“S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E!” sixty people shouted as my wife Bonnie entered her sister’s house. Her 75th birthday party was off to a noisy beginning.
I sighed in relief. We had pulled it off. All the invitations and such had been sent out and responses received with Bonnie having no clue. I had ordered a cake from BabyCakes, the bakery within the M Resort, where I had a large number of comps.
Continue reading Two Sucker BetsIn Las Vegas, there was a 70-day break for the pandemic, assuming you played in the casinos on March 17 and returned on June 4. If you socially distanced before March 17, or didn’t rush back as soon as the casinos reopened, the break was longer.
Certain casino venues elsewhere in the country opened earlier or later than June 4, but for now, let’s assume we all had a 2¼ -month break, minimum. It’s close enough for today’s purposes.
Continue reading Are You Still Up to Snuff?In the middle of his famous poem “If,” Rudyard Kipling poses the condition, “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.” At the end of the poem filled with twenty or so other conditions, comes the conclusion, “you’ll be a Man, my son.”
Although addressed to his son, this applies equally to daughters. The phrase is etched over the players’ entrance at Wimbledon’s Centre Court. I read it recently in a book by Maria Konnikova which I will review next week. This phrase was a very small part of the book, but it speaks to me as a video poker player as surely as it does to tennis players.
Continue reading Kipling Said It BestI’ve been publishing and giving gambling advice for decades. Sometimes thinking like a gambler helps in areas far removed from gambling itself. Today I want to share such a case. (If you only want discussion of video poker, perhaps you should skip this week.)
Among other interests, I participate in Toastmasters, a group dedicated to helping you speak better. My reasons for this include being a better teacher, being a better interviewer on my podcast, practicing stories that I present in various locations, and even performing better in my Improv troupe. Insofar as following the “Pathways” programs and being awarded various designations by Toastmasters, I have no interest at all in that.
Continue reading Applying What I KnowMasterclass.com is a marvelous collection of world authorities talking about what they know best. I am very impressed with their teachers. I had heard about a 2-for-1 sale they were offering in early April, so I signed up. Usually it’s $180 per year for full access to thousands of hours of instruction, but the recent sale allowed two people to sign up for the same $180. The combination of the sale and lots of extra time due to the stay-at-home rules was enough to seal the deal for me. I sent an email out to a number of people I thought might be interested in partnering with me on this, and several responded with interest. The ones I couldn’t use, I hooked up with each other.
My primary interests are writing, comedy, and games of skill — and they have several courses in each of those categories. I’ll eventually get to classes further down my list of interests, but the courses on cooking and interior decorating will probably never make the cut for me.
Continue reading A Lesson from Daniel NegreanuToday I want to look at the advanced strategy features of 9/5 TBPP. Unlike the previous two weeks, I’m not comparing this game to another. I’m just listing exceptions to the intermediate rules.
I assume you’re generally familiar with penalty cards and the difference between ‘when’ and ‘with’ inside parenthesized exceptions. These are common for all the Dancer/Daily Winner’s Guides and strategy cards. If you’re not familiar with our notation, this might be tough going. It would take several thousand words to explain all the features of the notation, and that’s kind of tough for 800-word columns.
Continue reading A Look at 9-5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus — Part 3 of 3Today I want to look at some of the interesting features of 9/5 TBPP at the intermediate level. If you’re not comfortable at this level, you probably should review last week’s column before you dig into this one.
I’m not going to print a strategy here. If you have Video Poker for Winners software, you can get a strategy there. If not, www.wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/calculator/ provides an accurate strategy free of charge. I’m not crazy about the format of the WOO strategy, but when you start with free and accurate, it’s probably unfair to be too nitpicky.
Continue reading A Look at 9-5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus — Part 2 of 3This game returns a robust 99.80% with perfect play, is found in a number of Las Vegas casinos, and for some reason I have neither taught nor written much about the game. That is about to change.
Today I’ll discuss the basics of the game. Next week I’ll talk about some Intermediate-Level peculiarities to the game. And in two weeks I’ll discuss some of the advanced penalty card situations.
1 coin | 5 coins | ||
| Royal Flush | 250 | 4,000 | |
| Straight Flush | 100 | 500 | |
| Four Aces | 240 | 1,200 | |
| Four 2s thru 4s | 120 | 600 | |
| Four 5s thru Ks | 50 | 250 | |
| Full House | 9 | 45 | |
| Flush | 5 | 25 | |
| Straight | 4 | 20 | |
| Three of a Kind | 3 | 15 | |
| Two Pair | 1 | 5 | |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | 5 |
I’ve been writing these articles for more than 20 years and sometimes need to draw inspiration from all sorts of different places. Today’s inspiration comes from square dancing — but the subject matter will soon shift to gambling successfully.
The square dance callers (the people who stand up in front of the dancers and tell them what to do) in Las Vegas are probably adequate. Nothing special. It’s rare when one of our callers is paid to call somewhere else. At big conventions, when dancers from several states come together and dance to the best callers, our callers are never among those asked.
Continue reading Another Lesson from Square DancingI’m writing this as all Nevada casinos are closed for business. It feels weird. It’s the first time this has happened in my lifetime. Nevada was a few days behind several other states that have also closed casinos. More than one dozen Las Vegas casinos voluntarily closed before the governor’s order.
Since, because of the governor’s order, Nevada casinos won’t let you in these days, I began to list other ways a casino can kick out video poker players — although usually one at a time.
Continue reading Ways Casinos Can Restrict You