I received the following question for Richard’s and my mailbag show on Gambling with an Edge. It’s too involved to answer on the air. I thought I’d give it a go here.
Can you describe the steps you take to prepare for a play that may require you play during a time of day (graveyard for example) that is not a normal time for you to be playing? How far in advance do you start to adjust your schedule, and what other steps do you take?
Continue reading How Do I Prepare to Stay Awake?I was asked to answer a Question of the Day sent to The Las Vegas Advisor. My answer was “too long” for a QOD, but appropriate for one of my blogs. Since LVA hosts my blog and they have plenty of QOD questions “in the hopper,” I was allowed to answer this question here.
Is card-pulling at video poker still an effective way of minimizing wins?
Continue reading Card Pulling RevisitedI received an email to be answered on the podcast. Here it is:
I have a strategy question about 8/5 ACE$ bonus. I’ve been told that you play it the same as you would 8/5 bonus with the following exception: when dealt a full house with 2 or 3 aces where ACE$ is possible, you only hold the aces. Is that true? When dealt 2 pair and one of the pair are aces in the right position do you go for the full house or just hold the aces?
Continue reading Figuring It OutI’ve been a professional video poker player for 28 years and played backgammon and blackjack semi-professionally before that. Someone asked me what I’d be doing with my life if I weren’t a professional gambler?
My initial answer was, “I have no idea.” I haven’t had a serious backup plan for decades. I’m confident that I can make money doing what I’m doing, and if I have to give it up because of some medical condition (not in the foreseeable future — but that could always change tomorrow), I have enough put away that I won’t need to work.
Continue reading What Would I Be Doing?I’m now 75 years of age. I have mild COPD, which is a lung disorder partially caused and/or exacerbated by second hand smoke. I’ve been in casinos averaging more than 50 hours a week for the past 30 years. Before that, I played backgammon at a smoky club for more than 15 years.
A case could be made that had I chosen a different career, I might be healthier today. While I have been fairly successful, was what I gained worth what I lost insofar as health goes?
Continue reading Was It Worth It?The following question was posed to me for inclusion in one of Richard’s and my mailbag shows on our Gambling with an Edge podcast. While I did give an answer to it on the air, I believe a fuller answer is appropriate and so I’m going to talk about it here as well.
“This version of Double Bonus Poker is called “Full Pay Double Bonus Poker” or “10/7/5 Double Bonus Poker.”
If Jacks or Better and Double Bonus Poker had similar strategies, it would be a no-brainer to select Double Bonus Poker as the preferred game.
Unfortunately, the strategy for Double Bonus Poker is more complex than the strategy for Jacks or Better making it more likely that mistakes will be made – mistakes which will cost you money.”
Bonnie and I sometimes shop at Sprouts Farmers Market, which is a cross between a regular grocery store and a health food store. In my weekly email, I saw an announcement that between March 18 and March 31, any Sprouts purchase earns you a coupon (on the bottom of your register receipt), entitling you to $10 off of a $75 purchase between April 1 and April 30.
Since we spend a couple of hundred dollars there every month, these coupons are valuable. I might take some jockeying in a single trip to get at least $75, but not too much over, so the next week we can do it again — but I’m up to that task. And I’ll make sure to get three or four of these coupons before the end of March.
Continue reading Not Everybody Will UnderstandI decided to use the coupons for Golden Gate in the Las Vegas Advisor Member Rewards booklet. There were three that were of interest to me — $25 match play (worth $12 or so); first blackjack pays 2-to-1, up to $25 (worth about the same); and playing $10,000 in coin-in within 24 hours on video poker gets you $100 in free play. (We’ll talk about how much that is worth.)
Continue reading Coupons at Golden GateI was playing a very nice $5 progressive at Circa. It was on the 165-foot bar at the west end of their casino’s lower level. In addition to containing slots and blackjack, the machines have numerous video poker denominations from 25¢ to $5, and each denomination has numerous games all connected to the same progressives. The progressives on these machines are linked to similar machines at the Golden Gate (directly across Fremont Street) and the D (also on Fremont Street, but two blocks east).
When I started play on Valentine’s Day, the progressive was at $38,800 and the best game to play was 8/6 Bonus Poker Deluxe. I’d been tipped off by a friend. I know the 9/6 non-progressive version of this game very well, and practiced at this progressive level for a bit before I drove to the casino.
Continue reading Is It Worth It?The Las Vegas Advisor solicits “Questions of the Day” and some of the ones related to video poker are passed along to me. I answer, on average, one or two of these a month.
On February 9, there was a QOD about hitting a jackpot while using someone else’s slot club card.
Continue reading The Last Thing I Would Do