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Wrong Conclusion

A square-dancing friend, Sal, was telling me how happy he was that he finally learned to play Full Pay Deuces Wild. He had studied the Winner’s Guide, practiced on Video Poker for Winners, and in the last two months had averaged about $30 per hour in profit on about 5-6 hours of play per week on the quarter game. He had pictures of three $1,000 royals on his cell phone that he wanted to show and have me admire.

Using this source of extra income, he had made a commitment to move his girlfriend, Betty, to Vegas from out-of-state. “I can finally afford it,” Sal told me. “I never realized I had what it takes to be a successful gambler.”

“Hold on,” I told him. “Full Pay Deuces Wild is worth somewhere in the range of $6-$10 per hour, depending on how fast you play and the benefits the casino gives you. There will be periods where your results exceed this for relatively short periods of time and there will be months in a row where you lose, lose, lose.”

“You’ve been going through what we call positive variance for the past few months,” I told Sal. “It won’t last. Guaranteed. It’s even possible you haven’t learned the game sufficiently well to be a favorite at all. Or maybe only a $2 an hour favorite.

“Having a two-month winning streak is no indication of whether you are playing competently or not. On a hand like W W 7♠ 6♥ 8♠, where the W (for wild card) indicates a deuce, good players hold WW78. Had somebody just held the deuces, he might have scored despite the 1-in-360 odds against him and ended up with four deuces this particular time. That would have been profitable in the short run, but over time that play is a costly one. There are numerous examples in this game where the wrong hold can work this time, so just looking at results over the short run gives you the wrong conclusion.

“If you need the extra $150 or so per week to bring your girlfriend to town and have her stay here, you better find an additional source of income, tell her not to come, or let her know that she’s going to have to pitch in financially to make this work.

“Plus, you need a bankroll of probably $4,000 or preferably more on hand just to cover the swings of this game. This is not money you need for rent, food, or anything else. This is money AFTER you’ve paid off all your credit card, any expenses related to her move, and all other debt.  It’s just a reserve because the negative variance times are definitely coming.”

Sal sighed and said that talking to me today had been a real downer. He preferred to think positively and the negative picture I presented was not pleasant at all.

I shrugged. “I’d rather tell you what I think is the truth rather than to paint a rosy picture that won’t come to fruition. I experienced what they call Gambler’s Ruin almost 35 years ago, It was no fun. And now you’re a senior citizen, it’ll be even harder to recoup if it happens to you.”

They were starting another dance and Sal left to find a partner. During the next break between dances he came back to me.

“Betty doesn’t even think gambling is a good idea. I haven’t told her yet that gambling is what allowed me to pay for her ticket.”

“You aren’t going to like my response,” I told Sal, “but if you go out and spend the money right away whenever you hit a royal flush, you will never accumulate the necessary bankroll. There will be times when you go to the casino for 5-6 hours and come back and have to tell Betty you lost $400 or more. That’s merely going to reinforce her general attitude that gambling is bad news. She probably won’t believe that you’re playing a game where you actually have the advantage.”

“So what should I do?” he asked. “You make it sound like it’s going to be a disaster.”

“I can’t make the decisions for you,” I told him. “I’ve never met Betty. I don’t know how flexible she is about staying with you if you continue to gamble. I don’t know how employable either one of you are or how good you are at getting by. I don’t know what your habits are and how expensive they are. All I do know is that if you are expecting Full Pay Deuces Wild for quarters to continue to generate $30 per hour, it simply won’t happen.”

“I guess Betty and I are going to have a long phone call tonight and discuss things” Sal told me.

That’s probably a good start.

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Learning the Wrong Lesson

Most of us continue to learn as we progress through life. A 70-year-old man has many more life experiences than a 20-year-old. Most 20-year-olds have more recently been a student and have a more flexible mind than their grandparents, but their grandparents have been in many more situations and have learned from them. That learning experience is very valuable.

Unless they’re a football fan.

On a kickoff in the National Football League, a “touchback” — meaning the kick goes into the end zone or beyond and the receiving team makes no attempt to run it out — results in the ball being placed on the 25-yard line.

If the receiving team runs the ball out and gets “only” to the 20-yard line, the typical announcer says that running it out was a “bad decision.” The reason he says this is obvious. Had the kick returner given up and taken a knee, the ball would have been at the 25-yard line. Since he only got to the 20-yard line, any fool can see that it was a bad decision.

Conversely, had the runner gotten to the 30-yard line, this would have been pronounced a “good decision.”

Seventy-year-olds have heard this kind of football-announcer logic hundreds or thousands of times. And they sometimes believe this kind of thinking because it makes sense.

Except it’s dead wrong — at least to my way of thinking.

Whether or not you have made a good decision or a bad decision should be determined at the time you make the decision — NOT sometime down the road. In the case of football, the player needs to consider how deep the ball is kicked, his speed, the score of the game, the placement of the players on both teams, and a variety of other factors. Sometimes another player has the responsibility of determining whether or not the kick should be run out because the guy who is catching the ball needs to concentrate on that and not on where everybody else is.

