VIDEO POKER

My Picture On a Machine

When the classes proved successful in terms of bringing players into the casino, the decision was made to expand the class series. We had to consider which games to teach. One possibility was Loose Deuces, which is available in an over-100 percent version at both properties. This was voted down because the strategy was almost identical with that of full pay Deuces Wild (100.8 perdent). I didn't think it made sense for me to spend two hours teaching a class that had 90 percent of the strategy in common with another class I taught.

The classes to add was largely my choice, although I needed to keep in mind the overall casino philosophy. We decided on the following new classes: 10/6 Double Double Bonus (100.1 percent), 9/7 Triple Double Bonus (99.6 percent), Triple Pay Deuces Wild (99.9 percent), 9/4/4 Deuces Bonus (99.45 percent), and two solid versions of Multi Strike Poker (99.6 percent and 99.8 percent), which is a game that I believe will be the next big video poker game. You add these games to the current class mix (including 10/7 Double Bonus [100.2 percent] and Kings or Better Joker Wild [100.65 percent]) and you have a very strong core of solid video poker. The only game I asked for and didn't get was Pick'em Poker [99.95 percent] because the game would be prohibitively expensive to add to their existing machines.

The casino then looked for a way to let their customers know where these games could be found. They asked me if I thought it would be a good idea to put them all in the same bank of machines, with most of the games for nickels, dimes and quarters, and put my picture on the machines so players would know that these were the games I taught in my classes. After discussing the matter with Jeffrey Compton (my business partner) and a few others, we decided this was a good idea as long as the Fiesta agreed to continue the classes and to remove the signage if and when they decided to stop the classes. The Fiesta agreed to have AT LEAST 40 weeks of classes in 2003 in alternating 10-week series between the two properties, and I agreed to let them use my picture to promote their video poker inventory.

This move has been praised by some players and condemned by others. The ones doing the condemning are annoyed because the "new" Fiesta isn't as loose video-poker-wise as the "old" Fiesta of 1999 or so. It's true. It isn't. But the times are different. MOST Las Vegas casinos are considerably tighter than they were four years ago, and the Fiesta is only a LITTLE BIT tighter than it was. In 1999 the Fiesta had the loosest video poker in town at the time, and in 2003 the Fiesta has the loosest video poker in town. My opinion is that the casino is worthy of high praise from the player community and I'm glad to be associated with it.

For those players who have decided to be unhappy because things are different than they were in 1999, go ahead, be unhappy. While they are holding out for the impossible, they might as well go back to 1995 when the machines were looser yet. That way, they can be REALLY unhappy at how life has treated them so cruelly.