Many of you know that I participate in storytelling events. I’ve been regularly attending a workshop to improve my skills.
Recently, after we had all practiced our stories online for the day, Pete, the leader who lives on the East Coast, asked me if I would be willing to take him around and show him how to play were he to come to Vegas.
Continue reading Unrealistic ExpectationsAnthony Curtis and Andrew Hunt have a YouTube podcast called “In the Wild,” where they address Las Vegas Advisor-kinds of questions. Basically, straight talk about the basics of things gamblers want to know.
Recently, they addressed the Double Up feature in video poker seen here. Other than once confusing the term ‘Double Up’ with ‘double down’ (a term in blackjack), what they said was correct.
Continue reading A Further Look at Double UpI turned 74 years old in mid-February. Not a big deal. I have a birthday every year. But this time it turned out to be special in an unusual way.
My Nevada Driver License expired on my birthday. Again, not a big deal. It always expires on a birthday, every three or four years. But this time it turned out to be special in an unusual way.
Continue reading A Birthday Present That Keeps on GivingToday we’ll have a personal anecdote about what happened to me recently. I’m not sure how widespread my situation is, but perhaps some of my readers will relate to it.
I’ve been gambling at video poker since 1994. For the right promotion, I’ll go any time of the day or night. To make this work, I also need to be able to sleep any time of the day or night so I can be at my best when I play. Sometimes I’ll play daytime for one promotion, sleep four to six hours, and then go play graveyard at some other promotion. At age 74, it’s more difficult to do this than it was when I was younger.
Continue reading A Lesson RelearnedI have two brief things that came up recently and are worthy of writing about, but neither is sufficient to fill up an entire blog. So, I stacked them together. Hope you don’t mind.
New Rules
Continue reading Two StoriesThe mathematical analysis in this blog was done by Rick Percy. I do not have the tools to do that analysis myself. Thank you, Rick!
My personal goal is to learn the best strategy for every game I play. Not everybody shares that goal. Some people want to minimize their work, or don’t have the time, or have trouble keeping the differences between strategies straight.
Continue reading Using One Strategy for Two GamesThere are some excellent video poker opportunities to be found from time to time in Las Vegas. When these are found, good players rush in to take advantage of them. After a few days or weeks of getting pounded, casino slot directors decide that they are tired of this, so they remove the promotions, the machines, or sometimes, the offending players.
For a promotion to work, good and bad players need to play. If the casinos do not make money, the promotion will not last. When good players hog all of the machines, the casino cannot make money, and so the casino makes adjustments.
Continue reading Killing the Golden GooseA friend, Jake Jacobs, posted in passing on a Facebook page recently that he’d been active in car rallyes in the Chicago area way back when. Some of them were time-speed-distance events where you were timed and crossing a checkpoint 30 seconds early was as bad as 30 seconds late — but both were better than 40 seconds either way.
The other type of rallye was called a gimmick rallye, where time was not a factor, although you had to finish by such-and-such a time because that’s when awards were passed out. You were scored on the basis of your answers to questions, such as, “What is the name of the first street you pass on the right?” or, “How many streetlights do you pass between xxx and yyy?” There was always some sort of trick in the rules leading many participants to get the wrong answer.
Continue reading It All Adds UpFor the past two weeks, I’ve been posting about using different software in order to learn to play. A comment on the first such post read (lightly edited):
“Just some of plays worth two cents or less if you make the wrong one are sometimes on the rare side and some are somewhat common. So, for me personally, I wouldn’t sweat making this mistake once an hour or so. I’d compare this article to a card counter learning every single playing index for blackjack. While there is an index for splitting 10’s vs 2 and then doubling if one of them receives an ace, is it really worth learning?”
Continue reading Response to a Blog CommentI’ve written about this subject a few times in the past, but not recently. If you’ve seen it before, check to see if you remember the correct answer. If you haven’t seen it before, now is the time to test yourself. All of us need to review from time to time to keep our skills sharp.
Assume you’re playing any version of Deuces Wild, where W represents a deuce, and we’re comparing the following two hands: W 6♦ 7♦ 9♦ T♣ and W 6♦ 7♦ 9♦ 8♣.
Continue reading Which One is Worth More?