When the player catches the ball and runs it out, he cannot know exactly where he will be tackled or run out of bounds. He can have a good idea — but he doesn’t know exactly. Over time he learns that on average, if the ball is kicked nine yards deep, he doesn’t get as far as when the kick comes down right on the goal line. This is an important factor in his decision. He learns that balls kicked really high take longer to come down so he’s more likely to be tackled earlier than if it were a low kick. This is also an important factor in his decision. There are many other such factors and eventually he becomes better at this — or is replaced by somebody else.

In gambling, many people use the same type of illogic — namely if they win they were playing well and if they lose they were playing poorly. Again, this is dead wrong to my way of thinking.

A good bet, or a good decision, should be evaluated as good or bad when you make the bet — not afterwards. With the hand Q♠ J♠ T♠ 9♠ 8♦, discarding the 8 and seeing if you connect on a flush or straight flush this time is definitely not the way to evaluate what the correct play is. (Generally speaking, in games without wild cards, when the straight flush pays 250 you keep the straight and when it pays 400 or more you go for the straight flush.)

People who listen to a lot of football games and learn to accept the kind of logic presented there have a tough time accepting this “truth.”

What makes “my” truth better than the truth told by football announcers? (It’s not “my” truth at all, but merely the truth I’m presenting here. It was discovered long before I came along.) The most successful gamblers from a variety of disciplines accept it.

Poker players talk about pot odds. If the pot is offering 3-1 odds and the actual odds are only 2-1 against you, poker teachers tell you that you should make the bet even though you are going to lose it two-thirds of the time.

Michael Shackleford, the head guy at the Wizard of Odds series of websites, who is arguably more of a theoretician than a gambler (although clearly, he is both), phrases it as, “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s whether you had a good bet.”

The basic strategy in blackjack says you should splits 8s against a ten (as well as all other up cards.) Doing this, you’re frequently going to lose twice as much as if you either stood on the 16 or took another card. This decision is made because on average, you’ll lose less money splitting the 8s than you will making either of the other two plays. And “on average” means over several times, not just this time in particular.

In sports betting, you might see -150 on one side of a bet and +125 on the other — meaning you have to bet $150 to win $100 if you lay the favorite, and you win $125 for your $100 bet if you take the underdog. Either side might be the smart bet — depending on a bunch of factors. Waiting until after the game is over and THEN saying “I should have bet on . . .” is not the way it’s done — but that’s the way football announcers tell it.

Experience is a great teacher. But sometimes it teaches us the wrong lesson.

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Where I Grew Up

Someone pointed me to an article in a West Hollywood publication about the Cavendish West. I was surprised to find that I was quoted in the article as the author never spoke to me. He did, however, paraphrase some things I’ve said on the radio show.

The Cavendish West is the place where I learned many lessons about gambling — from about 1975 – 1991. Although I did play a bit of contract bridge there for money, I was never a winning player at that game. My game of choice was backgammon, where I was successful — for a time.

In the mid-1970s, when backgammon was a sexy game, was played in discos, and was written about in popular magazines, I was sufficiently above average that I did quite well financially. Eventually the game passed out of favor and the Cavendish was left with only the good pros beating up on the not-so-good pros. I fell into the higher end of the lower category — and eventually, around 1980, I had to go out and get a job to support myself. It was awful.

I wrote a “Lessons from the Cavendish West” chapter in my Million Dollar Video Poker autobiography, but today I want to primarily address other things.

At the Cavendish, there were a LOT of good players. You could sit and watch them play, and so long as you were quiet you were generally allowed to look on. As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” You could take notes and see how the big boys did things.

Sometimes they’d take three or so minutes to make a play and you could see what they finally did, but you had no idea of what their thought process was. For me, just watching was pretty boring. Playing was a lot more fun than watching. Still is. I basically had a free backgammon university education available to me, but instead chose to go and play backgammon against somebody over whom I had little or no edge. That led to a form of gambler’s ruin.

Today I hope I’m smarter than that. Video poker opportunities are less plentiful and less lucrative than they used to be. Studying, scouting, and waiting for the good ones are all part of succeeding these days. It’s easy to predict a day will come that I’ll be playing two hours a week or less. I’m preparing for that day. Perhaps you should too. Those who continue to play even though they are not the favorite will continue to lose.

Other factors that were drummed into me concerned sleep management and substance abuse. During certain periods in the 1980s, I worked 50+ hours a week in IT departments and then tried playing and/or studying 40 hours a week of backgammon. Both careers suffered — as did my social life. Today I can’t stay alert and play more than 6-8 hours at a time, although if I get a good four hours of sleep I can put in another session of that length. However much EV I calculate a play is worth, that calculation presumes an insignificant number of errors. If I play long enough, I make many more errors than I calculated and lose all my edge.

The Cavendish was housed in an office building and one flight up was a small roof that covered a portion of the building. Players frequently smoked marijuana or other substances on the roof and getting an invitation to join them was fairly easy. I didn’t do that very often, but when I did, my results suffered greatly. I am not someone who can smoke a joint and then concentrate on playing the way I need to in order to succeed.

Because of our last election, recreational marijuana is about to be legalized in Nevada. That’s fine for those of you who want that, but for me it’s poison. I’ll stay away. It’s possible that someday I’ll be in sufficient pain that I will take marijuana to help deal with it, but I’ll give up gambling for as long as I’m consuming.

