hit a royal on the second line, he’d get $2,000. On the third line this was worth $4,000. And on the top line, the royal was worth $8,000. Surely, he argued, those big numbers would boost the 97.07% payout. Couldn’t that boost be enough to make the game worthwhile?

The answer is ‘no.’ Those rare hits are already included in the 97.07% figure. One or more of those jackpots could make you a winner today, but when you don’t hit them (which is far more likely), you’re going to be losing at a much faster rate than you’re used to. It’s not 97.07% PLUS the royals. It’s 97.07% INCLUDING the royals.

Another factor is taxes. The tax law is different today than it was a few years ago. W2Gs are the same now as they used to be, but for many recreational players who used to itemize, the standard deduction is now high enough so that itemization doesn’t make financial sense. And if you are in that category, W2Gs are taxable.

The only time you can “write them off” is if you itemize, and there are so many things that are no longer deductible. The math behind itemization has totally changed. The first $20,000 or so worth of W2Gs each year are far more taxable than they were a few years ago.

Therefore, playing a game that generates extra W2Gs is a game to be avoided unless you play enough that you’re going to get a lot those jackpots. So, a quarter Multi Strike game should be less desirable this year than last. The same conclusion applies to Ultimate X and other games involving multipliers.

Keep in mind that I’m not a tax expert and my explanations here are simplified. See your tax professional for guidance.

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How Would I Attack It?

A friend lives near the Hollywood Casino in Toledo, Ohio. In October and November, they ran a Thursday food drive promotion with the following features:

  1. On Thursdays, everyone who brings a non-perishable food item spins for $5 – $500 free play.
  2. Top five donators by weight every Thursday spin for between $100 – $500 free play.
  3. Top donator by weight for entire nine Thursdays from October 4 – November 29 period receives $5,000 in free play.
  4. See the player’s club for details.

In 2017, the casino totaled 8,000 pounds for the entire two-month promotional period.

For October of this year, the casino averaged 3,000 pounds of food a week among all players — which means 12,000 pounds while the promotion is only 4/9 of the way through. My friend said he could get canned food for 29 cents a pound and had a friend with a pickup truck who was willing to help out. His questions to me were: If this were me, would I “go for it” and what would be my strategy?

He also told me I could write about the promo after it was over, but he didn’t want me to encourage anybody else to compete against him.

First, I told him I wanted to see a copy of the rules. He told me he went to the club and they didn’t have any rules and were surprised that anybody would ask for rules on something this simple.

But it’s not so simple. I would like to see a better definition of “non-perishable.” Some things are obviously perishable or non-perishable. But what about flour? Dried beans? Other grains? Without an exhaustive search, on the Internet I found all-purpose flour in 50-pound bags where you needed to buy 50 or more bags at once to get the price of about 23 cents a pound. If this was going to be accepted, I might buy 50 bags and take them in over two or three Thursdays. But if they were going to be rejected as qualifying for the promotion, spending $600 for something essentially useless to me wouldn’t be smart.

On one Thursday I might bring in a two-pound bag of flour and see if that counted. If it did, I might “make my play.”

Second, I’d want some information on how much the “big players” were bringing in. Assuming I was going to bring in a few thousand pounds over the promotion, I wanted to have a good idea if that would be a winner. I suggested going to a pit boss or security guard and asking a question such as, “Has anybody ever brought in as much as 25 pounds?” The answer might be revealing. Asking about “only” 25 pounds might get you information without revealing that you were considering bringing in considerably more than that.

If you find out that one guy was bringing in 800 pounds a week, then this might be too expensive of a promotion to try to win.

If you bring in 2,000 pounds a week for five weeks in a row, you’ll definitely win some of the smaller prizes along the way. A few $500 prizes can help out a lot in financing your entries.

At the same time, word will spread among the other “big players,” and if they can predict how much you’ll bring in, they might well bring in just enough to beat you. Therefore, bringing in 1,000 pounds a week for four weeks and 6,000 pounds on the fifth week might be a better strategy.

The casino probably did not figure that someone would be bringing in the same type of food in great abundance. They probably figured they’d get a variety of food-types which would be appreciated by local food banks or whatever other charities this food drive was supporting.

It could well be that after the first or second week, they would institute a “Flour is no longer accepted” rule. Printed rules typically have a disclaimer such as “Management reserves all rights to change or modify these rules at its sole discretion.” Presumably unprinted rules give management even more discretion. It could easily occur that the first printed rules show up AFTER management has decided to limit certain items. Depending on your backlog at the point they enforced this rule, this could be expensive.

Let’s say your next-cheapest option is cans of generic-quality corn. After a ton or two of the same corn, a “No more corn” rule could also be added to the list.

