Category: Video Poker

I was helping Bonnie learn an advanced square dancing move called “Cast a Shadow.” (I know this is my hobby and not yours, but bear with me. We’ll get to video poker very shortly.) This is a move that starts out with two parallel lines composed of four dancers in each line.

Without describing the move in detail, I was asking her in which direction the dancers on the ends of the lines turned first. First she guessed “right,” (which I told her was wrong), and so then she guessed “left” (which I told her was also wrong.) This frustrated her. She (correctly) knew the only ways to turn were left and right and now I was telling her neither was correct. Continue reading It Depends

A woman recently hired me to teach her the idiosyncrasies of 8/5 Bonus Poker. She knew 9/6 Jacks or Better cold and wanted to know how the games differed — down to the smallest degree. I quoted her two prices — the lesser one was if I could write an article or two about what I was teaching her; the more expensive one was if I couldn’t. Cheaper won out.

There are a lot of players who use 9/6 JoB strategy for 8/5 Bonus. This isn’t a terrible approach. It takes a 99.166% game and reduces it to 99.158%. If you play for dollars at 800 hands per hour (i.e. $4,000 coin-in), the difference between using 9/6 JoB strategy and perfect 8/5 Bonus strategy is 32¢ each and every hour. Some players argue that life is too short to worry about earning an extra 32¢ an hour in exchange for additional study. Continue reading An Interesting Hand in Bonus Poker

Several years ago, I wrote an article which stated that successful video poker playing required a juggling act of sorts. Pretend that one ball is getting the right pay schedule; another ball is knowing how to play each hand; another ball is understanding the slot club and promotions in effect and not playing unless the combination is high enough; another ball is playing while rested and sober enough so that you’re at your best; etc. Continue reading One Ball Hits the Ground

It’s been more than a year since Shirley and I parted ways, and this past April I began seeing a lady named Bonnie. That relationship is going very well and we plan to marry this coming May. Prior to our wedding, Bonnie and I have had to arrive at a financial understanding regarding my gambling profession. I’m certain that other couples have had to deal with similar situations.

In financial terms, both Bonnie and I are reasonably comfortable. Although her relatives like me well enough, it scares them to death that she could actually be sharing her estate with a professional gambler who might need her to bail him out from bankruptcy. Although I feel that I’m at the top of my craft and believe that there is essentially a zero chance of me ever losing all of my assets, her relatives don’t understand that. In their mind ‘gambler’ means ‘loser in the long run.’ Continue reading Sharing a Bankroll

Las Vegas has a colorful history, to say the least. I’ve read several books about it and I knew that Jay Sarno was the name of the man who created Caesars Palace (which opened in 1966) at the tail-end of the mob era in Las Vegas. That was the limit of my knowledge about Jay Sarno.

David G. Schwartz, Director of Gaming Research at UNLV, has written a biography about Sarno called Grandissimo: The First Emperor of Las Vegas. Richard Munchkin and I decided to schedule him to appear on our Gambling with an Edge radio show partly because it was a good excuse for both of us to read the book and learn more about a prominent figure in Las Vegas history. And since I read the book well enough to ask questions about it on the radio interview, it gives me enough information to share with you. Continue reading A Look at Grandissimo: The First Emperor of Las Vegas