The end of the article tells of the last days of the Cavendish, when voters of the then recently incorporated West Hollywood decided they didn’t want the club in their city. Previously, West Hollywood was a part of the City of Los Angeles. It was said around the club in the 70s and 80s that the mother of the DA (or was it the chief of police?) regularly played gin rummy at the Cavendish, so the club was safe from being raided. That was probably true, but I don’t know which public official, which mother, or even which jurisdiction this applied to. I was just happy that I could play there.

The Cavendish died a couple of years before I moved to Las Vegas. I was sad to see it go, although by that time it was just a time-killer for me. There were relatively few backgammon players at the end and, although I could get into a game where I was a slight favorite (I was a MUCH better player at that time than I was back in 1980 when I had to leave and go get a job), the house rake absorbed most of my edge. Still, it was a pleasant diversion one or two nights a week and I liked that.

When I got to Vegas, there was a backgammon club here. I briefly considered staying active in the backgammon scene, but I already knew I couldn’t support myself playing backgammon in Los Angeles and had heard it was tougher in Las Vegas. No thanks. I decided to stick to games I thought I could beat.

If you read the article, you’ll see a picture of a backgammon board at the top. This is a folding board, sold at toy stores with toy store dice. This is NOT what we used at the Cavendish. In a reply that I sent in response to the article, I explained what the differences are.

The picture is also missing the most important part of the game — i.e. the doubling cube. Without a doubling cube, backgammon is just a game. With a doubling cube, backgammon is a great gambling game.

I suspect my many thousands of hours at the Cavendish helped make me a better gambler today. After you’ve been through many many dozens of winning streaks and losing streaks, it’s easier to keep your balance when you’re in another one.

At the time, especially when I was losing and had to go and get a job, I thought I had “wasted” several years of my life. Today I believe I couldn’t have gotten to where I am today without going through that first. Among other things, the Cavendish introduced me to Richard Munchkin and for that I’m very grateful.

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Losing Perspective

As I mentioned last week, Bonnie and I recently cruised the Mexican Riviera. One purpose of the trip was so that Bonnie could rest. She had a fall not so long ago, straining some muscles and tendons in her back, and the doctors have said the best thing for her is to rest and to take Motrin for the pain — preferably the kind in gel caps which dissolve at a slower rate.

While we were in Mazatlán, the second of our two ports of call, on our way back to the ship Bonnie remembered that she was a little low on Motrin. No problem. They had a pharmacy in the port area. Prices would probably be a little higher than in downtown Mazatlán, and a little lower than on the ship.

The kind she wanted cost $3 and were packaged in a box about the size of a pack of cigarettes. We paid, placed her medicine in a black bag, and left.

Five minutes later, while still in the port area, Bonnie asked, “Where’s my Motrin?” It was gone. She hadn’t given it to me, but I still checked all my pockets and my backpack anyway, just in case. It was nowhere around.

Bonnie was really upset. I tried to calm her by reminding her it was only $3 and we could easily go back and buy another package. “This is mildly unfortunate,” I reminded her, “but it’s not a big deal. If you ran out of Motrin in the middle of the night and needed it, a visit to the casino doctor at that hour might cost $100 and it would have been worth it! An extra few dollars now isn’t worth ruining an otherwise nice vacation.”

I didn’t remind her that the stress from worrying wouldn’t help her healing process anyway. Had I mentioned this to Bonnie at that particular moment, she would have likely gotten even more upset — and this time her anger might have been directed at me.

So we went back and bought another pack. As we left the pharmacy, Bonnie wanted to retrace her steps one more time seeing if we could find the black bag.

As it happened, one of the security guards on the way back to the ship asked what she was looking for and sure enough, he had her pills and gave them to her. I tried to tip him a dollar and he waved it off.

This was quite remarkable to us. From about 2010 to 2013, cruise ships refused to stop at this city because of the crimes against tourists. For the health of the city, you now see lots and lots of armed military guards all over the city. We had taken the bare minimum of cash with us and left watches and jewelry locked up on the ship. We were not expecting to run into a Good Samaritan — and were pleasantly surprised when we did.

Now the issue was what to do with the extra box of medicine? I didn’t know the policy of the pharmacy about returns, but I suggested keeping it. “You’ll use it eventually,” I told her, “and even if you can get it back home for maybe $1.50 when you buy in quantity, it’s not worth the hassle of trying to talk them into something that may or may not be against their policy.”

Something else happened that could be called similar, but I see a difference. Our cruise was courtesy of Penn National — or more specifically M Resort. Included on our package was $50 credit for food or beverage only (thank you very much!)

Early in the cruise I went to the front desk and asked them a hypothetical. If I charged a $40 bottle of wine, with a forced 18% gratuity of $7.20 and that was my only charge, would the voucher pick up $40 and I was responsible for the gratuity, or would the voucher pick up the whole $47.20? I could live with it either way but I’ve had enough experience with different ways casinos handle such things that I wanted to check up front. I was told the voucher would cover the entire $47.20.

