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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.

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Jul 03, 2007

Learning a New Game

I know 9/6 Jacks or Better Multi Strike, sort of. I've taught it a number of times, manually tweaked the strategy that appears in "Video Poker for Winners," but I haven't played the game. The level at which I need to know a game I would actually play is considerably higher than what I need to know to teach the basics of the game to others.

They have 25¢ Five Play 9/6 JoB games at Fiesta Henderson. While this is a game that takes $25 to fully load, as do normal $5 games, it's much slower to play. I suspect that when it comes to coin in, it is closer to a $2 single-line game than a $5 game. Still, it returns 99.79% and the slot club is good enough to make it at least a little bit interesting.

Before I started to study the game in depth, I sent an email to Cookie Dreschler, the GM at Fiesta Henderson, asking if she minded if I played at the El Presidente level (about $75,000 per month). Cookie and I know each other well, as she was the GM for over a year when I was teaching classes there. I've heard that Station management (including Fiesta management) has sometimes taken the approach that "if Bob Dancer likes a game we have, it's too loose and should be removed."

I wasn't interested in killing the game for others which is why I asked. The game would be marginal for me, at best, but might be a major game for certain other players. If the casino had a problem with my being there, I'd just stay away.

For the first 36 hours after I sent my note to Cookie, I didn't hear anything back from her. So I figured I might as well study the game. Fortunately "Video Poker for Winners" has 100%-accurate Multi Strike information, so on the close hands it was just a matter of entering all five cards and seeing what the program said was the right play.

In about two hours of study, I learned six or so enhancements to the strategy that I was already teaching in my classes. One was in Level 2, where I learned you hold QJT9 only if the fifth card is an ace (unsuited with either the Q or J), or a 9 or a T. While this enhancement deals with penalty cards and is hence too complicated for my classes, I wrote it down on my personal list. Another enhancement I learned, also in Level 2, was when you start a hand with an unsuited AK44 or KQ55, which fifth card makes it better to hold the high cards and which fifth card makes it better to hold the pair? Again, too complicated for my classes, but information I want to know if I'm playing.

Armed with this information, I decided to go play on July 4 when they offered 4x points. Although they offer 5x points every Saturday, it was going to take awhile to get the $225,000 coin in over three months to reach El Presidente status when I could only get in $7,000 or $8,000 coin-in per hour. An added bonus was that they were having a piddly $7,777 drawing the following Saturday and I could earn some tickets. This might well add an extra tenth of a percent or so, although precisely numericizing it is impossible.

As luck would have it, I hit two royals on the second line ($2,000 apiece) over about six hours, and ended up about $4,000 ahead. This is a game with a relatively high volatility so I know that I'll have numerous down sessions in the future. Still, it's more fun to be up $4,000 than down $4,000, although swings of this size are smaller than I'm used to.

The next morning, I got up and went over the strategy again. After all, after you've played several hours, you have a far better context with which to learn. A few of the new rules had come up the night before, and a few hadn't. But I still donÕt' know this game cold, so I needed to review some more.

At 10 a.m. I got the email response from Cookie, basically saying they preferred I not play there. Oh well. Although she phrased it in terms of a "request" rather than a "demand," if I don't take the hint she can easily rephrase it. I'll honor the request.

Fortunately, at South Point over the next month and a half they are having a gas card promotion. Possibly this game is the best one to play during this promotion. Since I've just gone through the learning curve, now is the time to apply what I've just learned.

And even if I can't find places to play the game at a later time, at least I now have more depth with which to teach the classes, which I'll next do on July 17 at 10 a.m. at the Silverton. I get dozens of questions every week from students, and sometimes they are about rather obscure aspects to the games. The more I've studied these games, the better answers I can give to these questions off the top of my head.

Postscript: A few hours after Cookie sent me the email requesting that I stay away, they downgraded the Five Play Jacks or Better Multi Strike to 9-5, rather than 9-6. As if that wasn't enough to keep intelligent players from playing the game, they also capped the royal flush at 1250 coins rather than the typical 4,000. Back when I taught there, the Fiestas had a legitimate claim at having the best video poker in town. They no longer seem to be interested in this at all. More and more of their good games are being replaced with bad ones.