Page 10 - May 2003 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Bob Dancer is America’s best-known video poker writer and teacher. He has a variety of “how to play better video poker” products, including reports, strategy cards, videos, and the award-winning computer software, Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker, and a brand-new book Million Dollar Video Poker. Dancer’s products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com
Correct play at video poker is very much like an open-book math test. Every hand is a problem with 32 possible answers (i.e., hold all the cards, just the rst two, the last three, etc.) and (almost always) one unique best answer. The reason I say “open book” test is
that strategy cards are allowed in casinos. Strategy cards provide you useful tools to choose one combination over another—such as whether in this particular game when you have a choice between a low pair and a 4-card ush, what should you do?
If you think back to math class, you might remember that some students could get the correct answers by barely studying at all, and some students had to study for longhourstoprepareforatest.(Andofcoursetherewas always the pretty girl with the very short skirt who sat in the front row and always got an A. That technique doesn’t translate well to doing well on video poker machines.)
You might be one who gets the correct answer easily — or you might be one who gets it only by a lot of hard
work — but whichever category you t in, it is possible to learn this game if you apply yourself. Whether you are willing to do this or not, is something you’ll have to decideforyourself.
I’minmymid- ftiesnow.WhenItookcollegechemistry inthemid-sixties,weusedasliderule.Nobodybrought a calculator to school, and personal computers weren’t available until decades later. Today, the technology of learning video poker includes practicing on a computer.
T h i s
presents
no problem
at all for players
in their twenties or
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Bill Burton is the Casino Gambling Guide and columnist for the Internet portal About.com. He also writes for several national gambling publications. He is the author of Get the Edge at Low Limit Texas Hold’em available for $15 postage paid, at Bill Burton, P.O. Box 310299, Newington, CT 06131-0299 or online at: http://vegas.home.attbi.com/. Bill Burton’s website is located at:
http://casinogambling.about.com.
Use Your Players Card
If I could give only one tip to casino players, this would be the one I would pick. Your player’s club card can earn you comps for food, lodging, and shows. Some casinos even offer cash back for your
play. When you do not use the card you are essentially depriving yourself of valuable incentives the casino is giving back to the players. Some slot players think that using their slot cards affect the way a machines pays out. This is a myth and a very expensive mistake for those who believe it.
Read the Pay Tables
Looking at the pay table of the machine can help you judge the frequency that the machine returns a winner. If you see
that there are a lot of combinations that return smaller wins, then this machine will usually have a larger hit frequency than one that has fewer winning combinations that pay back larger wins. Some players like a lot of smaller wins more often.
Play Full Coin in Progressive Machines
Progressive machines offer large jackpots. The big progressive jackpot is made by taking a percentage of all the money played into the machine. You can only win the progressive jackpot if you are playing the maximum number of coins. Don’t play these machines if you don’t plan to do this.
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Page 10 May 2003