Page 24 - August 2010 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
HIarry’s Problem
was teaching a NSU (Not So Ugly) Deuces Wild class at the South Point. At the moment we were covering an instruction that read:
‘ Q J ’, ‘ Q T ’, ‘ J T ’
ese combinations were lower than higher-ranking combinations, including all 3-card
straight ushes not including an ace, and higher than lower-ranking combinations, including all 3-card straight ushes with an ace. What this means is that from Q♥ J♥ 3♠ 5♠ 7♠ or J♦ T♦ 4♠ 5♠ 6♠ you hold the spades, but from Q♣ T♣ A♥ 3♥ 5♥ or J♣ T♣ A♦ 4♦ 5♦ you hold
the clubs.
Part of what I want to discuss in this part of the class is that these three combinations do not have the same value. To get to the answer quickly,‘JT’ is more valuable than either ‘QJ’ or ‘QT’, which have equal value as each other.
e way the class operates is that I go around the class and ask everyone a
game because you need 3-of-a-kind or better to get your money back.
Now it was Dick’s turn. I asked him which was more valuable, ‘QJ’ or ‘QT’, and reminded him that ‘QJ’ wasn’t the correct answer. He smiled and quickly
said ‘QT’. To his mind, if ‘QJ’ wasn’t the right answer, then‘QT’mustbe.
This was disturbing to me. One of the keys to playing video poker well is to be able to compare various combinations and determine which one is better. An ability to make inferences is important. If A is better than B and B is better than C, in most video poker circumstances A is better than C. This isanothertypeof“simple”logic—althoughperhaps not to Harry.
If you can’t make these inferences, then I infer you will never be a competent video poker player. This isn’t a terrible fate. A huge majority of people are not competent video poker players.
This is only a problem if Harry wants to become competent. This was not his first video poker class, nor was it his last. He apparently wants to become a good player, but his answer to this and other questions leads me to believe that it just isn’t in the cards for him.
While this is my judgment/opinion, I do not believe it’s my place to tell him he doesn’t have what it takes—unless he asks me. Each of us can get better with more study, but to get really good you need some facility for logic. Perhaps Harry has lesser goals.
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 the software “Video Poker for Winners,” his new book, Video Poker for the Intelligent Beginner, 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 or at 1-800-244-2224 Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time.
question in turn. I was coming up to Tom, Dick, and Harry—likely not their real names.
I asked Tom whether ‘QJ’ or ‘QT’ was more valuable. He said ‘QJ’. It was the wrong answer—but a common one. ‘QJ’ has two consecutive cards and ‘QT’ has a gap there. is is unimportant when you’re this close to the ace, but some players instinctively believe that no gaps are always better than one gap.
“One of the keys to playing video poker well is to be able to compare various combinations and determine which one is better. An ability to make inferences
is important. If A is better than B and B is better than C, in most video poker circumstances A is better than C. This is another type of “simple” logic—although perhaps not to Harry.”
at was wrong, too. I now asked Harry, who informed me that he had no idea. I repeated the problem. We only had two combinations we were comparing and neither
‘QJ’ nor ‘QT’ was better. What did that tell us? He still had no idea. I rephrased the question a couple of di erent ways and he still didn’t have a clue.
I then gave him the answer—which was that ‘QJ’ and ‘QT’ had the same value. He nodded okay. He was willing to take my word for it, I suppose, but he wasn’t able to
Also, if you’re used to
games where you get your
money back for a pair of
jacks or better, such as
Bonus Poker or Double
Double Bonus Poker,
among many others, ‘QJ’
looks like it has two high cards whereas ‘QT’ looks like it only contains one high card. Part of learning Deuces Wild is that there are no high cards in this
make the inference that if neither of two things were more valuable than the other, then they must have equal value.
Page 24
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
August 2010
Video Poker with Bob Dancer