My friend took a wait-and-see approach, considering possibly “coming out of nowhere” and bringing in 5,000 pounds the last week. Checking with a pit boss three weeks before the end, it seemed like one player had already brought in close to 6,000 pounds and that player only had a small edge over the second-place guy. Now it looked like 10,000 pounds minimum might be required, and who’s to say that would be enough? My friend backed out of the competition without even entering. I have no knowledge of the final numbers, obviously, because I’m publishing this a few days before the November 29 final collection day.

I don’t know the players in Toledo. Were this promotion in Vegas, I’m confident that a number of players would “go for it,” probably with ideas I haven’t even considered. There are a lot more gambling pros and semi-pros in Las Vegas who attack things strategically than there are in cities where casinos are a very small part of the economy.

It’s not that people in Las Vegas are inherently smarter than those in other places — in fact I’d suspect the opposite for many communities — it’s just that Las Vegas has a much bigger sub-community of gambling professionals than most other places. These people (including me) may well not be particularly bright at figuring out important things in life, but we are good at figuring out how to take money out of a casino.

If it turns out that 10,000 pounds is enough to win this contest in Toledo, it could well be that twice that number is required for the same promotion in Las Vegas. This is an important consideration. When you compete in such a promotion, you don’t want to be bringing a knife to a gunfight. There is only one $5,000 prize. It’s very expensive to come in second place.

An interesting caveat: Let’s say it’s one week to go, you’re tied with somebody else for the lead, and you’ve already spent $6,500 to buy the food you’re giving away. Assuming you cannot (or will not) enter into a deal with your competition, it can make a lot of sense to spend another $3,000 to try to win.

If you do win, you will have spent $9,500 and won $5,000 for a $4,500 loss. If you spend nothing the last week, you will not win and will have lost $6,500. Losing $4,500 is a lot better than losing $6,500.

One thing that is certain is that anybody who finds out you spent $9,500 and only won $5,000 will tell you what an idiot you are. They will “patiently” explain that it makes no sense to spend more than you can possibly win.

Except they’d be wrong. The “original” minus $6,500 score is irrelevant. If spending another $3,000 will gain you $5,000, it’s money well spent. But don’t try to explain that to a ploppy.

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My Experience with Gaming — Part II of II

In last week’s blog, I laid out the nature of my beef with the Rainbow Casino. I was basically fighting over whether I could have someone play off $2,400 in free play — or get a check for $1,200. Whether my case had any merits or not, this was too small to involve a lawyer.

I called up the Gaming Control Board and told them I had a complaint. An agent listened and said that if I wished to go forward with the matter I could come down to the office and fill out the paperwork. I told him I’d be down the next day.

The Nevada GCB here in Las Vegas is located off of Las Vegas Boulevard at Washington, which is in the downtown area, immediately north of Cashman Field. It’s in a building housing a number of other governmental agencies.

The night before I went to the office, I spent considerable time writing out exactly what I wanted and why I felt I was entitled to it. I had been led to believe that whatever I wrote down the next day was basically all I got to say before the decision was rendered. So, I wanted to give it my best shot. I suspect they would have written the report for me if I was not capable of doing so, but I believe I can better present my own argument for myself — given it’s too small to justify hiring an attorney.

I saw the same agent I had spoken to on the phone the day before and he brought me a form to fill out. I told him I thought I would need five or six sheets of paper and he provided them.

After I finished writing up my report, the agent read it. He surprisingly advised me to take the $1,200 and not ask to gamble with the $2,400. He told me it was possible I would end up with less than $1,200 and then I’d feel so bad. I didn’t tell him the game was available for quarters and if you play $2,400 coin-in for quarters on NSU, it’s basically impossible to end up with less than $2,000 — let alone $1,200.

I didn’t think it was in my interest to make it obvious that I was an experienced player. I thanked him for his suggestion and told him I’d prefer to take my chances.

The agent asked if I were an advantage player and then added that it really didn’t matter if I was or wasn’t. I didn’t know if I was on the record or not, so I said I wasn’t a beginner and let the matter drop.

I was then told the GCB would investigate the complaint and issue a ruling within 45 days. If both parties accepted the ruling, that would be it. If either side wished to appeal the ruling, the appeal would be held in a hearing room that was within the same complex of offices.

The ruling came back in about 30 days, basically denying all parts of my claim. The casino was ordered to pay me $1,200 by check within two weeks. While I’m writing this before the two-week period has expired and I haven’t received the check yet, I’m not expecting that to be an issue.

The decision listed several findings it had made, including mentioning that I was no longer allowed on the property. Many of those findings were clearly made after talking to casino employees. Several were different than what I remembered happening. I also recognized that I didn’t record the conversations, and it would be a form of “he said-she said” to figure out what actually happened.

I considered appealing — if only to make this into a three-part blog rather than just a two-parter. After all, whatever happens at the GCB is generally interesting to my readers and the listeners to my podcast.

The bottom line in my decision to not appeal was that I didn’t think I had a case. If you focus on the right part of the slot club rules, it’s clear that I only get 50% if I redeem the points in cash and the casino was within its rights to refuse to let me play the points off. Those rules were “hidden in plain sight,” but they were there, nonetheless.

