Page 28 - May 2015 • Southern California Gaming Guide

YSou Can’t Hope Your Way to Victory
everal months ago, I saw a Northwestern Mutual commercial that aired during the college football playo s. Although it ended as an advertisement for their insurance company, the part that interested me said:
educational. ere’s always someone who knows less about video poker than you do, and the writing process is useful whether or not anyone else reads it.
I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions, but the previous paragraph is chock full of good suggestions for those of you who don’t mind making your resolutions mid-year.
People understand that football playo s are big competitions and players and teams need to prepare for them. A lot of players don’t appreciate that gambling in a casino is a big competition as well. Successful players prepare for doing well at gambling just as football players do for the playo s.
Video poker has its own ukes, of course. If you play half the time for quarters and half the time for dollars, being “under-royaled” for quarters and “over-royaled” for dollars is much more pro table than the other way round. When you were dealt that royal, were you playing on a single line game or Ten Play? If you play a game with multipliers (Super Times Pay or Ultimate
X, for example), what kind of multiplier was active on your biggest hands?
If you want to think of video poker as just a game that you play just for fun, go right ahead. You’re in good company with millions of others. It’s okay to think of the game as a (somewhat expensive) hobby. If you have money to spend and that’s how you want to spend it, be my guest.
I choose to think of video poker as a tough challenge for which I need to prepare mightily (in the o season, as it were). is preparation has paid o . To others it sometimes looks like I am very lucky. To me, it feels like I have planned my work and then worked my plan.
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.
There are no accidental champions.
You can’t hope your way to victory.
Titles aren’t won at the end of the season. They are won in the offseason.
In football, this seems to be true. You want the quarterback and the wide receivers “on the same page.”
For me, success at video poker is like that. I see a lot of players whose strategy appears to be mainly hoping for a royal ush, or perhaps four aces with a kicker.
When these things don’t happen, they say that it’s all luck anyway, and they’re just not lucky.
e “o season” in video poker involves studying everything worthwhile that’s
is kind of rapport is built up over years of practice, both during the season and over the summers. If the rapport isn’t there by the time of the playo s, you can’t do a whole lot to create it quickly.
e same is true with physical conditioning. e guys who lift weights and do a lot of running during the o season have a much better chance of still being in good shape at the end of the season.
You can’t make yourself strong and exible in a few short weeks. It must be done over a long period of time if it is going to be done at all.
“The ‘offseason’ in video poker involves studying everything worthwhile that’s been written about the games you’re interested in, and then reading it all again every three to five years. It also involves keeping your physical well-being in order through diet and exercise, keeping your emotional or spiritual well-being in order through prayer or meditation, practicing on the computer, scouting in order to find new opportunities because you know the current ones won’t last forever, and analyzing promotions.”
been written about the games you’re interested in, and then reading it all again every three to ve years. It also involves keeping your physical well-being in order through diet and exercise, keeping your emotional or spiritual well-being in order through prayer or meditation, practicing on the computer, scouting in order to nd new opportunities because you know the current ones won’t last forever, and analyzing promotions. It’s knowing several games well enough that you can take advantage of promotions at a number of casinos, nding and nurturing a core of other like-minded players who can share information and help you improve, building and protecting your bankroll, and it’s even actively considering Plan B in case video poker
ere are, of course, some
ukes in football. e ball
sometimes takes a funny
bounce and the best team
doesn’t always win. But there
are teams that win far more
than their share of games.
Somehow these teams have a
culture of winning and they
usually work very hard to maintain whatever edge they have. It’s not accomplished just by hoping.
dries up completely as a money-making opportunity. I also nd teaching and writing about the games very
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PAGE 28
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
MAY 2015
Video Poker with Bob Dancer