Page 12 - March 2007 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
DLessons Learned as a Programmer
uring the 1980s I worked in the computer department for three di erent corporations. As I explained in my autobiography, Million Dollar Video Poker, I needed to go to work because I was not su ciently successful at my profession of choice, namely being a
professional backgammon player.
e language I programmed in was cobol, and this was way before personal computers were common. I haven’t had anything to do with programming for well over a decade and do not claim current pro ciency.
OnethingIdorememberfromprogramming,though, is testing. Highly simpli ed, testing is the procedure you go through trying to nd mistakes in your code. It is as much a mind-set as an exact procedure. Sharing it with you will help you understand my approach to video poker.
In programming, the goal is to create a program that completely does what it is supposed to do. If it’s a banking program,
for example, you don’t
company once every four years. Another bug might take several unlikely-but-possible events happening simultaneously to crash the program, but when it does happen (which it will eventually), it can be expensive to x.
Why did I say this is a mind-set? Because to a good programmer, the goal is always 100% accuracy. A program that works 98% of the time is woefully
unacceptable. A good programmer spends a lot more time checking his work than most non-programmers can imagine.
Now let’s shift the discussion to learning to play video poker. e
“computer program” in this case is you—including your knowledge, your attention span, your distraction level, your sobriety, etc. e vast majority of people who play video poker have the attitude of something like,
“If I know most of the plays, that’s good enough. So what if I miss a few of the exceptions? ey’re pretty rare and not very important.”
Guides have a lot of information about these hands, so you don’t have to work them out for yourself, but I believe that if you play a game regularly, an attempt should be made to learn it well.
Computer programs generally don’t change. e code is “locked up” and constant. But if we are using ourselves as a metaphor for a computer program, our knowledge does deteriorate. In 8-5 Bonus Poker, we may have forgotten (if we ever knew) the di erence between A♥ J♠ T♠ 7♣ 2♠ and A♥ J♠ T♠ 7♣ 2♥. Or perhaps between A♥ K♠ 2♦ 3♦ 5♦ and A♥ K♠
3♦ 4♦ 5♦. Or maybe J♦ 4♣ 5♣ 7♣ 3♦ and J♦ 4♣ 5♣ 7♣ 3♥. If you haven’t reviewed these types of hands recently, I’d be very surprised if you made the proper distinctions. ere are hundreds of similar distinctions to be made in this game. One big reason for my success is that I attempt very hard to master them, and I still
review them regularly.
I do not review 9/6 Jacks regularly because the
penalty cards in those games are very easy and I have them down cold. Even 10/7 Double Bonus, while much more di cult than 9/6 Jacks, has few enough penalty card situations that that game is also memorizable. But all versions of Deuces Wild and Joker Wild are much more di cult, if 100% accuracy is your goal. So I still have to review those games.
My mind-set is that I know I’ve forgotten some of the important distinctions and it’s important to search and nd out which ones they are.
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, his autobiography Million Dollar Video Poker, and his two novels, including Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer’s products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com
want people to be able to
access money in someone
else’s account, but you do
want them to get to their
own. at can be a fairly
involved program. In an
automobile, if the purpose
of the program is to turn
on a warning light when
the amount of gasoline
gets to a certain level, that
is a simple program, but
still you want it to work
properly. Warning lights
that turn on when they’re
not supposed to, or don’t
are annoying to the driver and a headache to x for Mr. Goodwrench.
Virtually no program works perfectly the rst time, and these imperfections are commonly called “bugs.” Sometimes these bugs are di cult to nd. One might only appear on February 29, for example. If not discovered beforehand, it might shut down an entire
“My approach, on the other hand, is that if I only know how to play 99.8% of the hands in any particular game then I’m not ready to play for real money. Not for
nickels, not for quarters, and certainly not for
turn on when they should,
My approach, on the other hand, is that if I only know how to play 99.8% of the hands in any particular game then I’m not ready
to play for real money. Not for nickels, not for quarters, and certainly not for higher stakes. I set Video Poker for Winners to Advanced Mode and then Test Hands, and then it only deals me the tricky hands. When I can play 500 or so of these hands in a row perfectly, I’m ready to “invest.” e appendixes in the Winner’s
higher stakes.”
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Page 12
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
March 2007
Video Poker with Bob Dancer