Category: Advanced Strategy

Posted on by — 6 Comments

A Scholarship Offer

In last week’s column, I reprinted a seven-year-old article I wrote about Edward Thorp saying that gambling is a tax on ignorance, which I would amend to being a tax on the ignorant and the lazy.

Soon after I wrote that, John Chang (former long-time manager of the MIT blackjack team) appeared on GWAE and commented that while he agreed that gambling is a tax on the ignorant and the lazy, it also provides a scholarship for the smart and hard-working!

That’s exactly the way I look at gambling, although I accept the words “ignorant” and “lazy” as being relative terms and not absolute.

Simply put, beating a casino is difficult. You need to have some moxie. And even then, you need to spend a lot of time figuring out how to succeed. But that was largely what last week’s article was about. Today let’s talk more about what I mean by a “scholarship.” How do you get it? How do you keep it?

What I mean by scholarship is that if you do it right, the casinos pay you to come in and play intelligently. They do not do this on purpose. Their goal is not to support professional players. But that’s the way it works out.

Casinos do compete with each other and they do offer promotions to attract players. Some of these promotions are beatable. Some of the games are beatable. Play those!

Casino marketing people are not always savvy about doing the math on all promotions. This is a simplified generalization and not always true, but marketing types tend to be creative right-brained people while the ones who can figure out the math for promotions (for casino employees AND players) are left-brained people. When the promotions are developed by the right-brained marketing people, that is the time for you to play!

Casinos basically recycle money from the losing players and give it to the winning players, while keeping a small percentage to cover their own expenses and profit. If the casinos have enough losing players, they can afford to have a few winning players. 

Why knowing this is important is that if you want to win, you have to treat the losing players with respect! They pay for your golden goose! If you go around insulting them because they are playing 8/5 Jacks or Better when there’s 9/6 Jacks or Better a few aisles over, you’re jeopardizing your scholarship! 

(Yes, I know that my teaching others to identify good machines and play well hurts the players who already know how to play, and wish to keep the “secrets” to themselves. Whether anybody likes it or not, this is one of my chosen missions in life and I plan to continue on that mission indefinitely.)

The casino needs to make its profit somewhere. If nobody played the bad games, they would find it wasn’t profitable to offer the good games. If losing players got insulted when they came to the casino, that would take a lot of their pleasure away. It’s already an expensive activity for these players. If it isn’t fun, many will stop donating to your scholarship fund.

One key to keeping your scholarship is to not keep rubbing it into the casino’s face. There are players who keep playing until the casino kicks them out. For players who are comfortable being on the road all the time and always going to new places, that might be an okay procedure. But for those who want the golden goose to keep paying and paying, this is not a good plan. 

This means that if you get significantly ahead, stay away for a while. If you win more than one drawing in a short period of time, don’t enter any more for a few months. This also means, if you’re a winning player, don’t be loud and obnoxious or otherwise a pain in the ass to the casino. They will put up with unpleasant behavior if you’re a loser. But if you’re a winner, this gives them one more reason to kick you out.

Video poker players have an additional edge over other types of advantage gamblers in that we lose most of the time! Royal flushes are relatively rare. The time between royal flushes will usually consist of negative scores. A video poker player who wins every day is largely unknown — unless something fishy is going on. That lets casinos believe that your royal flushes are mainly luck and you’ll give it all back. And it lets losing players have their memory of that one night in 2016 when they hit two royal flushes. These players will return over and over trying to catch magic in a bottle again.

Posted on by — 36 Comments

Take Care of Your Money

As I told you last week, I was recently reading Colin Jones’ new book, The 21st Century Card Counter, preparing to interview him for the GWAE podcast. Although Colin is addressing his comments towards blackjack players, a lot of the general information is useful to video poker players as well. Today’s column was inspired by his Chapter 7: Traveling as a Card Counter.

The first thing I want to address is how much money you should take with you to a casino. If you have access to markers (casino speak for IOUs) at the casino, then you take as little as possible. If you collect money at the start of your play and turn it in at the end, there is less chance for it to be stolen from you between here and there.

But markers are a major difference between video poker players and card players. If you play big enough to use markers, in video poker you’re going to be getting W2Gs that require you to show ID. Therefore, showing ID at the cage is something video poker players have to put up with in order to do business. Many times, blackjack players do not play rated — meaning they do not give their identity to the casino. These people are not willing to show ID at the cage, so that precludes getting markers. For some reason casinos do not respond well to a request such as, “I’m not going to tell you who I am, but I want to borrow $20,000 in cash for a few days.”

