Page 6 - September 2003 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Video Poker vs. Blackjack (Part 2 of 2) by Bob Dancer
In Part 2, we continue to compare blackjack and video poker, at least as played by competent players. Part 1 appeared in the August 2003, issue, and can be found online at
www.TheGamingGuide.com.
You can use strategy cards at video poker. The best ones of these accurately tell you how to play every possible hand — including the special cases. If you want to study your sheet for ten minutes before you play a particular hand, nobody will come around and tell you to speed things up. At blackjack, you can get “basic strategy” cards, which tell you how to play every hand, but not taking card counting into consideration. At most casinos you may use these cards if you do so quickly. But if you take more than a second or two to consult the card, the pit boss will come by and tell you to put it away because you are slowing down the game and annoying the other players.
In both games, the conditions vary widely from casino to casino. And many casinos frequently change blackjack rules or video poker machines. They sometimes do this because they are not making enough, or they need to compete with the casino next door. In both games, the closer the casino is to other casinos, the more competitive the games are. That is, do not expect good conditions for either game on a cruise ship, which effectively has no competition while the cruise is taking place.
In blackjack, most games in a given casino are identical to most other games. You may have some 2-deckers and some 6-deckers, but the variation within a casino is limited. With video poker, you typically nd dozens of different types of games within the same casino. You may nd different schedules side by side.
In blackjack, the amount you win or lose on each hand is similar. The bonus for naturals only goes one way, and insurance has odds associated with it, but for all other bets you can only win the same amount as you can lose. In video poker, this is not true at all. For a $1.25 bet (at quarters), you can win up to $1,000 or more. This makes video poker much streakier.
Assume a blackjack player and a video poker player each won $1,000 over ve sessions. The scores for the blackjack player might be +230, +400, +120, +300, -50. In video poker, a more likely stream of scores would be: -70, -140,
-60, +1230, +40. Notice that for these two equally successful players, the blackjack player usually wins, and the video player usually loses.
Being rated while playing blackjack is analogous to using a slot club card. In both cases, players receive various forms of casino complementaries for playing. Slot clubs frequently pay cash back to the players, so most players use them. You need to show id to collect the cash back, and you need to show id when you hit a jackpot of $1,200 or more, so most video poker players use their real name. In blackjack, players use a variety of names.
Surveillance is more automated in video poker. The machine itself accurately registers the amount of the bet, whether or not a payoff is earned, and the amount of the payoff. Floor-people are there primarily to service the machine, i.e., ll the machines when needed, x the machine for various malfunctions, and hand-pay larger jackpots. In blackjack, most of the game monitoring is done manually. Dealers determine who wins a hand, and the amount of the payoff. Floor-people (and the eye- in-the-sky) keep a watch on the dealers, and further watch the players to determine if the player is “too good to let continue playing”. In the recent past, more serious
“counter catcher” electronic equipment is becoming widely used.
Blackjack games are very similar from place to place. Game variations (number of
decks, doubling after splitting, stand or hit on soft seventeen, surrender, and some others) are relatively unimportant. Although good players certainly make adjustments to their game depending upon exactly which rules are in effect, usually the play of a particular hand is identical no matter what the rules are. A game returning 100% is considered excellent. A game returning “only” 99.2% is considered terrible.
In video poker, the rules vary widely. Frequently in the same casinos you’ll see Deuces Wild games returning close to 100% and some Double Double Bonus games returning less than 96%. The strategy rules for Deuces Wild are totally different from those at Jacks or Better, or Double Bonus, or Joker Wild, or... Nobody is an expert at all video poker games. There are hundreds and hundreds of different variations. Even the most knowledgeable players only know a relative few of these.
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 Winner’s Guides, 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
Page 6 September 2003
Column: Video Poker with Bob Dancer