While I could force the system to chug along and rule absolutely that I wasn’t going to get my way, I believed that eventual ruling was essentially a certainty. The idea of going through the appeal just to have more to talk about in this blog or on the podcast strikes me as more selfish than I like to view myself. I basically am doing nothing, which means I accept the ruling.

Still, I find it useful to have gone through this process. Someday I may well need to go through it again and there are advantages to having gone through it previously.

After I wrote this, I did get the check and deposited it. An agent from the GCB, Kevin Smith, called and asked me to call him back on a personal matter. I did, and he just wanted to verify that I had received the check.

I asked him why he had referred to this as a personal matter. After all, this sounds like ordinary GCB work. He told me that he couldn’t know who would listen to that message, and didn’t wish to be broadcasting that I had just received a check that would be considered large by many people. So he called it a personal matter.

Makes sense. I’m the only one who listens to that voicemail — but he couldn’t know that. I appreciate his extra care.

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My Experience with Gaming — Part I of II

The Nevada Gaming Control Board is charged with, among other things, arbitrating disputes between patrons and casinos. I have known about them for years but have never had any direct dealings with them until recently. This blog is about my recent incident.

In many ways, it’s surprising that I’ve had no previous disputes. I know of video poker pros who have dealt with them dozens of times because they believe that the casinos are always trying to cheat them. Others I know regularly take an “it’s the principle of the thing” approach and seek redress for the smallest slights.

To me, there’s a cost associated with going to the GCB. Winning a decision can lead the casino to decide you’re a trouble maker and no longer welcome your action. And any employee involved in that decision may soon work for another casino causing your “unwelcome” to spread without further incident. So, to me, the GCB is going to be a last resort when I’m essentially “out the door” anyway and am concerned with how much I get to take out the door with me.

If it’s a big enough dispute, I’m probably going to talk with attorney Bob Nersesian for advice on how to proceed — or possibly even representing me. He’s knowledgeable enough and good enough that even after paying his fee I’ll be money ahead by letting him take care of it. While there are other attorneys I could call, he’s been on my podcast about two dozen times and we have a personal relationship.

But the case that led me to contact the GCB fell into the sweet spot in that it was large enough to fight over, I was not going to be able to play in the casino again whether I went to GCB or not, and it was too small to call in Nersesian. So, I did it myself.

Here’s what happened:

Someone told me the Rainbow casino in downtown Henderson had $5 NSU and some players were getting several hundred dollars a week in mailers. Since the game starts out at 99.73%, this was worth checking out. With any kind of a slot club at all, this was likely to be a positive play.

I never found the $5 machines. But I did find dollar five play machines where you could bet up to 20 coins per line. That is, I could bet $100 per play on a game where I probably had the edge.

The slot club remains a mystery to me. They have tier levels. You can redeem points for free play or cash, at different rates depending on your tier level. Therefore, I decided that I’d let my points stay unredeemed for a while because I would rather redeem them at the top rate instead of for only half that much. (It turned out I misunderstood the slot club — more about that later.) For August and September (the two months I played) there were 10x comp dollars on Sundays and Fridays.

The comp rate appeared to be a rather miniscule 0.033%, but 10x comps turns that into 0.33% and you add that to 99.73% and you’re very slightly positive. If you get mailers, this is a play.

Each royal was $16,000 (I never hit one of those), and each time I hit four deuces I earned $4,000. (I received several sets.) You also would get W2Gs for dealt quints ($1,600 — every 4,165 dealt hands) and dealt wild royals ($2,500 — every 5,415 hands).

Some of the $4,000 sets of deuces came with a lot more money. If I were dealt three deuces, for example, and connected on one of them, on each of the other four lines I’d get a quad ($80), straight flush ($200), quint ($320), or wild royal ($500). This happened several times.

The deal breaker was when I was dealt four deuces, a 54,144-to-1 hand that paid $20,000. I hit it shortly before Bonnie and I went on a month-long vacation. I hoped that staying away for a month would save my welcome.

Not to be. When I returned, my card wouldn’t work. No big surprise, really. But I had accumulated a number of points and if they were going to kick me out, I wanted my accumulated money before I left. In round numbers we were talking about $2,400.

I was told to call up Billy Paganetti, who owned the Peppermill in Reno as well as the Rainbow, and I could discuss this with him.

Being trespassed from a casino has been mentioned on at least 30 of our podcasts. I am very familiar with this concept. I was NOT trespassed. I was told I wasn’t welcome to play the machines, but I was not told that I was not welcome on the premises.

After a brief bit of phone tag, Mr. Paganetti cut to the chase and said that the slot club would have let me redeem $2,400 in free play had I actually collected it at the casino.  If I now wanted cash, it was only going to be $1,200 because I was at the Chairman level. Had I been at a lower level, it would only have been $800 in cash. He agreed to cut me a check for $1,200 and said I’d have it in the mail within a week.

