VIDEO POKER

Reality Therapy

As she was going over the conversation with me later, I realized she hit on several key concepts that I haven't written about recently. There's nothing really new here, but some readers need to be grounded in the basics.

1. It takes time to learn how to play. I am teaching free classes at the Palms every Thursday at noon now. And many people are learning how to play better. But if one class could turn people into experts, you can bet the casino wouldn't be paying me to teach. To learn how to play each of the 2.6 million hands takes some time, and it is different for every game, and you need to practice to remain sharp. If this were easy to do, the casinos wouldn't offer such good games. These classes are a good place to start, but the only players who go from the classes to a profitable career at video poker are the ones who spend many dozens of hours studying and practicing.

2. Video poker is a "grind it out" activity. If you play correctly over many hundreds of hours, including limiting yourself to the machines where you have the advantage, you are usually going to wind up ahead. If you are a quarter player, averaging $10 per hour is MUCH better than average in Las Vegas. It takes a lot of hours at $10 per hour to amount to a decent amount of change.

3. You will not believe the swings. Some days are good. Some days are bad. And you never know going in if the one today will be a good one or a bad one. To most people, making $10 per hour would mean that after 100 hours you would be ahead $1,000. That may be true here, but your daily scores could well be -420, -90, +230, -330, -225, +895, -125, +220, etc. If you are playing a highly volatile game (like Double Double Bonus), the swings both ways will be larger yet.

4. In addition to the daily swings, there are long-term swings. You will have 1-month winning streaks. You will have 3-month losing streaks. The streak will last as long as it does, and will only be over when it is. Playing more or for bigger stakes while you are in a winning streak makes no sense whatsoever, nor does playing less when you are in a losing streak. Just because you have been on a 3-week winning or losing streak does not change the odds of the game one iota. The machine doesn't know whether you have been winning or losing. Just play your game and the results will take care of themselves.

5. You will lose more often than you win. Maybe two out of three times, depending on the game, even if you are playing a game that returns over 100% and you are playing perfectly. When you hit the royal, it will make up for a lot of bad sessions.

6. Even when you learn how to play, there is a lot you should know about which casinos to play at. Each casino has its own video poker inventory, and its own slot club. It takes a while to learn where the best games are. You do not collect this information overnight.

7. Even if you know which casino to play at most of the time, most winning players take advantage of casino promotions --- such as double points on Tuesday, or win a scratcher or drawing ticket for four of a kind, or whatever. I estimate that for more than 75% of my play, I am playing at a particular casino because of a promotion of one kind or another. How do you find out about these promotions? There many places where some of this information is compiled, and no one source has everything, but a good place to start is Jeffrey Compton and my "Player's Edge," which can be found either a few mouse clicks away from where you found this column or in the Friday Neon section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

When Shirley got through cataloging these things, her out-of-state friends were no longer interested in meeting me. There were looking for a get-rich-quick free lunch. Unfortunately, Shirley and I do not know where they can get one.