Armed with this information, I ordered a $42 bottle of wine, which comes out to $49.56 with gratuity. (Okay. It was a $15 bottle of wine at Lee’s Discount Liquor Store, but cruise ship prices are inflated a bit.) When our final bill was delivered to our stateroom at 4:00 a.m. on the morning of departure, the $49.56 charge was still there. So I went to the front desk with my voucher and everything was handled eventually, although it did require speaking to two different people. Had I not gone to the desk, who knows if the charge would have come off?

Bonnie asked me what the difference was between me going to the front desk and “fighting” for the $49.56 and her being upset about the “lost” $3 worth of Motrin?

To me the difference was that I wasn’t upset or out of control. It was a simple matter of checking — and then doing whatever was appropriate. I intentionally set my alarm a half hour early on the last day to leave time for this “if necessary.” (There were two other items I wanted to verify on the bill — but they were done appropriately.) I didn’t see this as a major problem. Just a matter of something that needed to be tended to.

Let’s switch to gambling. We all have imperfect things happen to us from time to time. Maybe we accidentally played a few hands on a worse pay schedule than we intended to. Maybe all four of the “good machines” we thought were best to play were full and we needed to play second-best or go home. Maybe the machine ran out of tickets just as we got there and we had to “waste” five minutes until it was fixed. Whatever.

There are people who can shrug that off and there are others who get really upset. Years ago, we had an expression, “Don’t sweat the small sh*t,” although the folks who used that expression often had marijuana to help them through it. (Bonnie has never used marijuana in her life and hasn’t thought it a good idea for anyone else to use it either.  Recently, however, she has considered trying the medical variety for her back pain. I’m always a bit amused when people who say “never” end up in a personal circumstance that turns that “never” into “maybe.” It’s more amusing, of course, when it happens to somebody else rather than ourselves.)

Getting angry at little things causes undue stress, including high blood pressure and various other real medical problems. Finding ways to not do that makes your life longer and more pleasant. Exercise helps. Yoga, meditation, and other techniques work. For some, religion and/or some type of self-help process also is useful.

In the casino — and out.

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Do You Have What it Takes?

Bonnie and I recently cruised the Mexican Riviera on NCL, courtesy of Penn National — in particular M Resort. We’ve vacationed several times on the same cruise line courtesy of Harrah’s/Caesars, but this time it was from somewhere else.

I packed a lot of M logo shirts — of which I have dozens. Perhaps two or three times per week, M offers free gifts — such as shirts or alcohol, sometimes higher-end stuff. I rarely go down to pick up these gifts. It’s ten miles away; it causes another trip which can lower my mailer; and how much do I need another T-shirt anyway? A few times a year, however, they have a “Warehouse Blowout” event on a Sunday, where they “give away” unclaimed items. Depending on your tier level, you get one, two, or three tickets for free and you can earn another four tickets for play that day. If you do “play up” for extra tickets, you also qualify for a free Sunday lunch buffet — which is a quality meal at this casino.

Once inside, you spend your tickets on whatever you like — keeping in mind that the pickings are pretty slim (leftover alcohol rarely finds its way to these events). Often neither Bonnie nor I can find stuff we can’t live without, so T-shirts and polo shirts (for which you get two shirts for one ticket) are our default. More than once I’ve brought home eight or ten shirts.

On the ship, a senior couple, “Marge” and “Ed,” recognized the shirt I was wearing and told me they lived in Henderson, which is in the greater Vegas area. They played Double Double Bonus and told me the casino they played at, Emerald Island, had the 9/6 version on a 100-coin penny machine — a level at which they were comfortable. “We’re retired, you know, the casino is close to home, and they give us free food.”

“That’s fine,” I told them. “The game is costing you a penny a hand on average, assuming you play well, offset by whatever food they give you. It sounds like low-cost entertainment.”

“What do you mean ‘play well?’” Marge asked. “It’s pretty much common sense.”

“Every hand has a mathematically correct play. Let me ask you some basic ones,” I said. “How would you play A♠ Q♥ J♣ 7♦ 4♣?” I knew the correct choice was QJ, but many DDB players hold just the ace. Occasionally some players without a clue hold AQJ.

“I’d throw them all away,” Marge announced.

Whoa! This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the game is played. I wasn’t sure how to tell her that without insulting her.

“No,” I told her. “That’s not close. Sorry.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Computer programs tell you how to play every hand. Over time I’ve learned correct plays,” I told her.

“I’ve never heard of that,” Ed said.

“Do you guys own a PC?” I asked. They did. My computer, with Video Poker for Winners installed, was in my cabin. I was willing to spend a few minutes showing them — but if they hadn’t owned a computer there was no hope that they’d remember enough hints to make a difference.

When we got to my cabin, I let the computer deal hands just to see where they were. I had it set on “Advanced” so the hands were tougher than average. I didn’t do this to be mean — it’s just that they are more interesting. Having the computer ask them if they know how to play Q♥ Q♣ 7♦ 7♠ 7♥ is a waste of their time and mine.

One hand was K♠ Q♥ J♣ 9♣ 7♣. This is not a beginner level hand. Not all players would correctly play KQJ9. Some would hold KQJ and other hold J97. But not Ed and Marge.

“I’d hold king jack,” Ed told me. “Holding queens is always unlucky.”

“And I’d throw them all away,” Marge chimed in.