I believed that I should get more. The boothlings (who were also cage workers) had not been informative about the slot club and I had just earned Chairman level. I believed (incorrectly, it turned out) that leaving my points in the club until I reached Chairman would allow me to redeem them at a higher rate. That would be true if I wanted cash. For free play, the redemption rate did not vary by tier level.

For a variety of reasons, I decided to take my beef to Gaming. I believed that I should have been able to transfer my points to somebody and let him play them off rather than be forced to accept the 50% rate. Mr. Paganetti said, “That’s your right and we’ll wait until we hear from Gaming before we cut the check.”

Next week I’ll explain more of what happened.

Before you head out to the Rainbow, it is my understanding that they have removed the NSU games. They have also removed two games returning more than NSU that I didn’t find. And I was not the only player booted. If you want to check it out anyway, knock yourself out.

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What Now?

Las Vegas casinos have become more aggressive at booting video poker players than they used to be. A number of pros and semi-pros, including myself, are down to a small number of places where they can play unrestricted. Or sometimes, play at all. Some players have no places left in town that welcome their action and have taken to regular trips out of town — or even out of state — so that they can still play.

So, what now?

A friend of mine suggested that I form a group and teach others to do what I do in return for a percentage of their action. That way I could capitalize on my knowledge even though I cannot physically play in many places.

I don’t think that would work for several reasons.

First, I have already written about a high percentage of my “tricks of the trade.” People who can learn from me, for the most part, already have. Or even if they haven’t learned yet, hundreds of my articles and podcasts are readily available. In general, you can’t sell what you’ve already given away for free. I still have occasional students come in and buy a few hours of private tutoring, but that isn’t nearly enough to support me.

Another problem with that idea is that most of my discoveries of profitable situations have been found while in the casino searching for the holes. No two casinos are identical. No two slot clubs are the same. And often the techniques that worked in a particular place six months ago are no longer available today. You must be in the casino working the promotions to find out that at this moment, four separate promotions are in affect at one time — and two of them are particularly lucrative. And to notice while in that casino, they don’t enforce this particular thing. And to hear scuttlebutt about what’s coming down the line at a third casino. And to find out that the theoretical on a certain bank of machines has been mis-set in the players’ favor. Or notice that a typo in the rules allows a one-off situation that will expire as soon as the casino realizes someone is exploiting it. If I’m not actively in a casino trying to beat it, I simply will not know enough about the current possibilities.

Another option is to talk the casino into allowing me to play under certain conditions. I’ve had some success with this, but more failures than successes. Every situation is different. Sometimes I can convince the General Manger that there are some extenuating circumstances that warrant reconsideration. Often the GM is simply not at all interested in changing his mind, whatever I say.

Sometimes it might make sense to continue to play, subject to whatever restrictions the casino has instituted. If you’ve been trespassed or told “Don’t play video poker no matter what!” then continuing to play is not an intelligent option. But a lesser restriction, such as “no mailers” and/or “no multipliers,” might still be beatable. It’s hard enough to eke out even a small edge when you get all the benefits, but sometimes it’s still possible with one hand tied behind your back.

Note that in the previous circumstance, the casino will likely be watching you. The first restriction was intended to get you to stop playing there, or maybe only to be able to play and lose. If you demonstrate that you can still play and win, further restrictions may just be around the corner. Getting lucky immediately after a partial restriction may end up being costly. If you take a month or two off and then come back and get lucky, sometimes you are allowed to continue to play.

A totally different option is to go down in stakes. There are very possibly several places where you could play for quarters or dollar single line where you would be welcome to play. The win-per-hour isn’t as good as where you are no longer welcome to play (otherwise it would have been on your list of places to play in the first place), but maybe it’s still enough.

For some folks, playing with an edge is not as important as playing. (This will never be me.) In general, folks like this generally won’t be excluded in the first place. Although these folks can hit some big jackpots and get thrown out by casinos who don’t understand the winning process, generally these players are recognized as profitable assets by the casino and allowed to play and lose.

A more drastic option is to retire from playing video poker. This can entail shifting to a different gambling game or perhaps giving up gambling altogether.  Although I’m personally nowhere near doing this, everyone has to make this choice for him or herself.

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How Do You Approach It?

I’m always on the lookout for non-video poker situations that I can turn into video poker teaching moments. It’s the only way I can continue to produce a weekly column after all these years.

As I mentioned in a recent column, Bonnie and I were cruising for three weeks and this happened while our ship was docked in Halifax, which is in Nova Scotia, Canada. Although on this evening, we could stay on shore until 6:30, we had enough fun much earlier than that and were sitting down to a dinner at Moderno, a restaurant on the ship. This is a Brazilian all-you-can eat steakhouse, where they keep bringing you about ten different kinds of meats until you’ve had enough.