So, let’s assume for the current discussion that we are not talking about markers. You’re going to be playing a game where, even if things go really badly, there’s a 99% chance that you will lose less than $5,000 today. (You can get such numbers from the Video Poker for Winners software, or another good product is Dunbar’s Risk Analyzer for Video Poker.) 

If that’s your only play today, it’s unnecessarily risky to start the day with $10,000 in your pocket. Nothing good can happen from having that extra money on you, and we all can think of plenty of bad things. One time in a hundred you’re going to run out of money with “only” $5,000. (That’s basically what having a 99% chance of it not happening means.) Unfortunate, but a cheap enough price to pay for the unpredictable, but real, chance that you could lose that money to either carelessness or malfeasance on the part of others.

Another point on this subject that Jones drives home is to be aware of your surroundings. If you get paid for a big jackpot, it can be noticed by others who want to separate you from your winnings. For this reason, if I hit a jackpot of $8,000 or higher, I ask if I can be paid “in private,” which can mean different things in different casinos. Having a slot attendant loudly counting out, “One hundred, two hundred, three hundred . . . “in front of anybody in the vicinity creates some risk.

In the era of cell phones, it’s very possible for somebody to text, “A 40-something guy in a green shirt with brown pants is carrying a lot of money. I’ll let you know when he’s heading towards the parking lot.” (That would not be me. It’s been decades since someone identified me as being 40-something, and it’s extremely rare that I wear brown pants.) So, your attacker may well be someone who wasn’t present when you were paid, but who found out from somebody else.

After a big winning session, I frequently stroll through the casino, zigging and zagging, too see if anybody is following me. Many times, I’ve approached a security guard and said, “I would like an escort to my car, and if you bring along another guard, I have tip money for both of you.”

If there is a parking garage elevator and there’s another guy waiting there who I don’t know, I’ll frequently “remember” something to do just as the elevator comes and let him go up alone. If there’s a large group in the elevator, I feel safer. If you’re healthy enough, walking the stairs in a parking garage is safer than taking the elevator, plus it’s rare enough that you can easily see if somebody is following you.

If you are mugged in an elevator, be sure to report it to security. Many casinos have cameras in the elevators and that can go a long way towards verifying your story and possibly apprehending the culprit.

There were certainly more things in this chapter that are worth remembering, but these were the items that tickled my “I haven’t written about that recently” button. Thank you, Colin.

Posted on by — 2 Comments

How Often Do You Test Yourself?

I was recently reading Colin Jones’ new book, The 21st Century Card Counter, preparing to interview him for the GWAE podcast. Colin has been on the show a number of times and runs the Blackjack Apprentice Group which teaches players how to win at blackjack.

When referring to while he was running a blackjack team, he wrote: “We settled on having our players test out one another every month and requiring that management test them out every three months. What we discovered is that it’s easy to let your game slide over time.”

Bingo! If I ran a video poker team (probably never going to happen!), that sounds like a policy I’d implement. 

I suspect very few video poker players test themselves very often. Maybe at the beginning when they first are starting out, but how about later? If you’ve been playing NSU (for example) for two years, and you haven’t tested yourself recently, you’re probably making quite a few errors. 

Video poker is arguably more difficult than blackjack. Learning one video poker variation (say, Jacks or Better) is certainly easier than counting cards proficiently, but learning Jacks or Better, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, Super Double Bonus, Deuces Wild, Super Bonus Deuces Wild, etc., etc. is more difficult. 

There are players who only play one game, of course. If that works for them, fine. But if you play at several casinos, and you want to play the best game at each, you’re going to have to learn several games. Sometimes that includes the same game with different pay schedules.

In Blackjack, there are adjustments when you switch from a game where the dealer hits soft 17 to a game where he doesn’t, but those adjustments are few. In video poker, when you switch from Double Bonus to Double Bonus Deuces Wild, there’s a huge difference in the way the games are played. 

So, assume you’ve been playing Double Bonus almost exclusively for several months, and for whatever reason, that game dries up and now you’re looking at Double Bonus Deuces Wild. Assume you played the latter game reasonably correctly a year ago, but not since. How do you get yourself ready?

This might not work for everybody, but this is the way I would handle such a situation (and variations of this situation have occurred more than a thousand times over my career).

First, I consult my strategy sheet. Every advanced strategy I’ve ever created is in a computer folder. I find the right one and go over it line by line.

Second, I put the game into WinPoker and use the “Hard Hands” feature, where I have it deal all hands when the first and second plays are closer than 2¢. And then 1¢. And then smaller than that. 

