I’ve used the “animal versus animal” jungle metaphor to describe video poker in the past. Let’s play around a little bit more with that analogy today.

Some people think of the casino as the lion in the jungle and the players as the smaller prey, but I don’t think of it that way at all. I see the casino as the owner of the jungle, and the players are all animals within that jungle. The bigger animals have an easier time surviving than the smaller animals. Continue reading More Tails from the Jungle

I participate in a study group of bright gamblers. You’ve heard of Richard Munchkin who often attends the group. The others are not particularly well known to the general public and even if you’ve heard of them, for the most part they don’t want their names bandied about.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, there were only four of us there (Munchkin couldn’t make it that day.) The other three all graduated from prestigious schools that specialized in math and science. Continue reading Should Have Kept My Mouth Shut

Recently on vpFREE, a man (I think) with the pseudonym “nightoftheiguana” (NOTI) posted “I think Bob Dancer has admitted to going bankrupt at least once. Perhaps he can say something on whether or not it is something he would risk doing again.” (NOTI regularly posts knowledgeable information regarding the Kelly criterion and various alternative strategies on how to best play video poker based on your goals.) When I wrote out the draft to my response, I saw it covered more than 1000 words, which made it more appropriate to run here than on vpFREE itself. It will likely get posted there eventually anyway. Continue reading Going Broke

Not too long ago I wrote an article about the auto-hold on Oregon lottery machines that was pretty poor. See it here

As stated in that article, I felt that the manufacturer had no obligation to guarantee that the hold was optimal unless such a declaration was posted somewhere on the machine.

Comments I read after the article appeared indicated that my opinion was in the minority among video poker players. Most of the players who expressed an opinion said that the holds should be correct on either a basic strategy or perfect strategy level. Continue reading More on Auto-Hold

There was a post a few weeks ago on vpFREE that said: “To all of you cretins that shut down machines – that’s not the right thing to do and I NEVER shut down any machine. I even tell others not to shut down machines and let others play. If you need to put in a certain amount of action – get the torture over with and do it all in one play and keep the assembly line moving.”

I don’t agree. There are times when you have to look out for Number 1.
Continue reading Shutting Down Machines