I received an email from a player, “Sam,” discussing a promotion that has come and gone, in an unnamed casino in an unnamed state. He wanted to know how I would have analyzed whether or not to play it.
The gist of the promotion was that for two consecutive days, four hours per day, each W-2G received the following free play bonuses:
Continue reading How Would You Play This One?The cards in ACE$ Bonus Poker (ABP) are just like the ones in regular Bonus Poker (BP) except there are superimposed yellow letters on four cards: “A” on the ace of clubs, “C” on the ace of diamonds, “E” on the ace of hearts, and “$” on the ace of spades. The order of the suits is alphabetical and contract bridge players will also be familiar with this order.
If you get four aces in ACE$ order, either in positions 1-4 or 2-5, you get paid 4,000 coins instead of 400. I’ve written about this game numerous times and have usually said the only changes you make to regular 8/5 BP strategy to play 8/5 ABP perfectly are to break aces full when the aces are in proper sequence for the bonus.
Continue reading An Interesting Hand in 8/5 ACE$ Bonus PokerLast week I wrote that my son-in-law passed away recently. My wife Bonnie is very close to her daughter, Joyce, so we’ve spent more time than usual hanging out together.
It probably had to happen. One of my gambling buddies, “Al,” lost his wife to a lengthy illness some time ago. Bonnie likes Al a lot. After Joyce signaled that she might be ready to date, setting up Al and Joyce for at least one blind date became inevitable. So, we made it happen. Although Al and Joyce were both involved in Bonnie’s and my wedding party eight years ago, they didn’t remember each other. They were both married at the time and not at all on the make. They were polite to each other, but I guess neither did anything particularly memorable that day!
Continue reading I Don’t Want Him Looking Over My ShoulderMy son-in-law, or perhaps a more correct term is step-son-in-law, Michael, passed away recently after a long illness. Michael was married to Bonnie’s daughter Joyce. He was more than 20 years older than Joyce, and in fact was a few months older than me.
After a somewhat rocky start, where Joyce and Michael were initially opposed to Bonnie marrying a professional gambler and did their best to sabotage the wedding. Over time we all got to know each other well and became friends.
Continue reading “Doing it Bob Dancer’s Way Can Lead to Bankruptcy”In last week’s blog I described a loss rebate promotion at Molly’s, a chain of local 15-machine pubs in Las Vegas. I know many of my readers aren’t Vegas locals. While the specifics of today’s enhancement concern Molly’s, I’m hoping to make the discussion general enough so that it might be useful elsewhere as well.
Continue reading Promotion at Molly’s — Part II of III received the following email for the Gambling with an Edge mailbag show:
Hi Bob, how do you calculate the edge on this video poker promotion? Molly’s in Vegas offers “lose $20, get $20” but I’m not sure how to calculate the advantage (if any). Also, if you have played this promotion before, do you literally have to put in $20 and lose it all before you get the $20 free play, or can you just lose four hands at $5 a hand to be credited the $20 free play?
Continue reading Promotion at Molly’s — Part I of IIA gambler friend, Al, and I were on the phone talking about something related to vitamin supplements, and then he said he had a video poker question that he was embarrassed to ask me.
“Go ahead,” I prompted. “If it’s too awkward, I just won’t answer.”
Continue reading Which is the Better Game?I recommend you get started with this article by reading last week’s post first. I’ll be happy to wait for you while you do that.
On Day 7 of my trip, a Monday, I showed up in my lucky shirt, hoping to take another big bite out of the casino’s assets if the game was still around. If it had been removed, I’d go back to the $5 game for as long as I was there.
Continue reading My Lucky Shirt — Part 2 of 2This true story happened some time ago, but so far, I haven’t written about it. I was playing $25 single line Double Double Bonus (DDB), rather heavily, at an out-of-town casino for more than a week. What casino, pay schedule, slot club, and promotions that made this a good play in my opinion are for another story, another day. Suffice it to say that I believed it to be a play where I had enough of an advantage to warrant playing hard.
If you can figure out where and when this took place (perhaps you saw me — a lot of players know what I look like), please keep it to yourself. There are reasons I don’t specify all the details of the game here, and please don’t undermine my reasons.
Continue reading My Lucky Shirt — Part 1 of 2I was associated with WinPoker for many years. It was, and is, a good product. Our breakup happened when Video Poker for Winners invited me along and promised to have a strategy calculator — a feature I think is important.
So I left WinPoker. I’ve remained on good terms with Dean Zamzow, the man in charge of all things related to WinPoker, but have no remaining financial interest in that product.
Continue reading Adding Triple Double Bonus to WinPoker