I set WinPoker to “show” rather than “warn.” Where the W indicates a deuce, on a hand like W A♠ 3♠ K♥ 8♥, I don’t need practice pressing the buttons. I just need to know whether the correct answer is the deuce by itself, the deuce and the ace, or perhaps something else. So, I call out (sometimes out loud, sometimes silently) what I believe is the correct answer (the deuce by itself in this case) and hit the button to see if I’m correct. If not, I look up why not. If my strategy doesn’t differentiate this case from W A♠ 4♠ K♥ 8♥, where the correct play is W A♠, I either adjust my strategy or make a determination that this is too petty to worry about. 

After I do this, I switch to Video Poker for Winners and test myself on both the Advanced level and the Intermediate level, as they deal according to different criteria. Sometimes this will identify hands I was misplaying where the difference between the best and second-best play was too large to be found by using the WinPoker Hard Hands technique.

If it’s a game where there is a Dancer/Daily Winner’s Guide, I take the tests found there. I helped write those about 20 years ago, but my memory is imperfect.

Sometimes I go to the Wizard of Odds video poker strategy calculator and look at the exceptions to the basic strategy. That program uses a very different notation than what I am used to but forcing my brain to look at this from both his notation and mine gets my head “into the game.”

At this stage in my career, this takes me maybe an hour or two to accomplish. When I was less experienced, it took me much longer — because sometimes it was the first time I played a game and I needed to create an advanced strategy using various tools. 

After I’ve done these things, it is now time to go into the casino. And if I must change games again in the near future, I do this all again. There are a few games,  like 9/6 Jacks or Better, that I have down pat because 1) I’ve been playing it professionally for 25 years, 2) it’s the easiest game to play perfectly, and 3) I’ve taught a class in it more than 100 times.  

There are other games, like NSU Deuces Wild, for which I go through this procedure about once a year. Simply put, even though I’ve been playing it for 20 years and have gone through this exercise dozens of times, it’s a much more difficult game than Jacks or Better. Since it’s easier to make mistakes, I review it more often. It’s not like I’ll ever forget it below the 99.9% accuracy level, but I prefer to know the game better than that. 

How long it takes you to go through this process depends on you. How much experience do you have? How willing are you to ignore minor errors? How important is winning to you? How good is your memory? And a whole bunch of other things.

I strongly believe, however, that if you don’t do some version of this regimen on a regular basis, you’re playing at a lesser level than you think you are.

Posted on by — 14 Comments

The Most Important Thing in Being a Successful Video Poker Player

There are a number of aspects to being a successful video poker player. Let’s list
the major ones:

1. Know how to play the game(s) competently.

2. Play the game(s) without making unnecessary errors. What I mean is that you’re
able to concentrate and translate what you know into how you play.

3. Obtain and keep the necessary bankroll to survive the swings.

4. Be able to evaluate slot clubs and promotions.

5. Have the discipline to avoid games where you do not have the edge.

6. Have the emotional fortitude to put up with the swings.

7. Be willing to put in the necessary hours for this to work. Video poker is a grind-it-
out affair.

8. Be able to find additional places to play when one or more of your current plays
disappear. This “disappearance” can be that you lost your welcome, the game
was removed, the slot club or promotion which made it a good game is no longer
in effect, along with several other possibilities. If this hasn’t happened to you,
you’re either not very successful or you’re very new at the game.

Okay. If you follow these guidelines, you’ll succeed long term. Most likely. I can’t
guarantee that. It is possible to do everything right and run bad over an extended period
of time. But for most people, the above guidelines work.

So, which of these seven guidelines is most important? In my opinion, keeping
yourself in the money is most important.

Part of this is knowing about bankroll requirements for given plays and avoiding
those that could bankrupt you. “Getting lucky at the right time” can be a part of getting a
bankroll, I suppose, but if you don’t have money management skills, it’s difficult to hang
on to a bankroll.

Over the years, I’ve received a number of emails saying essentially, “I’d like you to
bankroll me. If you believe in what you preach, this should be an easy decision for you.”

And it is an easy decision for me. The answer is always “No” unless I know the
person really well and have a basis for believing in him/her. A stranger who solicits
money via email? They have no more chance for me to send them money than that
prince in Nigeria.

Even those who assure me, “I’ve succeeded at virtually everything I’ve done.
Surely, I’ll succeed in this too. I just need a bankroll to start with.” If they’ve succeeded
at everything, why don’t they have a bankroll? Obtaining money isn’t that difficult for
successful people. It’s “simply” a matter of spending less than you make. (There can be
extenuating circumstances, but I’d have to know a person pretty well and believe their
money problems are a thing of the past to be willing to make a bet on them.)

