Generally speaking, I prefer to play video poker and slots without interacting with anybody else. To be sure, this is a personal preference and not everyone agrees with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve found that if I\u2019m chatting with somebody while playing video poker, my error rate increases. I never make a lot of mistakes, but the edges we\u2019re playing with these days are so small, even a few mistakes are too many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know why, but I can listen to music or spoken words and still play accurately. It\u2019s when I have to engage my brain to form a response to somebody else that it interferes with engaging my brain to play accurately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can control whether I initiate conversations with others. It\u2019s harder to control whether others start talking to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One device I use to discourage others from talking to me is that I frequently wear a large, over-the-ear, headset while playing. Sometimes I\u2019m listening to music. Sometimes a story or podcast. Often, I\u2019m listening to nothing at all. Someone seeing me wearing my headset generally can\u2019t tell what I\u2019m listening to — if anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If someone I know and like sits near me while I\u2019m playing, I\u2019ll typically nod my head in acknowledgement. It\u2019s kind of a, \u201cHi. How are you doing?\u201d acknowledgement without wanting or expecting an answer. This presents them with an opportunity to say something, if they wish, but not the necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Should someone begin a conversation with me, or I need to interact with casino personnel, I\u2019ll signal them to hold on a second, turn off my headset, and lower it from over my ears to around my neck. Then I\u2019ll speak to them for as long as is appropriate. It almost never devolves into a situation where I continue to play and chat at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not shy about telling people, accurately, that I need to concentrate when playing video poker. I try to be polite, yet firm. Even though I\u2019ve been playing this game for more 30 years, there are hands I need to think about. If I always played 9\/6 Jacks or Better, I know that game cold and probably can chat away with no loss in accuracy. But I play different games at different casinos, and, among other things, need to focus on which game I\u2019m playing now. If I\u2019m chatting with somebody else, I might not recognize a problem hand when it comes along. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a number of players who know me. Over 25 years of teaching video poker classes, more than 100,000 players attended one or more classes. Many of them still frequent casinos and when they recognize me, sometimes they come and say hello. That\u2019s fine. I don\u2019t mind a break of a minute or two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s another reason for earphones. Many casinos these days pipe the music up to unhealthy levels. Circa, in downtown Las Vegas, is one of them. With good earphones on, the noise level is much lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casinos differ widely in the type of overhead music they provide. While I enjoy classic country music, I have no appreciation for many other types of music. I know other players who have no tolerance for country music at all. The advantage of earphones is that you can replace whatever is \u201cstandard\u201d for the place where you are playing to something you prefer more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m in the casino to work and not for entertainment. But if I find I can make my working environment more entertaining and productive at the same time, so much the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Generally speaking, I prefer to play video poker and slots without interacting with anybody else. To be sure, this is a personal preference and not everyone agrees with me. I\u2019ve found that if I\u2019m chatting with somebody while playing video poker, my error rate increases. I never make a lot of mistakes, but the edges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[601,557],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880459,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880458\/revisions\/880459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}