Page 24 - May 2014 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
TPro Playbook: Bankroll Misgivings
he two best video poker bankroll calculators I’m aware of are found in Video Poker for Winners! (VPW) and Dunbar’s Risk Analyzer for Video Poker. ey use di erent techniques and each has some features the other does not. When analyzing the same problems, the bankroll numbers
they come up with are extremely close to each other. I conclude that both products give us excellent
us have good days and bad days, and our error rate di ers depending on what kind of day we’re having—or how tired, angry, inebriated, or otherwise distracted we are.
e bankroll calculations don’t take our personalities intoconsideration.Foranysizebankroll,someplayersare philosophical when they lose, while others players become very upset. Calculating the same bankroll requirements for both of these personality types won’t be correct. For years, I’ve been using the term “psychological bankroll” to talk about this phenomenon.
And then there’s the matter of scale. e bankroll calculators assume it’s just as easy to double your money from $500,000 to $1,000,000, as it is to go from $5,000 to $10,000. In the world I live in, this just isn’t true.
e bankroll calculators also do not take your age into consideration. If a 25-year-old man goes broke, he has many more options available to him than his 75-year-old grandfather. e young man can go back to school, get a job (or a second job), possibly move in with Mom and Dad, etc. For gramps, his best earning years are behind him. ose extra options mentioned earlier in this paragraph often aren’t available when you’re past your prime earning years.
Does all this mean bankroll considerations are worthless? No, not at all. I’m glad to get guidance as to how risky certain games are. But I don’t believe the computer programs tell you everything you need to know regarding the subject.
Finally, whatever your political leanings are, it’s better to be conservative in calculating your bankroll. Pushing the bankroll envelope can be very risky. Going broke is de nitely a learning experience I do not recommend for anyone.
Professional video poker player Bob Dancer’s radio show Gambling With An Edge, is on Thursday evenings 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Paci c Time on radio station 1230 AM in Las Vegas online at klav1230am.com. Dancer’s products may be ordered at bobdancer.com or at 1-800-244-2224 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Paci c Time.
mathematical calculations—assuming that the players play accurately and consistently. I’ve used both of them to estimate “Can I a ord this?” before embarking on a play. I feel fortunate to be associated with the VPW version.
I’m very glad I have access to these tools, but I also have signi cant reservations about them. e math behind both programs is solid, but there are some underlying assumptions that need to be discussed.
For example, do you know anyone who can correctly state something like: “My bankroll is $14,772, and not one penny more?” If someone somehow had an accurate number as of last night, how often is it recalculated? How does he/she account for free play that he knows is coming? What if she knows she’s going to get a good mailer, but doesn’t know how big it will be? How does he monetize comps? What if he receives Chevron gas cards in a promotion, but would only pay Arco prices if he didn’t have the gas cards?
A bankroll that is easy to replenish (perhaps by moving money from other accounts or maybe because of additional income independent of gambling) is a lot di erent from a bankroll that can’t be replenished (perhaps inherited money: when it’s gone, it’s gone). If you have salable skills or assets, then running out of gambling bankroll is not as bad as if you don’t have such skills or assets.
If you own a house and are willing to put a $200,000 mortgage on it if your gambling bankroll goes down to zero, should you consider that $200,000 as part of your bankroll? What if your spouse thinks that would be a terrible idea? ere are no exact guidelines de ning what is bankroll and what isn’t. Somehow, we’re all supposed to know.
Whilewe’retalkingaboutspouses,it’snotuncommonfor married couples to disagree on how much is a “reasonable” amount to go into the gambling bankroll. Or sometimes there’s an agreement in February, and someone changes his or her mind in April. Is that so unusual?
In one of Stanford Wong’s books, he de ned bankroll as the amount of money you’re willing to lose before you give up gambling. I like that de nition, but when push comes to shove, I don’t know how to calculate it. If you have a current bankroll of $20,000, it’s one thing to say that if your gambling bankroll decreases to $2,000, you’re going to stop gambling “forever and ever, amen.” It’s another thing entirely to actually quit at that time.
ink of how many times you’ve heard people say that they are going to start a diet tomorrow, or quit some vice, or start going to the gym regularly, but somehow tomorrow never comes? Do you think quitting gambling is any easier than this?
e VPW version doesn’t account for player errors. If you want to know the bankroll requirements for 9/6 Jacks or Better and you make errors of, say, 1.1%, it is probably best to make the calculation using 9/5 Jacks rather than 9/6. (In the Risk of Ruin section where you can enter a players club rate, if you believe you make 0.2% in errors and the players club pays 0.3%, then a fair estimate can be made using a players club rate of 0.1%. But negative players club numbers are not allowed in this calculation.) e Dunbar version allows you to enter an estimate for player error, but precisely calculating such an error rate can be very di cult.
If you played 10,000 hands on the computer and recorded your exact error rate for those hands, that would be a pretty good estimate, and better than most people have. Still, it isn’t the same as in the casino. ere are distractions in a casino that you won’t nd at home (and vice-versa). All of
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PAGE 24
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
MAY 2014