These were both awful decisions

Next was K♦T♦7♦ 6♠ 3♥. Ed held the KT and Marge held the K. Both wrong, but at least reasonable. They didn’t come close on three of the next five hands we tried.

There are some people who just aren’t smart enough to play intelligent video poker. I concluded I was talking to two of them. I didn’t suggest they buy the Winner’s Guide for the game because I think it would have been incomprehensibly difficult for them.

I did suggest they get the software. I told them that if they practiced a couple of hours a week before they played, and attempted to play like the computer recommended, they would save more than a thousand dollars a year.

Marge was doubtful. “I’ve seen people use strategy cards, including some with your name on them,” she told me. “They don’t do any better than anybody else.”

I asked Marge if she knew for sure how well she and Ed were doing gambling-wise this year. She didn’t. “Keeping records is too much like work. We’re retired, you know.”

I wanted to ask her how she could possibly know that somebody else was doing better or worse than she was if she didn’t even know how well she was doing? Surely, she had no strong knowledge of how the other person was doing either.

But I didn’t. I did tell them that strategy cards worked well if you practiced with them and used them regularly.

I also told her that I’d be teaching beginner DDB at the South Point, probably in January. I invited them and promised it would help them a lot. Although the DDB class is for beginners, they would probably still find it too difficult.

They left with a “we’ll think about it.” (I know what that means! It means I should assume 10-1 odds against them showing up for class.)

Playing video poker intelligently isn’t for everybody. It takes a certain level of the right kind of intelligence. Not everybody has a chance to succeed.

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More Information is Required

In my “Waiting for Wednesday” blog a few weeks ago, found here. I was addressing the idea of scheduling when to play. One reader named Steve responded by quoting me first and then stating his “correction.” He wrote: “For me, that includes remembering that chasing every good promotion takes a backseat to doing what Bonnie wants to do. At least some of the time.” “SOME” of the time? For me, “Happy wife, happy life” is at least “MOST” of the time 🙂

Okay, Steve, you are now Bonnie’s new best friend and she sends her regards. And while I don’t disagree with what you said, there are some nuances worth discussing.
In my family, Bonnie isn’t a player — and she knows how I make my living. She knows I play at, among other places, South Point, M, and Dotty’s. She knows they run promotions and I do most of my play during certain promotions.

What she doesn’t know is how valuable the promotions are compared to each other and how flexible the promotions are. If she wants to know how much coin-in I plan to play at South Point in any particular month, I’ll tell her. But usually she doesn’t ask.

For example, I want to play $xxx at Dotty’s during the month to keep mailers and other benefits coming. For certain reasons, I play weekly rather than all at once and since the maximum benefits come after midnight and before noon, it doesn’t matter too much when I do that play subject to those constraints.

Conversely, if I play for the Silverton’s seniors’ drawing, that play MUST be done on Monday’s between 2 a.m. and 4 p.m. and prizes (if any) must be picked up between 4 p.m. on Monday and 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

I rank each promotion on a 1-5 scale, where 1 means it’s okay to skip it entirely and 5 means “I don’t care if your daughter is coming to visit — I’m playing! If you want to take her out to dinner, I’ll get a comp, but I’m not going to eat with you.”

Bonnie trusts my ranking system. If I tell her a promotion is a number 5, she works around that. (If Bonnie or I had a medical emergency, for example, that could definitely trump a number 5. But under normal circumstances, when I declare that a promotion is a number 5, I get my way.) Could I abuse the system and usually get my way? Yeah, probably, but the “happy wife, happy life” motto Steve cited is a good one to keep in mind.

We use the same sort of system near the end of the month when we decide which food coupons we’re going to use — and which ones we’re going to let go. Bonnie has a huge vote in these discussions, but it’s my job to keep track of the offers so I can explain her options.

As I write this I’m on a cruise ship. We use a variation of the same system on deciding when and where to eat, or who gets to use the bathroom first.

There have been occasions where Bonnie has said she really wants to go to a particular square dance event and can I please have some flexibility in my ranking system. When she says this, she usually gets her way. Had she said this about the night of the “mistake” 12x promotion at the Silverton which I wrote about recently, she would not have prevailed. That promotion was worth more than $5,000 in EV and would have been worth more to me than yielding on that particular night.

To be sure, I would have “bargained” with her, saying something like “I really, really can’t do that on Thursday, but what can we do on Wednesday or Friday to make up for it?”

We are both trying to make this relationship work — so almost always we can come up with something that is acceptable to both of us. Winning in casinos is the name of that game. Winning (or getting my way) at home — not so much.

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It Takes More Than a Book

In addition to where my blogs usually appear, starting a few months ago they also have been found at www.gamblingwithanedge.com. This is a site created by the folks at The Las Vegas Advisor and groups together podcasts from the radio show and blogs from a number of successful gamblers.

One feature of that site is it’s a handy place to post your own comments for or against anything written. Today’s blog was inspired by comment written about one of my recent blogs. It wasn’t an unfriendly comment. It wasn’t a personal attack of any sort. It was likely intended as gentle teasing. But nonetheless I disagree strongly with what was written.

The blog in question was dated October 25, 2016 and part of it referred to an incident where I “instructed” my ex-wife Shirley on my way of gambling. More than one reader responded with how they have taught spouses how to gamble.