Most people who don’t have a bankroll have financial leaks in their life. If you’re
trying to save a bankroll for gambling, then tobacco, alcohol, recreational drugs, and
other expensive hobbies (Perhaps skiing? Vacations? Jewelry? New cars?) should be
off the table — or at least very limited. If you have your bankroll issues handled and
want to spend your money on whatever you like, knock yourself out.

Posted on by — 6 Comments

How Good Am I Today Compared to the Way I Was in 2001?

In 2001, I had my only year ever where my video poker net score exceeded $1 million. Much of that was taking advantage of a few casinos whose managers were arithmetically challenged, combined with being over-royaled on big denomination machines.

In 2019, I have relatively few places that welcome my action. Casinos are faster at pulling the trigger, with respect to kicking players out, than they used to be and, if you’ve been a winning player long enough, being booted from casinos is simply a fact of life. I can still find games where I have the edge, but not nearly as big of an edge as before or as many places to play.

So far, I’ve been talking about my video poker opportunities being less than they were before. But how about my skill level? How does that compare?

On the plus side, experience teaches you many things. Once you’ve learned several games at the professional level, learning new ones is much easier. Plus, the tools to study video poker are much superior today than they were earlier.

On the minus side, I am 72 years old now. I can still memorize things, but it’s harder to memorize than it was before and things don’t stay memorized as easily today. If I haven’t played a game recently, I’ll have to go and relearn it. From everything I’ve learned, this mental deterioration is a progressive “disease” and however bad it is now, it will be worse when I’m 82 and worse yet when I’m 92.

A big factor in my skill level is my hunger to succeed. In years past I scouted much more than I do today. I was more willing to “drop everything” and travel out of state if I heard about a great play. I was able and willing to play 12 or more hours straight for the right promotion. I’m neither as able nor as willing to do that today.

My hunger previously was fueled by the fear of financial failure. Gambling was my main source of income. Even though I tend to be thriftier than many others, I do have some things I willingly spend money on.

Disregarding for now doomsday scenarios where the entire world economy collapses and wipes us all out, I have no fear of financial failure. Bonnie and I have accumulated enough, our life expectancies are short enough, and we have insurance to cover many of the bad financial things that could happen. And I play for stakes low enough that my bankroll isn’t threatened. So, I don’t need to worry.

Assume there were some written tests on “How do you play these hands?” for a large variety of games — some I’ve studied, some I haven’t. It’s possible I would have done better in 2001 because I could play more games at the 99.9%+ accuracy level then than I do now. It’s possible I would do better now because I’ve been exposed to more games and can play more games at the 99% accuracy level now than I did then. (Especially if you include games like Ultimate X or Quick Quads which weren’t around in 2001.)

Although many of my technical skills have decreased, I’m probably better today at figuring out how slot clubs and promotions work than I was then. Back in 2001, more of the value of video poker was in the game itself (e.g. 99.54% for 9/6 Jacks or Better) and in the slot club. Free play mailers were not as prevalent. Promotions were often all gravy on top of games that were already positive.

Today, much more of the return of the game is in promotions and mailers, and the value of the total package of benefits is much lower than it used to be. This means you need to be better at analyzing these things — or you’ll end up playing a game where you do not actually have the advantage. Playing such games is of no interest to me whatsoever. So, by necessity, I’ve gotten better at this evaluation.

It’s an educated guess as to the precise number, but I’ve played 20 million or more base games since 2001. (By “base game,” I mean counting a Fifty Play deal as one hand, not fifty.) Fortunately, boredom hasn’t set in yet. A wild variety of scenarios have happened, and I have learned from this experience.

Bottom line: I don’t know exactly whether I’m a better player or not than I was in 2001. If I had to bet on it, I’d say the younger me was stronger. The benefits of youth in this case outweigh the benefits of experience. But it’s a close call.

Posted on by — 5 Comments

Counting it Once or Twice

In June, the South Point is having a “Half Price Gas & Goods” promotion. This is a promotion that, with slight variations, is run there one month a year.

The way it works is that you play enough to earn $25 in cash or free play, namely $8,334 of coin-in because the cash or free play is redeemed at a rate of 0.30%, and redeem those points for a $50 Chevron or Walmart gift card. The points must be earned in June and redeemed before July 4.

This is not a “you keep your points” promotion. You must give up your points to get the card. Each person is limited to 10 gift cards, in any mix between Chevron and Walmart, for the month. If you consider these cards as good as cash, this is a form of double points for the first $83,340 you play in June. Since most people play less than that, it basically means double points all month.