First-time diners need some instruction about where the salad bar is, which meats are coming, and how you signal whether you want more food or are finished. Or perhaps not exactly finished but need to digest for a while before beginning again. It’s not particularly difficult, but there are some “house rules” so that everybody is on the same page.

Our server was Rita from Indonesia. When she gave us the information, she spoke rapidly with a strong accent and some mispronunciations. Listening intently, I caught about one-third of what she was saying. Bonnie and I were among the earliest diners, and I saw and heard her repeat this performance at two nearby tables over the next half hour. What was interesting to me is that each of the three tables handled it differently. I found it easy to compare the approaches with video poker players I have observed.

At one table, the woman berated her for not speaking better English and said that non-English-speaking immigrants created one of the biggest problems within the US these days and it made her very angry. Never mind that this happened in Canada on a ship with less than 10% of its employees from the United States. In addition, the Norwegian Dawn spent most of its time in International waters.

At the next table, the people just nodded and then rose to go get their salads. It’s unlikely these people understood everything Rita was saying because I saw the husband and wife looking at each other during Rita’s dissertation with expressions that indicated utter confusion. But they weren’t going to let that stop them. Time to eat!

At our table, I asked Rita to slow down and repeat what she just said. After two additional iterations of this, I was pretty sure I understood what she was saying. Bonnie still appeared to be in the dark, but I indicated to her that we should go get salads and I’d explain the rest while we were grazing on the lettuce and other vegetables. Which I did.

Okay. So how does this relate to video poker?

The table where the lady (rudely, in my opinion) berated Rita for not knowing better English reminded me of players who only know one game and when that game is not available any more get very angry about it. These people believe they deserve certain conditions and if the casinos remove those conditions, it’s because the casinos are greedy bastards.

It is definitely true that video poker conditions are less advantageous than they were several years ago. It is also true that opportunities still exist for the ones who can find and exploit them. If you are too busy complaining that things aren’t just how you want them, you’ll miss seeing the good deals that still exist.

At the table where the couple was ready to figure it out as they went, this reminded of players who don’t take the time to learn the ins and outs of the strategy and slot club before they begin. It’s expensive to play that way.

If video poker is a very minor part of your life and the sums you play for are minor to you, this methodology makes sense. It takes time and energy to become competent at this game and for many, it’s just not worth it.

It probably should also be noted that dining optimally at Moderno is much simpler than gambling optimally in a casino. So in this case, the “figure it out as we go” approach might indeed have been perfectly acceptable, although it’s not the approach I personally use. Perhaps this is because I think linearly and I’m not as intuitive as some others are.

It shouldn’t surprise you that I prefer the way of gaining information Bonnie and I used. After all, if I didn’t think it was best, I wouldn’t have done it that way.

Our way was to gently ask questions until at least one of us understood and then help each other if one of us learned faster than the other. As it turned out, Bonnie caught something I missed and so we both learned some things over salad.

The edges available in casinos are very small these days even for the most knowledgeable of players. If playing with an advantage is important to you, you must exploit every opportunity to figure out how to do it.

It can be argued that using the same approach at dinner that I use in a casino is a case of “if your only tool is a hammer then everything looks like a nail,” but we enjoyed the dinner, nonetheless.

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Learning a Second Game — Part II of II  

Last week I began a discussion of learning NSU Deuces Wild once you already knew 9/6 Jacks or Better. If you missed that article, it’s not hard to find.

If you’re going to or from a game covered by the Dancer/Daily Winners’ Guide series, that’s by far the most efficient place to start. You can learn the games systematically and completely by using those guides. It shortens the learning process considerably as much of the heavy lifting is done for you.

So, however you did it, we’ve reached the stage where you have a decent strategy and you know how to read it. It’s now time to practice, practice, practice on the computer.

How long do you need to practice on the computer? It depends on how good you want to get and how good of a student you are. If you wish to play at the professional level (which will be true for a small percentage of you), you need to practice until your accuracy level is in the 99%+ range — at least. If your goal is to play the game reasonably well, then a lower accuracy level will suffice.

If this is truly the second game you’ve tried to learn (which is what the article presumes, but lots of people reading the article will not be in that exact place), you will need to study considerably more than if this is the 15th game you’ve learned. The more games you know, the more you’ll find cases where “this game now is just like that game.” But if you don’t have that depth, and none of us did when we started, it’s going to take more study.

Different computer products have different learning tools built in. In Video Poker for Winners, you can ask the computer to show you hands at the Beginner level, the Intermediate level, and the Advanced level. It allows you to get better without becoming overwhelmed by being confronted with the most difficult hands at the start.

In WinPoker, there is a “Hard Hands” section. You can set it for whatever difference you wish between the correct play and the second-best play. If you set it for 3¢ while playing NSU, for example, you’ll never see the hand 3♦ 4♦ 7♦ K♣ Q♣ because the diamonds are more valuable than the clubs by considerably more than 3¢, but you will see 3♦ 4♦ A♦ K♣ Q♣ because that’s a much closer play. If you would have played the first hand incorrectly, then you’re not quite ready for this tool yet. But when you get the basics down, it allows you to concentrate on the hands that are likely to give you trouble.

