Page 28 - January 2015 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
TIt’s a Mindset
here are de nitely skills required to be a successful gambler, but more than the skills, your mindset is important as well. Playing games well, whether for money or not, requires thinking in a way that the general public doesn’t.
Last fall I was watching a football game—I think it was Denver vs. Arizona, but I’m not sure. A wide receiver had caught the ball and was running free. No defender was within 20 yards. e player “naturally” ran into the end zone for a touchdown, while it was 100% correct for him to run out of bounds on the one-yard line instead of scoring. I shook my head in dismay at the player’s short sightedness. I suppose “professional game player” means something quite di erent to football players than video poker players.
Let me set the scene. It was a close game, and the defensive team was out of time-outs for the half. What this means is that particular coach cannot challenge any play. A challenge is where play is stopped while the referee looks at umpteen video recordings of the last play to make sure it was called correctly. e reason for this is that if you lose a challenge, it costs you a time-out. If you don’t have any time-outs, you can’t challenge. But challenges are automatic during the last two minutes of each half, and also immediately after every scoring play.
Anyway, the quarterback throws a pass to the wide receiver, who has to fall to the ground while catching the ball. e rule is that if his knee is still on the ground when one of the defenders touches him, he is “down by contact,” and the play is over. If he is no longer on his knees, then the defense has to tackle him or drive him out of bounds in order to stop the play.
So the wide receiver tries to get up. A defender comes over to touch him — and it’s really, really close whether the receiver’s knee is still down when the defender touches him. e wide receiver himself knows 100% that his knee was down, because you could see from his body language that he slowed down to a trot because he thought the play was over. When he stopped trying, all
the defenders stopped chasing him as well. But since the o cials didn’t blow a whistle to stop the play, the receiver correctly picked up speed again and ran towards the end zone while the defenders were still stopped in their tracks.
On close plays, NFL o cials purposely err towards letting the play go on. It’s better to let the play go and let it be corrected later by a challenge than it is to erroneously blow a play dead when it should still be live. Since it was a very close play, it’s understandable why the o cials didn’t stop the play.
But here was a special case, because the defensive team didn’t have the right to challenge. If the wide receiver scored a touchdown (which he did), the play would be challenged automatically, and this player knew it would be brought back. But if the player intentionally (and without the defense anywhere nearby) ran out of bounds on the one-yard line, then the play would be over — and it couldn’t be challenged. It is far better for your team to have the ball on the one-yard line than it is sixty or so yards back up the eld. If the play had stood as called (unlikely), going out on the one yard line wouldn’t have been terrible. It is not as good as scoring (fumbles happen; penalties and/or goal line stands sometimes occur) but it’s the next best thing.
It’s a strange situation where it’s right to end the play voluntarily instead of increasing the score, but this time is was undoubtedly correct. In the heat of the battle, the player’s thought processes weren’t su cient to make the correct play. Hejust“automatically”wenttoscoreatouchdown—which he should have known wouldn’t count.
Do many players know the idiosyncrasies of the rules su ciently and have the correct mindset to make his play? I’m not sure. ese guys are chosen for their superior athletic skills — whether they are mentally superior or
not — although some are both. To me it was second nature. I was yelling,“Run out of bounds” to the TV screen, even though I had no wager in action and didn’t really care who won the game. I never had the athletic ability to play professional sports of any kind, but I do have the mindset skills to compete as a professional game player.
I can teach you how to play the hands. I’m not sure if always looking for the edge is teachable or not. But I do believe I’m getting better at it. I learn from many of the gambler guests on the Gambling With An Edge radio show. ey’re usually not video poker players, but each of them gives examples of looking for an edge in their own games. e more of such situations I hear about, the more likely I’ll be able to rise to the occasion when the opportunity arises.
Each situation is a little di erent from the ones that came before. But if you’re always searching for the advantage, and you have lots of examples in your mind of how to do this, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll see the next opportunity before somebody who isn’t actively looking for it does. And that’s a big key to gambling success.
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.
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PAGE 28
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
JANUARY 2015