To wallow in this a bit more, let’s assume you decide to play NSU Deuces Wild for this promotion. This is a game that returns 99.728% with perfect play, but to make the math easier, we’ll call it 99.70%. Virtually nobody plays perfectly, and calling it worth 99.70% makes it a dead-even game with the 0.30% slot club.

Playing to get the maximum, you play $83,340 and receive $500 worth of gift cards. With normal luck, you’re going to lose $250 playing that much. We’ve all been around enough to know that it’s very unlikely that we’ll lose exactly $250 on the play, but it’s the best estimate we have before we actually sit down and play.

On your records (you DO keep records, don’t you?), recording the actual loss is appropriate. Most players do NOT record the $500 worth of gift cards as a “win.”

So, are you scheduled to lose $250 (which is the average cash loss you can expect) or make $250 (because you received $500 in gift cards that only cost you $250)?

There is no unique answer to this question, just like there is no unique way to keep records.

As for me, my records will not reflect the gift cards as a win, so I will likely lose on the play. That said, I consider it a play worth $250 and the gift cards are the major reason I’ll be playing. (I also get a small monthly mailer, and playing $83,340 in a month will slightly increase the mailer.)

Once I have the cards, I’ll treat them as “regular Walmart money.” We go there periodically, and so the cards will be used. I do not see the cards as “free money” to be splurged, any more than the money received from a royal flush is immediately spendable. You know the swings go up and down, so you need to keep a bankroll “buffer.”

Part of my buffer is gift cards. Spending gift cards instead of cash allows my cash to last longer.

Some people keep “bankroll money” and “regular money” in two distinctly different categories. I don’t do that. It’s all in one pot. And gift cards are in that pot too.

A Walmart gift card isn’t really as good as cash — because I can spend cash at more places than I can spend Walmart gift cards. But it’s “close enough.” I’ll be glad to get them.

(In actual fact, this past weekend the $2 9/5 Double Double Bonus game with three progressives, got up to $22,500 before it was hit. I got on it at about the $15,000 level, where the two lesser progressives also chipped in to make it a lucrative play. Although I collected few W2Gs along the way, somebody else hit the big one. The $1,000 worth of gift cards cost me considerably more than $1,000.

(Still, if I found the progressive in a similar state again, I would jump right on it again. It was a far higher EV than other games I could play, albeit one with a higher variance.)

Posted on by — 9 Comments

I Can’t Help

I keep strange hours. Sometimes I’m up all night. Sometimes I’m up all day. Overall, I get my sleep, but nobody knows at any given time of day whether I’ll be awake or not.

At about 2 a.m. on a recent night, I was writing an article when I received a text message from a friend, George. The message showed two jackpots. One was for deuces with an ace kicker for $3,400 on a $1 13-4-3-3 Deuces Bonus game with two progressives, and the second was for the royal itself — $8,000. By looking at the numbers for the screen shots, they must have hit almost back to back.

I responded with “Congratulations,” but didn’t say more. This is not a friend who sends me pictures of every W2G he gets, and I don’t want to turn him into one.

As soon as I sent off the congrats, he texted “Can we talk?” I didn’t know what it was about, but I called him right away.

It turned out that he hit the aces jackpot and his sometimes-partner, Cliff, hit the royal. He said this time they were partners on all of the scores.

Cliff, it turns out, is a Canadian citizen in the United States on a permanent work visa. He has a temporary driver’s license, which gets renewed one year at a time, because he is not a United States citizen.

The floor person noticed the temporary license and asked about it. When she found that Cliff was a Canadian citizen, she said the casino was required to withhold 30% of the W2G — $2,400. Cliff has previously earned hundreds of W2Gs and this is only the second time money has been withheld.

When the money is withheld, it is sent to the appropriate taxation department in Canada. To retrieve any or all of it, Cliff would need to file a Canadian tax return. Right now, he only files United States returns.

The slot supervisor showed up and told Cliff that the 30% would be withheld, period. It would be withheld temporarily if Cliff said he could bring in a United States passport or a non-temporary driver’s license. If Cliff didn’t think he could produce one of those in the very near future, the money would be sent to Canada.

So, George asked my advice as to what to do.

I told him that my read was that the casino was acting appropriately. That’s the law. The $2,400 they were withholding wasn’t doing the casino any good because they had to forward it to Canada, but refusing to do it could get them into trouble if it was discovered.