WinPoker has another tool I use where I can plug in two or three cards and the machine will start with those and deal others. For example, in DDB, J♥ T♥ A♠ can go either way depending on the other two cards — and there are LOTS of possibilities with straight, flush, straight flush, and kicker penalties to either the hearts or spades or occasionally both.

If you start with those three cards and just let the computer deal, you can focus on a relatively tough combination and get it down. To be sure, sometimes you’ll be dealt pairs or trips or even a 4-card royal which isn’t a hand that should give you a problem at all. But you’ll get the relevant hands enough of the time that it becomes an efficient way to learn it.

On a personal note, I use both products. They each teach me in different ways and both support my goal of efficiently learning to play accurately.

Now we’re at the stage where you’ve learned to play “well enough” on the computer. It’s time to go to the casino. There is something about playing for real money that focuses your concentration.  You’re going to run into hands while playing that you don’t remember from practice. So, keep note paper handy and write such hands down. Do the best you can in the casino, consulting a strategy card if you have one, but be sure to look up the hands on the computer when you get back home. There will be times where you either mis-read the strategy card or mis-remembered the correct play. Checking when you get home will help correct either or both of those errors.

At this point, you’ve reached the stage where you can play the second game in the casino competently. You now must go back and relearn the first game! Because you’ve learned that J♥ T♥ is more valuable in NSU than Q♠ J♠, you must re-learn that the opposite is true in JoB. There will usually be concepts that got “overlapped” in your brain. It’s going to take some retraining to be able to keep them straight.

By the time you’ve gotten your knowledge of JoB back up to speed, you may find you’ve forgotten your NSU. Like they instruct with shampoo, rinse and repeat.

Finally, once you’ve got both games “mastered,” you still need to periodically review. In my case, I know a variety of games well, but I’m not equally up to speed in all of them. I usually know beforehand what game I’ll be playing on a given day. I’ve been doing this for 24 years and have written about all of these games and have taught classes in all of these games — and I still need to review if it’s a game I haven’t been playing recently. (Part of my experience is offset by the fact that at 71 years of age my memory isn’t what it used to be.)

Probably you will also need to review.

At a university, many professors study harder than the students do. The same in video poker. I will never reach the stage that I no longer need to study — and I already know a lot more than most of my readers ever will. Continual study is part of the price of playing the game well.

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Learning a Second Game — Part I of II  

A few weeks ago, I wrote some articles about making adjustments to a strategy based on the pay schedule. The purpose of those articles was for the situation when you were attempting to “fake it” reasonably well. You already knew the strategy for one game and were attempting to play another similar game.

Today’s article, which will continue next week, is somewhat related, but with a different emphasis. Today’s article assumes you already know one game and are trying to learn an unrelated game — and you don’t want to keep getting the two games mixed up.

The first thing to know is that some of my readers will not be able to do this very well. It takes a certain amount of the right kind of intelligence to do this. Many people are plenty smart enough in other areas, not nearly smart enough in this one.

That’s not necessarily a showstopper to playing video poker successfully, because we are starting with the assumption that you play one game well. So long as you can find that game for the stakes with which you are comfortable, everything is all right in your world.

Today’s article, however, is for players who are capable of learning at least two games well. Perhaps they play at two different casinos and the casinos differ on their best games. Perhaps they are ready to move up in denomination and the casino doesn’t offer the same games in both denominations.

Hopefully, it’s not because they are bored playing the game they already know how to play. Video poker is basically a boring game. There are occasional exciting hands (like drawing to three aces or perhaps four to the royal), but most are rather mundane. Unless you can concentrate on playing these mundane hands correctly, you will probably end up earning much less than the expected value. Unless you can deal with this boredom (or, perhaps, even not be bored!), you will never be successful at this game.

So, to flesh out the example, let’s assume you already play 9/6 JoB and are trying to learn NSU Deuces Wild — which is the version where the pay schedule at the lower end is 16-10-4-4-3-2-1. The methodology I’m going to explain works on all games, but I’m just mentioning these for convenience.

The first step is to have good strategies for both. I recommend the Dancer/Daily strategies, but there are several other sources as well. Some are free (such as the ones on wizardofodds.com) and some are “free” if you already own software that computes it for you (e.g. Video Poker for Winners).

The next step is to learn how to read the strategies. In NSU, for example, you’ll see WW45, which you’ll never find on a JoB strategy. Looking at the notes that come with the strategy, you’ll see that the W refers to a deuce of any suit and the 45 refers to a 4 and 5 that are suited with each other. You’ll also see that hand referred to as a 4-card straight flush, with certain attributes.

