Page 14 - February 2009 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
Who Cares?
Iwas driving home and my cell phone rang. Had I looked at the caller id, I would have seen “Private Call,” usually a tip to avoid answering, but I was busy making a turn so I ipped the phone open one-handed and heard a recorded voice saying,“Now is the time to re nance your home because...” I never found out what the speci cs of the o er were. I hung up after nine words.
these people are attempting to assign blame. Such as,“It was not really my fault. e machine was colder than a witch’s elbow. Nothing I could do about it.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the last explanation above is one that I might use. After a session is over, it is possible to assign descriptive terms to that particular session.
You can say it was “hot” (meaning that you won), “cold” (meaning that you didn’t),“so-so” (meaning it was so-so), or whatever. Midway though a session, you can describe what the session has been so far, but there’s no way in the world to predict how the rest of the session is going to go. e “best guess” of what the future will bring is the average of what this type of machine under these particular conditions (i.e. dollars, nsu Deuces Wild, at a casino that pays .25% cash back, on a day when double points are being o ered, during a month when you get a jacket if you hit a royal ush) typically o ers overamillionhoursofplay,givenyourparticularskill level. You are pretty sure the “best guess” will be high or low this time. You just don’t know which (i.e. will it be higher or lower than normal this time?), and by how much, until after you are nished.
To make your next year of play better than your last year of play, you can choose a better game (i.e. if one returns 98.9% on average and another returns 99.6% on average, the second is “better” than the rst), stick to the good game once you’ve identi ed which one is best, practice that game on a computer or by studying a
Winner’s Guide for the game, play at casinos with good players clubs, and do most of your play only during good promotions. Doing these things will help you. Believing in such things as “ e reason this machine started to pay o is because it was on a dry spell and the dam nally broke,” won’t.
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, including his new book, Video Poker for Intelligent Beginners, may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com or at 1-800-244- 2224 Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Paci c Time.
I nd such calls mildly irritating. ey take up a few minutes of my day, but to me they’re not a big deal. But I’ve been around other people who slam down the phone in anger and loudly curse the machine making the call “Why don’t you take your &%#!@& o er and shove it up your dial tone?” Or something like that. As though the machine making the phone calls cares.
e machine is dialing numbers according to a list, or perhaps according to
to work, varies by manufacturer, and isn’t important to this discussion) and deals the cards. Sometimes people will say, “ e machine is in a cold streak.” Nonsense. e machine is just dealing cards. e fact that you haven’t won in a half hour is totally irrelevant to it. My mother-in-law will say, “Sixes are running today,” and usually when she plays accordingly it doesn’t help.
Others will say, “I hit two royal ushes yesterday so is making up for it now.”
a formula. When the last person hangs up, for whatever reason and with whatever emotion, the next one is called. Whether the current person places an order or not, the next call will be made as soon as the current one hangs up, or perhaps is transferred to a real person. e machine will keep on calling as long as it has numbers to call and it’s within the hours prescribed for it, which might be something like
10 a.m. through 8 p.m.
A video poker machine is like that. When a new hand is triggered (which might be by you dropping a coin, or perhaps hitting the deal button), the machine looks at its
“I think that people ascribe humanemotionormotivesto video poker machines because these people are trying to understand their results. They lost today and they won
yesterday so it must be because... They’ve lost six times straight, so the reason must be because...
Or perhaps they use the machine’s ‘behavior’ as a good reason to change machines, or denomination, or change games
withinamachine.”
Nonsense. e machine
is just dealing cards. Or, “Because I’m (pick one: on a winning streak, on
a losing streak, fat, over- drawn at the bank, using a slot club card, divorced), the machine is...” Nonsense. e machine is just dealing cards.
I think that people ascribe human emotion or motives to video poker machines because these people are trying to understand their results.
ey lost today and they won yesterday so it must be because... ey’ve lost six times straight, so the reason must be because... Or perhaps they use the machine’s “behavior” as a good reason to change machines, or
internal clock (in nanoseconds), checks one other “seed” (which is required for a Random Number Generator
denomination, or change games within a machine. Or instead of trying to understand their results, perhaps
Page 14
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
February 2009
Video Poker with Bob Dancer