I suggested that Cliff’s options were to become a United States citizen (which I understand is his intention, but it is sometimes a lengthy process), accept that losing 30% of jackpots occasionally was just an expense of doing business, or, perhaps, find another way to earn money.

I had no advice about filing a Canadian tax return. I don’t know the rules and can’t speak to the advantages and disadvantages of going that route.

Although I’ve met Cliff and like him, George is my friend. I suggested that if George and Cliff are going to continue to be occasional progressive-chasing partners who share some or all of jackpots, then this potential of 30% being withheld should be explicitly discussed. Right now, George and Cliff are sharing that 30% “penalty.” It probably hadn’t been discussed because it hadn’t happened recently, but now that it’s out in the open, it needs to be discussed.

I don’t particularly care how they resolve it. It could be that Cliff is the dominant partner and George is lucky to be allowed to tag along. In that case, sharing in the 30% is probably correct. If Cliff is the more knowledgeable partner, a different arrangement would be appropriate.

There are privileges that are associated with being a U. S. citizen. This particular one has been agreed to by treaty and is not likely to be changed in the near future. The fact that this particular one affects some of my gambling friends is unfortunate, but that’s the law and we all must live with it.

Posted on by — 4 Comments

A Look at In the Game Until the End: Winning in Ace-Point Endgames by Robert Wachtel

From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, I played backgammon regularly at the Cavendish West Club in greater Los Angeles. Through much of that period, a man named Bob Wachtel also frequented the club.

I got to be a strong intermediate backgammon player. I learned to stay out of the same games that Wachtel played in because he was a considerably stronger player than I was.

He still is. He’s top ten in the world, according to some rankings. I haven’t played competitively since 1993 and wasn’t all that great then.

While we didn’t compete against each other, we had many friendly conversations about any number of things. He was one of the “good guys” I remembered from the Cavendish.

I dropped out of backgammon in 1993 when I moved to Las Vegas. I wasn’t able to rise to the expert level in Los Angeles and the Las Vegas Backgammon Club had members reputed to be every bit as strong as those in L.A. One player who played in Vegas that was stronger than me was Richard Munchkin, whose brother actually roomed with Wachtel for a while in the mid-80s. I wanted to support myself gambling, and playing against superior players was not the key to success. (That’s equivalent to gambling at video poker when the house has the edge.)

While I was fluent in the backgammon literature prior to 1993, the only books I’ve read on the subject since then have been to prepare for Gambling with an Edge interviews. This got me to read books by Bill Robertie, Kent Goulding, Jake Jacobs, and Kit Wolsey, all very knowledgeable players and writers.

I can now add Robert Wachtel to that list, although he’s still “Bob” to me.

I recently came across a reference to his 2000 volume, In the Game Until the End: Winning in Ace-Point Endgames. I emailed his publisher, Bill Robertie, for contact information and we hooked up. Wachtel remembered me, of course.

We chatted on the phone. I picked up some new information about a few players I hadn’t seen for 30 or more years. He agreed to send me some of what he’s written and will be a guest on the show, possibly several times, in the near future.

An ace-point game in backgammon is where you are behind, usually own the doubling cube, and have two or more checkers on your opponent’s ace point. Your opponent must bear off his checkers past your checkers.

These are not positions where your equity is very high, but they can be won. To win, your opponent must leave one or more shots, you must hit one or more of them, and you must then win from there. This parlay takes some doing, but when you find yourself in one of these positions, this parlay is your only chance. So, you need to know how to pull it off.

The book starts with ace-point games at their best. You have a full-prime (e.g. twelve checkers, two each on six consecutive spots), two checkers behind the prime so you are in no danger of needing to break the prime immediately, one remaining checker on the ace point, and your opponent with between two and five checkers left. Most ace-point games are actually worse than this, but it’s still useful to start with these given positions as a benchmark.

Your choice in each case is whether you remain on the ace point or run. If all of your checkers are out of your opponent’s home court (which consists of six spaces), you will lose a gammon — which is a double loss. Should one or more of your checkers remain in the home court or on the bar at the game’s end, you will lose a backgammon — which is a triple loss. The only way to lose a single game (for a single loss) is to hit one of your opponent’s men. The way these positions are set up, you are too far back to get off the gammon by running.

Since you are assumed to own the doubling cube at a value of 2, a gammon will cost you 4 points. If remaining costs you 3.5 points on average, clearly it’s right to stay. Conversely, if sticking around costs you 4.5 points on average, you should run.