You’ll see that WW45 is less valuable than WW57 and more valuable than WW46. The reasons behind this are all explained in the Dancer/Daily Winner’s Guide or in my classes, but if this is the first time you’ve tried to play NSU competently, the first sentence of this paragraph just might contain rather surprising information.

The next thing to notice about an NSU strategy is that it’s divided by the number of deuces dealt. That is, the rules for the 3-deuce section are different than the rules for the 1-deuce section. I think of these five sections as making the strategy easier — because you can instantly find the right section of the strategy simply by looking at the number of deuces. And each section is relatively small.

Probably the part of the strategy that will be the most difficult for you is the no-deuce section — because this is the part that compares directly to JoB and the basic concepts of the games are different. In JoB, K♠ K♥ 9♥ 7♥ 3♥ is played differently than T♠ T♥ 9♥ 7♥ 3♥. In Deuces Wild, they are always played the same, depending on how much you get for the flush. In NSU, you hold the hearts both times, but in certain other versions of Deuces Wild you hold the pair each time. It’s going to take a while before you get the concept that there are no high cards in Deuces Wild because you don’t get your money back unless you get 3-of-a-kind.

A related place where the games have different concepts has to do with the value of Q♣ J♣ versus Q♦ T♦.  In JoB, the clubs are more valuable because both the Q and the J are high cards, meaning you get your money back if you get of pair of either of them. In NSU, the two hands have identical values.

You’ll also need to learn the difference between the way straight flush draws are evaluated. In JoB, 4♥ 5♥ 6♥ is equivalent in value to 5♣ 6♣ 7♣ and A♦ 3♦ 4♦ is worth about the same as 5♣ 6♣ 8♣ and more than 3♠ 4♠ 7♠. In NSU, none of these relationships are the same as they are in JoB. You need to be able to change the way you evaluate combinations of cards while still retaining the old evaluation methodology for when you are playing the original game! It’s not a trivial task!

I’ve gone over a few of the things you need to know. There are many more — but this is not supposed to be a “how to play NSU” article. It supposed to be a “how do you learn to keep both games in your head at the same time” article.

We’ll continue this discussion next week.

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Ignoring Kenny Rogers

I’ve listened to Kenny Rogers’ song The Gambler a zillion times. Since I’m not a live poker player, the advice he gives seemed to make sense. After all, how bad can “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em” actually be?

Whether the preceding line of the song is correct or not, I noticed there’s one line of advice in that song that has to be very wrong for many poker players — but largely correct for video poker players. So, I said to myself, “Self, there’s a column there!” So here goes.

The offending line is, “You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table.”

Since I’m not a poker expert, you’re well advised to take everything I say here with a grain of salt. But if the standard is being more accurate than a Kenny Rogers song, I’m confident I can clear that bar.

In no-limit hold ’em, among others, a major goal is to stack your opponents. That means, however many chips he has, that’s how many you’re trying to get.

For any given stakes, say $2-$5, your decisions are made relative to the amount of money in the pot. If there’s $20 in the pot and everybody at the table has $200, you need to play your cards fairly straightforward. The stacks are only 10 times the amount in the pot.

But if everybody has $2,000 in front of them, you can play much more speculatively, because if the right cards come in, you can collect 100 times what’s in the pot rather than only the 10 times in the previous example.

So far, I’ve been talking about how much money your opponents have, but the amount of money you have matters too. If you have $20 in front of you and your opponents all have $2,000 — then from your point of view, all your opponents have is $20 each. They can have side pots amongst themselves, but that doesn’t affect you financially. For you to stack somebody, you need at least as many chips as he has. (Being short-stacked definitely affects your strategy — where you’re basically “fold or all in.” Consult poker experts for more complete advice on this.)

With this in mind, it’s clear that, at least approximately, you need to know how much you have and how much your opponents have. This is counter to Rogers’ “You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table” advice.

In video poker, however, Kenny Rogers’ advice is generally spot on. If you’re trying to decide whether to hold three, four, or five cards from AAA33, there is no line on the strategy card that says, “Check the amount of money in your wallet first!” Players who adjust their strategy based on their bankroll are giving up EV every time they do so.

It definitely is important to consider your bankroll before you sit down to play and choose the particular game and denomination you’re going to play. But once you’ve made that choice you should make the highest EV play at all points.

One exception to this would be if you’re playing Ultimate X and you’re running out of money. If you’re playing the Ten Play version, you should never play a 100-coin hand when you have less than 145 credits (or more money in your pocket or otherwise close at hand.)

Why 145? It starts with knowing that if you play five credits per line (50 credits total), you can play off any existing multipliers without creating any new ones.  

If you play 100 credits and don’t earn any credits (i.e., you drew no paying hands), you left no multipliers on the game.  So, you take your 45 remaining credits and go home. If you play 100 credits and earn at least five credits, you will have at least 50 credits to play off all the multipliers on the game, again leaving no multipliers on the game.

