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Bob Dancer writes a video poker column for beginners to experts. He also writes a column with Jeffrey Compton, "Player's Edge", featuring information on promotions at various Las Vegas casinos. Player's Edge is published each Friday in the Neon section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Click here to send Bob Dancer an e-mail.

For a 3,000-word preview of Bob's juicy new novel, "Sex, Lies, and Video Poker", visit www.bobdancer.com.

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Mar 06, 2007

If it's good enough for Dancer . . .

I was in Sam's Town to collect free play for Shirley and me. I saw a woman I recognized from my classes, "Sally," and she excitedly told me some news.

A few months back, Sally told me, she saw me playing the $5 8/5 Bonus Poker progressive on a Saturday afternoon. She didn't want to bother me so she didn't come up and say hi. But she was in the casino the next day and decided to check out the machine. I wasn't there, but she decided to play anyway. Lo and behold, she hits the royal for $24,500. The biggest jackpot of her life!

"I don't know when the progressive is high enough to make it worth playing," Sally told me, "but I figured that you did. Since it was high enough for you, it was high enough for me. I'm still excited and it's been several months."

I congratulated her and we went our separate ways. I didn't tell her that she had made a major miscalculation. After all, why rain on her parade?

In video poker, it's not about choosing the right GAME, but rather choosing the right SITUATION. For those players who play enough at Sam's Town to get monthly mailers, Saturdays are always a 6x points day, adding 0.60% to whatever game you are playing --- unless it's one of the 100% games where the bonus is 0.30%. A $5 8/5 Bonus Poker machine with a $24,500 royal is worth 99.62%. You add a 0.60% slot club and it returns 100.22%. While this is slightly positive, it's still rather skimpy. It must have been one of those months where I needed to get in my monthly play TODAY, so I played the progressive that would otherwise have been too low to be of interest.

On Sunday, however, only single points are offered, which makes the game worth only 99.72%. This is nowhere near playable for anyone who seriously wants to win. There's a reason I wasn't there, and the reason is that the game returned too little to be of interest. Although the machine returned slightly more on Sunday than it did on Saturday, the situation returned a lot less. A half percent difference on a machine where you can play $20,000 an hour means that it was worth $100 an hour less on Sunday than it was on Saturday.

Sally is not alone in her misconception. I get several emails a week asking me what game to learn. And my answer always, "It depends." It depends on what casino you're going to be playing at, what games are offered there, how much the slot club returns, and even what are the usual promotions. Without knowing all of that information, I couldn't possible recommend what game to play.

Some may argue that since Sally hit the royal that day, it was the "right play" even if the situation returned less than 100%. It's very shortsighted to think that way. You need to make your decisions BEFORE you know the results. A good decision remains good whether or not you win today. Likewise, a bad decision remains bad whether or not you win today.

Ignoring $100-per-hour differences is not something that winning players do. Winning players put themselves into good situations. They don't know when the royals will happen, but they know that over time they will very likely be a winner.