One reader posed the following:  My wife and I have been married for 44 years. She has just started to play VP. Instead of me teaching her I just gave her a copy of Bob’s book on how to win at JoB…….if she loses there is only one person (other than herself) to blame……sorry Bob.

Thanks for plugging my Winner’s Guide (actually co-written with Liam W. Daily). If I personally were trying to learn a game and someone had already created that kind of a book, it would definitely be part of my learning process. I use all sorts of sources to help myself get better at things.

With that said, tossing someone a Winner’s Guide and telling them they’re now on their own is a lousy way to teach them how to play a winning game.

Why? Because people learn in different ways. Some people learn by reading. Some learn by listening. Some learn by doing and being corrected. Some people are A students and very proficient at comprehending what they read, but more people aren’t.

A Winner’s Guide make a lot more sense if you also are using computer software along with it. I personally use Video Poker for Winners, WinPoker, and Wolf Video Poker to assist me. For learning a new game they all work, and each has small  advantages the others don’t.

Even with a computer and a book, most players can’t tell you when Q♠ T♠ 8♠ is more valuable than a 4-card inside straight with three high cards in the same hand. Studying at that level by themselves is beyond what most players can or will do. A personal tutor (assuming that’s what you call an accomplished player who has already learned the game well) can explain this easily enough, but it will often take several repetitions before the new student has it mastered. And then a few weeks or months later, a review will often be required. And then later, another review.This kind of information doesn’t stick firmly in the minds of many.

Perhaps more fundamentally, even though the Jacks or Better Winner’s Guide can help teach you how to play each hand correctly, it won’t turn you into a winning player. Although there are some exceptions in a few places, the best common version of the game returns 99.54% before including the slot club and other benefits. That means the house has an edge of 0.46% if you can play perfectly — and it takes a while to learn how to play perfectly.

The concepts of free play, mailers, promotions, comps, and other goodies won’t be learned from the Winner’s Guides. These concepts are every bit as important as how to play the hands correctly, and are arguably more difficult to learn.

Plus, they keep changing. Very few slot clubs are the same today as they were three years ago. Similar, yes. Identical, no. And knowing where those differences lie can make or break you.

Although my blogs sometimes address these subjects, I may be talking about casinos and/or stakes which you don’t play. For “local” (to the student) information, that student is going to need local tutoring.

Does every reader of my blog need to be a tutor? No, of course not. But thinking that you’ve done a good job teaching by giving the student a book, even a good book, is fooling yourself. It takes a lot more than a book.

And if you become a teacher to help somebody else, you will become a better player in the process.

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Preparing for Drawings

Last week’s article (found here) discussed the process of getting ready to play for extended hours at “unusual” times. While writing it, I needed to decide whether getting ready for drawings was going to be part of that same article or a later one. It now should be obvious what my decision was.

Drawings are an important part of my success at video poker. Although there are differences between 1099s and W2Gs, it basically doesn’t matter to me if I can find games with an extra $30,000 a year in EV in a universe with no drawings or play in my current universe and receive an extra $30,000 in EV from drawings.

There have been years when the drawings I entered had a much higher EV. That varies from year to year depending on how much casinos are giving away and to whom they are giving it — and whether I’m welcome to play. A few years ago, the Palms would give away $20,000 a week in drawings; they kept drawing until all prizes were given away; and they had relatively high denomination machines where I could earn lots of drawing entries. So, I won my share there. The last two years, they reduced the prizes to $10,000 a week, made it “must claim by midnight” so there was a LOT of “breakage,” (meaning the money wasn’t given away because it wasn’t claimed), and, among other things, the machines I played were declared ineligible for promotions. Plus, they gave away 20 free drawing entries a day Monday thru Friday to anyone who swiped. My drawings EV at the Palms became close enough to $0 that I quit showing up for them. (The Palms changed ownership effective October 1 of this year. I have no idea what their drawings will be like in the future. I have been severely restricted at Station Casinos for several years, as have many hundreds of other players, and so those of us who played at the Palms under the old ownership will need to find another place to play.)

The first rule for drawings is: “Read the rules.” Completely and carefully. Every time. Pay attention to such things as:

  1. How are tickets earned? Only during certain hours? Are certain machines excluded? Do some machines (especially slots) earn more tickets?
  2. Is there a limit on tickets? If it’s a low limit, I might not be interested, but you may be. I do not wish to compete with “everybody.” I want to compete where my willingness to play more and bigger gives me an advantage.
  3. Are the tickets virtual or do you have to fill them out? I generally prefer virtual tickets as it is no fun at all to fill out 2,000 tickets. If you enter a large number of tickets into the drum, people who don’t have that many aren’t happy about it. And that can create problems.
  4. Does anybody get tickets for free? For me, this is often a showstopper, but it doesn’t have to be. At the Silverton senior drawings on Monday, every senior who swipes gets one ticket, while players who play can earn several hundred. Yes, someone who has only one ticket wins some of the time, but overall, you can play enough to still have good chances.
  5. Do I have to activate my entries? If so, when? How? There are two main reasons for this. First, if a casino is going to keep drawing tickets until they have the advertised number of winners, they want people called to be there. Otherwise it can take all night for the drawing to take place. Second, if a casino can get you there two hours before the drawing, often that creates extra play — which is why the casinos hold drawings in the first place.
  6. Do I have to be there to win? If not, how long do I have to claim any prize won? This can affect what else I can do that evening. If three casinos have drawings at 7 p.m. but they are all “must claim before midnight,” I can participate in all three.
  7. Can I win more than one prize? Usually the answer to this is “No,” but it doesn’t have to be. One player winning six times in a 10-winner drawing causes both management and other players to get upset. So even if it’s allowed, it’s often a good idea not to play for it more than once.
  8. Are there periods of time where I can win multiple entries — perhaps 2x, 5x, 10x? This is a way to give players additional value without costing the casino anything! Once the casino has promised to give away the money, it doesn’t much care who wins. But if they can offer a ticket multiplier on, say, Tuesday, which is otherwise their slowest day of the week, players will come in and hammer the machines on that day.

