VIDEO POKER

Sleep on This

During my early years of these trips, I was only able to make them two or three 3-day weekends a year. It was sometimes eight months or more between trips to Vegas, and my card-counting skills deteriorated over time. For whatever reason, whatever memorization I had done previously wasn't still completely memorized. So often I'd practice thirty or more hours over the three weeks prior to my trip to get ready to play fifteen hours of blackjack. By the time I got to Vegas, I was READY.

I'd usually fly in after work on Friday. It's only a 1-hour flight between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but it would usually be four or five hours between the time I left my home to the time I was in my hotel room. After a demanding day at work. After a largely sleepless night the night before because I was so excited about going back to Vegas.

Card counting at blackjack is an activity that requires significant mental alertness --- at least for me. So it stands to reason that after arriving in Las Vegas that I would go immediately to bed and attack the game Saturday morning. Yeah, right. I was so excited to be in Vegas that I'd be at the tables as soon as possible after arriving.

Was this smart? No, of course not. It is understandable? Certainly. I had practiced, practiced, practiced so long that I was truly ITCHING to go and play. No way could I sleep. And even on those rare occasions I forced myself to go to bed immediately, I found sleeping in a strange hotel bed, including a whole new set of noises I wasn't used to, not at all the same as sleeping in my bed at home.

What does this have to do with video poker? An important, but largely ignored, key to success in both games is sleep management. Frequent visitors to Vegas, for whom each individual trip isn't such a big deal emotionally, find it easier to handle their sleep. For me, sleeping in my own bed is more productive than sleeping in hotels --- although this doesn't have to be true for others.

All of us are tourists sometimes. Sometimes Shirley and I go to Reno or elsewhere to play and there we are no longer locals. So how do we deal with this so our play is effective?

Shirley doesn't have the games memorized as well as I do, so I supervise her play on every hand. It might seem that in this situation my alertness is more important than hers, but it doesn't always work that way. When she's tired, she's far less tolerant of the tutoring, and there is the potential for a squabble if I don't phrase things correctly. So I try to be sensitive to both of our levels of alertness.

I'm not a big fan of chemical sleep aids. They get me to sleep well enough, but I'm not always alert the next day. The brand that works best for me doesn't work well for Shirley; so if you plan to use this method, try it at home first --- preferably on a night before a day where it's okay if you are groggy. You don't want to try one of these pills for the first time when you have no firm idea how your body will respond. Despite the fact that Vegas vacations are supposed to be fun, you're playing with real money and not being at your best can have long-lasting consequences.

I find scouting to be a good use of my time if I'm not alert enough to play optimally. If it has been a month or more since I've been in this casino, there will likely have been several changes. Or maybe changes at the casino next door. The way to find out which machines are best is to look at every one in the relevant denominations for your bankroll and knowledge. EVERY machine. The level of alertness required to check pay schedules is significantly different from that required to play accurately.

Finally, I find naps help. Sleeping an hour or two at a time works well for me. And if I am playing by myself, I schedule naps. Shirley doesn't do so well with naps. She likes to sleep when it's dark and then be up all day. We struggle finding times that work well for both of us, and neither one of us is very good at letting the other always dictate the time schedule.