The problems are discussed recursively. That is, the simplest positions are analyzed, and a value is calculated (such as -3.5 or -4.5, to use the examples in the previous paragraph). If this position is reached on one or more branches from a more complex starting position, the value is not recalculated, because we already know what it is.

One of the positions studied at length is the Coup Classique, where your opponent’s three remaining checkers are all on his two point and you have one checker on his ace point. If he rolls 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, 5-1, or 6-1 (which happens 10 out of 36 rolls), he will leave a double blot, meaning if you roll an ace or a deuce (which happens 20 times out of 36 rolls) you will hit at least one of his checkers. If you can hit one checker, you almost always can hit the second one as well. If you can close your board with both of these men on the bar, you have real winning chances.

Were I still someone who played backgammon for money, I would memorize the results of this analysis — and would also memorize the techniques Wachtel used to analyze these positions. These positions happen often enough that strong players should know these things.

When I was a player, the only way to know these things for sure was through playing them over and over again against yourself or other players — and keeping track of what the results were. This is often an expensive way to obtain knowledge because there was often betting on what was the correct play.

There is one position in the book that a famous Australian player would play either side against any player in the world for as much as they wanted. This meant the position was roughly even, but the position required a lot of skill to play correctly. He had studied the position more than anybody else and made lots of money playing this proposition.

If you are someone who plays backgammon for money, you should strongly consider purchasing Wachtel’s book. It has information you need to know. The book is published by the Gammon Press.

You might want to check out his tribute to Paul Magriel, one of backgammon’s shining lights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsjCQxvtB8&feature=youtu.be There are dozens of pictures of players from the 70s and later. I recognized all of them and it was a pleasant stroll down memory lane.

In addition to said stroll, it was also an authoritative recap of the history of backgammon in New York and elsewhere in these years. The last several pictures show Magriel’s deterioration as he approached death. I saw Magriel a year or so before his death. He didn’t look good, but he was still optimistic and charismatic. I’m glad Wachtel produced this tribute.

Posted on by — 18 Comments

Games I Prefer

Generally, I’m going to play the game that returns the most — including slot club, promotions, and mailer. Sometimes, however, I have a choice between a few different games that return about the same amount.  Here is my approximate ranking — your mileage may vary.

Hundred Play > Fifty Play > Ten Play > Five Play > Triple Play > single line games. Assuming the same return, the more lines the better. This increases the fun and decreases the variance.

I prefer these over Double Super Times Pay and Super Times Pay. Keep in mind, though, that if it’s the same pay schedule, the DSTP version adds about 0.5% and the STP versions adds half that. These additions more than make up for the fact that these aren’t my favorite games. The reason for my lack of excitement on these games is the speed. Whenever you get a multiplier, it takes five seconds or so for the exact multiplier to be “squeezed” out and made visible. I’d prefer to have that five seconds to play another hand.

Quick Quads > Ultimate X. Since neither game regularly comes in good pay schedules (other than at the South Point), the choice is moot for most people who seriously value winning. Quick Quads has a different strategy — but not a greatly different one. The sound Quick Quads makes when you get a Quick Quads (namely three of a kind where the ranks of the other two cards add up to the rank of the trips) strikes the right level of excitement and non-annoyingness. Ultimate X is a game with a sky-high variance and the strategy for the game is quite a bit different than regular video poker games. You have to be in the mood to play and willing to lose a great amount today, even with a good pay schedule.

Spin Poker is okay, but not nearly as attractive to me as Ten Play.

I usually avoid Dream Card as I find the sound effects annoying.

Multi Strike is an interesting game, but it’s slow. Keeping four strategies straight requires some effort, although it’s not impossible. If I’m playing while tired, though, I’ll sometimes make mistakes on this game.

I prefer slant tops to uprights to bar tops. Bar-top machines, even with good pay schedules, have stickier than average buttons due to drinks being spilled on them. I can play longer on slant tops than I can on uprights.

I prefer adjustable seats to non-adjustable. I am taller than average and prefer a higher chair than average.

Each of these game-types come with several different games.  That is, you can find Double Double Bonus, Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, etc., in most of these game types.

Deuces Wild is generally my favorite game. (It doesn’t exist in Quick Quads.) What makes it interesting to me is you never know what you will get. Start with two deuces and you can end up with anything from 3-of-a-kind to four deuces — meaning anywhere from five coins to 1,000 — per line.

Jacks or Better — This game is arguably the simplest and has the lowest variance. Some people get bored with the variance, but not me. Since I’m playing games where the slot club and other goodies give me an advantage, it’s plenty okay just to grind it out.