It’s not part of the rules, but I also want to know what other promotions the casino is running during the same period of time I’m earning tickets. If I can “double dip” and earn drawing entries at the same time I’m getting triple points, or possibly earn tickets for both a senior drawing and a regular drawing, so much the better. If my play moves me to a higher tier level, and I believe the extra tier benefits have real value to me, that’s a bonus.

Another important aspect, although not part of the rules, is knowing what machines are available in this casino. If the machines + normal slot club + promotions + drawing + mailer isn’t more than 100%, I’m not playing. To be sure, some of these things need to be estimated.

You want to know whether the casino will enforce the rules. There have been times where casinos say you must have your tickets in the drum by 8 p.m. but they still accept tickets until 8:10 — or maybe cut it off by 7:50. Or maybe have a rule against folding tickets and yet draw a winning ticket that looks like an accordion. It takes time to learn these things.

You might have noticed that everything is figured in terms of EV — Expected Value. Although this is difficult (if not impossible) to figure exactly, it is still very important. Whether you are actually called at a particular drawing or not is relatively unimportant. How often you get called over the course of a year or three is much more important. I’ll address this aspect more in a subsequent column.

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Waiting for Wednesday

Bonnie and I regularly shop at a Sprouts Farmers Market, a grocery chain found in a few Western states. It’s kind of like a health food store — with less expensive produce.

One feature of the stores is that their ads run Wednesday to Wednesday. That generally makes shopping on “Double Ad” Wednesdays the most efficient because you get to take advantage of both last week’s sale prices as well as next week’s.

On a recent Tuesday, I was on my way home from somewhere and realized I would pass by a Sprouts market on the other side of town. I called Bonnie to see if there was anything we needed before the next day — which would be a Wednesday and our usual shopping day.

“No,” Bonnie answered, “but I just saw the new flyer. Starting tomorrow they’ll have yellow peaches for 77¢ a pound.”

“Excellent!” I responded. “I can’t wait for Wednesday!”

Okay. Maybe I exaggerated. I enjoy eating peaches and at good prices I enjoy them even more. But if I didn’t get them, my life would still work pretty well.

(For whatever reason, sometimes when I say things like that I get comments such as, “If Dancer really has a million dollars or two, he wouldn’t care whether peaches cost 77¢ or $7.77 a pound.” To that I answer that getting a couple million is one problem. Keeping a couple million or more is a different problem. People who live frugally have a better chance of getting a large bankroll AND have a better chance of keeping it once they have it.)

Let’s go from here to video poker.

I often plan my plays in advance. For example, as I write this I know that next Saturday beginning at 5 a.m. I’m going to play a certain number of points requiring quite a few hours on a particular machine at the M casino. There are reasons I play that much starting at that time. For this article, we don’t need to go into why I do that. For now, just assume I think it’s a good play. But I prepare my life so that I can be present and alert at that hour. This includes eating properly, exercising, monitoring alcohol intake, and adjusting my sleep time a day or two in advance.

I also played a promotion at South Point in September where I needed to play $1,600 a day on both my card and Bonnie’s every day anytime between midnight and midnight. Some days I get there at 11:30 p.m. and do the “today’s” play — and then after midnight do “tomorrow’s” play. That takes planning. I would NOT be doing that the same day as when I would have to be at M at 5 a.m.  I would be more alert during the M play if I’m sleeping at midnight the night before.

I may, however, do my Friday play at South Point sometime in the middle of the day and show up at 4:30 a.m. Saturday at that casino to do my Saturday points. The casinos are only a few miles apart and it’s efficient to go from one to the other in the same trip, but not if I have to kill four hours between one and the other.

In these cases, I am actually looking forward to the play. “Can’t wait,” so to speak. Part of the “game” is to be alert and be competent on the particular game I’ll be playing. I’m very satisfied with my competency at most games that I play and I don’t need to review them very often. But sometimes it’s a once-every-three-months play on a machine I play nowhere else and I need to spend an hour or more getting ready for it.

Sometimes, looking forward to the play is because of the stakes. Playing for hours at $50 or more per play requires more “getting ready” than playing $1,600 (for each of two people) for an entire session. The latter is done on $2 NSU machines and I’m basically always able to do that no matter how exhausted I am. But playing several hours at $125 a hand is another story altogether. My annual score isn’t going to be affected much by $1,600 coin-in sessions. It could very easily be affected one way or the other by $200,000 or bigger sessions. I want to be at my best at these times.

