Page 10 - September 2005 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Dealing with Anguish by Bob Dancer
Ireceived the following e-mail recently:“I have been playing a few years and consider myself a pretty good player. I consider myself Bob Dancer-trained and try to play accordingly. I have given up at least 6 royals going for the high pair. My question is how you overcome
the mental anguish of missing the royal. It takes me days to get over it. I am retired, play 10 to 20 hours a week of 9/6 Jacks or Better or 8/5 Bonus Poker. Help me, please. Anguished in
Anaheim.”
I did some calculation and my best guess is that this has happened to me between 200 and
250 times. But it’s a guess, because I have no recollection of it ever happening. is guess is based on how many million hands I’ve actually played, on which types of games, and how many were on single line compared to Triple Play through Hundred Play.
How many of this estimated 200 missed royals have I noticed? Exactly zero. Checking to see how the cards would play if I made an alternative, inferior, draw is a huge waste of time in my opinion. Doing this consistently would reduce my speed from 800 hands per hour to about 400. Why on earth would I want to waste that much time? Since I’m playing only when I have the advantage, this is slashing my dollars-per-hour win rate in half. It’s not only worthless information, but it’s expensive to gather. If you’re playing Fifty Play or Hundred Play, it could take several minutes at the end of each hand to work through all of this. Why bother?
Mr. Anguished seems to have the core belief that a missed royal is a tragic thing. He ignores the fact that trying for the royal every time (so that he can be assured of getting it when the cards are just right) would have cost him an extra 6,000 coins for every extra 4,000-coin royal received. He berates himself for not being clairvoyant enough to not be able to see the unforeseeable future.
e only reason Mr. Anguished takes the time to do this is to check whether he should feel really, really awful this time. One time in 1,081 he discovers that yes, indeed, feeling really, really awful this time is appropriate. e relief he feels the other 1,080 times is likely minimal.
To me, ignoring the speci cs of a “what if ” draw comes natural. Perhaps Mr. Anguished is compelled to do this and can’t help himself, I don’t know. O ering useful advice on how you should deal with your compulsions is something I’m not good at. If this is something Mr. Anguished can learn not to do, I believe his life will work better.
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, his autobiography Million Dollar Video Poker, and his recent novel, Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer’s products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com
We’re talking about a hand such as K♥ Q♥ J♥ 5♥ K♣, where the correct play depends on the game and pay schedule. If you’re playing Jacks or Better or Bonus Poker, like Mr. Anguished is prone to do, you hold the kings. If you’re playing Deuces Wild, you hold the suited K-Q-J. If you’re playing
Although I prefer that I end up with four kings on this hand, I’m not too invested in that result. I know that I’ll get the four of a kind one time in 360 (more precisely three times in 1,081), full houses, 3-of-a- kinds, and two pair more frequently than that, but the hand will stay a single high pair more than seven times
Double Bonus where ushes return 7 for 1, you hold all four hearts.
If you hold the kings (whether it’s the correct play or not), once in 1,081 times the rst two cards out will be A♥ T♥. Also, once in 1,081 times the rst two cards out will be the 7♦ 3♣. As far as I am concerned, these two situations are equally relevant.
After I’ve held the
kings and pressed
the draw button, my “job” is over for this hand, and it’s time for me to start concentrating on the next time. e best I can do is to play the hands perfectly. Going back and changing the past is not something I know how to do.
out of ten.
I have this type of
draw numerous times every week. Sometimes I connect on the 4-of- a-kind and usually I don’t. Over the course of a year or two, it’ll average out pretty well, whether tonight is lucky or unlucky.
I suspect I’ve ended up with a 4-of-a-kind from this kind of position 600 times in my life. What this also means is that I’ve thrown away the royal 200 times from
this same position. Drawing three cards to a high pair, you get any speci c two cards (i.e., the cards that ll in the royal) 1 time out of 1,081 and you complete the pair 3 times out of 1,081. Over the course of years, the numbers come out very close to this.
“Mr. Anguished seems to have the core belief that a missed royal is a tragic thing. He ignores the fact that trying for the royal every time (so that he can be assured of getting it when the cards are just right) would have cost him an extra 6,000 coins for every extra
4,000-coin royal received.”
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Page 10 September 2005
Video Poker with Bob Dancer