Double Double Bonus — This is the most popular video poker game in the country. I generally avoid it because it rarely returns more than 99%. When found in a better version, or with a GREAT promotion, this game is fun. Better have your seat belt on though. It has a lot of variance.

I will play other games, of course, if they happen to be the best game at a casino. Exactly which one it is doesn’t matter much to me. If I can learn the strategy, I can play it. If learning additional games doesn’t come easily to you, you might limit your selection to the games you already know.

There are games like Ultimate X Bonus Streak and others where the correct strategy is unknown — at least by me. I do not have the computer programming skills to work it out, and commercially available software does not contain these games. To get good at a game I need a computer to correct me when I make a mistake.

As I said at the beginning, the total return of the game is the most important thing to me. It matters to me not at all if your favorite games are different than mine.

Posted on by — 7 Comments

If Bob Dancer is Playing . . .

A few years ago, for several days in a row, I was hammering a $5 Five Play 9/6 Double Double Bonus game. This game returns 98.98% and it is very un-Dancer-like to play so much on a game that bad.

I received an email from somebody I didn’t know asking me why I was playing the game. While I generally respond to polite emails, this time I didn’t bother. I share a lot of information, but I’m not required to share everything. I had figured something out, I believed, and I wasn’t talking except to a very few players who also sometimes share juicy things with me.

After it was over, one of our guests on the Gambling with an Edge podcast, Sam, who I hadn’t known previously, told me he was approached by somebody who saw me playing and figured that if it was good for me, it was probably good for others as well. The person asking didn’t have the bankroll to do it himself, which is why he approached Sam. Sam asked me if it would have been a good idea for him to bankroll the other player.

I knew the incident Sam was talking about. I’m still not talking about the details because parts of it are still alive and friends are still playing it on occasion.

I told Sam that in general, just seeing me there wasn’t sufficient to have an edge.

  1. This might have been an invited guest situation where some players have an offer that others don’t. If Sam didn’t know why I was playing, he didn’t get the offer.
  2. There could have been point multipliers available to players who get regular mailers and would not be available to Sam, who wasn’t an established player there. Even players who do get multipliers don’t always get the same multiplier.
  3. Maybe I had to play a certain amount quickly in order to be eligible for something juicy.
  4. Possibly there was a loss rebate promotion going on.
  5. There could have been one or more drawings included in the EV, some of which Sam didn’t know about and/or for which he wasn’t eligible. As an example, Sam wouldn’t qualify for a senior drawing, but I would. Or even if he did know about and was eligible for a drawing, possibly he would have had something else to do on the night(s) of the must-be-there-to-win drawing(s).
  6. There could be annual tier levels to which I aspired, but Sam didn’t care about. Several casinos, for example, offer cruises if you reach their highest tier level. Bonnie and I enjoy these. I know several players who are bored out of their minds on a cruise and playing extra to earn one isn’t something they would consider.
  7. I might have been playing extra to earn additional comps for some reason.
  8. There was more than one seemingly identical machine at this casino. I might have known one of them was superior for some reason.
  9. There were higher-EV machines available at this casino, but knowing what I knew, I believed they were actually lower-EV when you considered everything. If Sam played a higher-EV machine so he could “improve” on the way I was playing the game, his results would have been worse.
  10. I could possibly have had a deal with the casino that if I played $1 million on this game, I would get a $5,000 rebate — or something. That’s a half-percent in equity. That could easily change a “not playable” game into being playable. Perhaps it was a deal I negotiated individually. Perhaps it was one open to all players who played $1 million coin-in a month.
  11. It’s possible I screwed up and this play wasn’t as good as I thought it was. This doesn’t happen a whole lot for me, but I am 72 years old and it happens more than it used to. Sam couldn’t know if it was happening “this time.”
  12. There are bankroll issues on plays. Five-dollar five play 9/6 DDB takes more bankroll than most players are used to. Let’s say it went bad this time and the player (either me or Sam) lost $30,000. I understand the swings and am used to that. I wouldn’t be delighted by that result, but it really isn’t a big deal. It’s part of my world. How would Sam feel about that?

Did all of these things happen? No, of course not. Not on that one occasion, but they all have happened at least once to me. Were some of them in effect this time? Absolutely.
Seeing me (or another knowledgeable player) at a casino definitely provides some useful information for you. And sometimes you are also a regular at that casino and you know what promotions are going on — and can easily figure out why that game is being played today.

But if it’s not obvious to you why I’m playing, it’s probably not a good game for you. There are so many possible reasons why I might be playing, and without knowing which reasons are in effect at this time, it could very well be that it’s not a good play for you at all.