Another part of the “looking forward to it” is just the juggling of my schedule (which includes keeping Bonnie happy) so that I’m able to do what I want when I need to do it. This juggling is not always a trivial problem, but it’s a key part to being a successful player. A part that isn’t usually listed under “important skills to have in order to be a winning player.”

Often when you’re juggling your schedule you need to come to grips with the fact that you can’t always have it all. For me, that includes remembering that chasing every good promotion takes a backseat to doing what Bonnie wants to do. At least some of the time.

And I can also say that not wanting to wait for peaches to be 77¢ a pound is a lesser thing entirely than not wanting to be unprepared at 5 a.m. on Saturday.

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More than Six and a Half Little Words

I recently read a blog by James Grosjean titled Six and a Half Little Words. It reminded me of an incident in my own life. I was debating whether to respond to his blog or to post it as a separate column several weeks later. It turned out to be quite a bit different from Grosjean’s original post so I’m publishing it separately. If you read the original, you’ll see where my title comes from.

I moved to Vegas in 1993 to be blackjack player. In addition to playing a lot of promotions (such as “Play 4 hours for $10 a hand and receive a free buffet, one free hotel night, and $60 in some kind of promotional chips”), I would obtain and cash numerous coupons — lots and lots of coupons — for a number of games.

I had a girlfriend (I called her Ginnie in my Million Dollar Video Poker autobiography and there’s no need to invent a new name now) and between us we’d earn more than $500 weekly from these coupons — in addition to whatever we could make with the blackjack and other promotions. It was subsistence living, but as far as I was concerned, I was “making it in Las Vegas.”

One of the myriad of tricks I learned doing this was that in a single deck game, if a dealer shows an ace on the first hand and you’re playing two hands (either by yourself or one each with a partner), and if all four cards you see in your hands are non-tens, then it’s correct to take insurance.

Eventually Ginnie left and I started seeing Shirley — to whom I would end up being married from 1997 until 2014. In 1996 I had a couple of $10-for-$5 match play coupons at a “one coupon per person per day” single deck place. Shirley didn’t know the first thing about playing blackjack intelligently, so I told her to sit next to me and I would tell her what to do. She picked up her cards with two hands, of course, and bristled a bit when the dealer told her one hand only.

The dealer dealt himself an ace. In my hand I saw a four and a five and looked over at Shirley’s hand. If she had no face cards, I would have asked about insurance.

(The rule I cite is correct when there are no match play coupons in effect. I used the same rule, right or wrong, when I had a coupon. Should they wish, others can address how the variations of rules on match play coupons affects this insurance bet.)

But Shirley was holding her cards close to her chest, preventing me from obtaining the information I needed to make the correct decision.

“Show me your cards! Now!” I whispered urgently.

“No! It’s against the rules to show anybody your cards,” she whispered back. It didn’t seem to matter to her that we were the only players at the table and while the money being wagered wasn’t officially “community property” bankroll yet, clearly it was the next best thing.

“SHOW ME YOUR CARDS!”

Intimidated, she did — showing me a jack nine. We didn’t take insurance and the dealer flipped over a queen, sweeping our nickels and coupons off the table. No big deal to me. You lose hands all the time at blackjack (or at video poker, for that matter). She was upset that I lost my money and I had raised my voice to her.

We had a discussion very shortly afterwards about what it means to be partners…at the gaming table and in life. First of all, whatever rules she learned about card playing with her sisters as a child had no bearing now. And second, for better or worse, when it came to figuring out the strategies to beat the casinos, I was going to be the boss. I was no table games expert by any means, but when the choice was between the two of us, I was light years ahead of her. I was the best we had.

We got through that moment — and it was a good partnership for a long time. But it didn’t have to be that way. That moment could have ended up being a show stopper had she not been willing to accept a “my way or the highway” inflexibility when it came to gambling decisions — including sometimes giving her an order that had to be executed IMMEDIATELY, without discussion until afterwards. She had to be able to accept that losing one hand was just a very minor bump in the road. If she was going to mourn and grieve over every losing session, I wanted no part of that. Finally, she had to believe that I could really win against the house — and I had to prove that again and again.

Clearly I’m not the best guy to be giving marital and relationship advice. Whatever things I think I know in that area have worked well some of the time, but other times not so much. Most of us prefer our experts to have a better batting average than I can boast. I know I do

At the same time, after Shirley and I split and I began seeing Bonnie, I had essentially the same discussion with Bonnie — albeit it “out of the blue” and not triggered by a specific incident. Had Bonnie not been able to agree that in this area of life I was going to be the boss, we would never have gone forward.

For many of my readers, it’s WAY too late to have this discussion before you’ve become serious romantically — because you’re already connected. Some of you have been married for 20 years or more. For others, it’s not so clear which one of you is the gambling expert. Many of you can’t present a convincing argument that you’ve been a winning player over time. And for most, success at gambling is a smaller part of your life than it is mine. All I can do is to share what works for me — and let you decide if there are lessons that you can apply to your life. Clearly, different readers will come to different conclusions and nobody is arguing that one size fits all here.