So long as you earn at least five credits, you will have earned multipliers for the next hand — and you want to play those off five-credits per line, meaning 50 coins, before you abandon the machine to others. There are “fleas” who go around checking if you’ve abandoned any multipliers and you don’t want to be the person to feed those fleas.

There are a number of areas where video poker and live poker are played differently. In my just-completed video poker semester, there were several poker players who attended regularly. Comparing a draw to an unsuited KQJT with QJT9, I would explain the first had eight cards to complete the straight and nine cards to give you a high pair. The second hand also had eight cards to complete the straight but only six cards to give you a high pair.

“Aha!” one poker player would translate into a language she understood, “17 outs versus 14.” Sort of, but not really. In poker, an “out” is a card that will beat another player. In video poker, a card to give you a straight (paying 20 coins) is four times as valuable as a card that gives you a pair of queens (paying 5 coins.) All outs are not created equal.

I still enjoy hearing The Gambler occasionally whether it gives good advice or not. Bonnie and I dance the Texas Two Step and this song has a good beat for that. I never look to popular music of any decade to teach me to play games — professionally anyway. There are a number of songs through the years that have provided “words to live by.” But not “words to gamble by.”

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Can’t Keep Everybody Happy

In my last column I mentioned that Bonnie and I had signed up for three back-to-back cruises, with the first one being Boston to Bermuda and back, the second Boston to Quebec City, and the third Quebec City to Boston.

We were scheduled to arrive in Bermuda on Monday September 10 and stay there for three days. Unfortunately, Hurricane Florence was scheduled to arrive in Bermuda on Tuesday September 11. We knew the hurricane was on the way and we were going to be subject to whatever decision Norwegian Cruise Line made.

On Thursday night, September 6, the powers that be at NCL opted to divert the cruise away from Bermuda and instead make three stops in Canada and one at Bar Harbor, ME before returning to Boston.

The ports we stopped at were mostly redundant to Bonnie and me. We stopped at two ports what we were already going to stop at twice more in September. Still, avoiding any contact with the hurricane was a top priority. I’ve been on the outskirts of a hurricane before while on a cruise ship and it was no fun.

Most of our fellow passengers lived in or near Boston and a large number of them were loudly disappointed that we weren’t going to Bermuda. They had looked forward to a warm weather vacation and had not brought clothes to go into Canada. Most of them felt that being near a hurricane was just a minor inconvenience. We know now that Florence wreaked considerable havoc, including deaths, in the Carolinas after landfall. We knew none of this then.

Apparently another NCL ship scheduled to go to Bermuda at the same time out of New York was diverted south to Florida rather than north to Canada. A much better option, in the minds of many of our fellow passengers. Didn’t matter much to them that we’d have to travel directly through the hurricane to get back — or, more likely, divert to several hundred miles east to avoid the hurricane meaning the shore time in Florida would be cut short by a day. (New York or Boston to Florida and back within 7 days already has very few land days in Florida because of the time it takes to get to Florida from these embarkation ports.)

Florence was scheduled to hit US mainland on Thursday or Friday, and we’d have had to leave Florida on Wednesday and head straight through the storm or Tuesday to travel far enough out to sea to get around Florence. That definitely would not have been fun.

On Monday, while we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia, we received updated information that the hurricane had actually missed Bermuda to the south. “Aha!” said the disgruntled passengers. “We could have gone to Bermuda after all!”

Possibly. Still, a hurricane missing an island by one or two hundred miles or so is still a very windy situation. And the divert-or-not decision had to be made several days earlier based on the best information available.

Second-guessing based on not-previously-available data is something video poker players are quite used to. “I should have quit a half hour ago,” or “If I only would have known that that progressive was going to hit Tuesday I would have for sure been playing.” This kind of after-the-fact decision-making makes as little sense with the weather as it does in gambling.

I was sympathetic to those passengers who had packed warm weather clothes only and weren’t prepared for Nova Scotia. They had to buy new clothes even though they had a closet-full of appropriate clothes at home. This didn’t affect Bonnie and me because we had packed for three weeks, but it’s not hard to understand people being irritated at unexpected expenses.

Overall, Bonnie and I were happy as clams in chowder. We were dancing every night to the music of José and Patty — that was a major consideration in booking these cruises. And the seas were calm — which is important when senior citizens go dancing. Life is good!

Note:  After we arrived back home I was asked by others whether the ship would have given us our money back if we really didn’t like the changed itinerary. I just don’t know. Before you boarded the ship, you were asked to sign a waiver saying the change in itinerary was acceptable. We signed, as did all the other passengers who we met on board the ship. I never got to talk to any of those who refused to sign the waiver.

I’m sure there was suitable language in the contract we signed when we booked the cruise allowing the cruise line to change things in cases like these. After all, there are hurricanes and other weather situations every year and cruise ships are used to dealing with them. How seriously the cruise line enforces these contracts is another thing. Cruise ships make their money from repeat customers and ticking off your customers is not smart business.