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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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Jul 31, 2007

A Bad Sense of Color

We are getting the outside of our house repainted. Our home is about ten years old and with the harsh summers here in Vegas, it's time to redo it. Shirley is well aware of my handyman skills, so it's a no-brainer to pay someone else to apply the paint. She saw a crew painting a house in the neighborhood, liked the way they worked, and hired them.

Shirley decided she wants a different color scheme this time around. I don't care that much. So long as it's within the acceptable guidelines set by the Homeowners Association (so we don't have to redo it), it's fine with me.

Shirley asks me to choose between two different colors. They're both sort of beige or tan or light brown. Something like that. They looked the same to me.

"The first one has a little more taupe in it," Shirley tells me. "Can't you see that?"

"Tell me again what color taupe is," I reply.

Shirley reaffirms what she already knew --- I'm not going to be much help here, no matter how hard I try. So she calls her girlfriend Gwen to come by and help with the color decisions. Six hours after the colors are decided, Shirley changes her mind and notifies the painter before the wrong colors are purchased.

She explains to me that one of the original colors she picked had too much red in it and the other had too much yellow. I'm having a little trouble picturing this as all of the houses in our development are various shades of brownish earth tones. But I agree with her that the new colors are a big improvement. Just because I have no color sense doesn't mean I'm stupid. If she likes the new colors, my life works better if I tell her I like them too.

Now to video poker. A surprising number of people have about the same video poker sense as I have color sense. For whatever reason, a suited ace-ten looks the same to them as a suited jack-ten, or they don't distinguish between Ah Kc Jd and Ah Kc Jc, or perhaps the 3-card straight flushes 'JT9' and '357' seem to be approximately equally valuable.

Or maybe they don't look at how much you get for full houses and flushes. They sit down and play, whether it's a pay schedule that gives them a chance or one that doesn't.

In the grand scheme of things, my awkwardness at colors is neither better nor worse than some other person's video poker ineptitude. But there is a difference in whether we pay attention to this slowness.

I do not put myself in position where a good color sense is necessary. Shirley picks out my clothes and other things where color is an important part. If someone asks me which of two things are prettier, I usually defer and ask them which one THEY like.

I see a lot of players, though, who don't let a complete lack of video poker acumen stop them from playing. Perhaps they think that it's all about luck anyway or perhaps they don't even know how badly they play. Surely they've noticed that they lose most of the time. And yet they continue to play, losing thousands of dollars a year. It's okay to have a hobby, but this sounds like a very expensive one to me.

Possibly they don't know that playing decent video poker is a learnable skill. It is. Learning with a computer program (I recommend "Video Poker for Winners") is very easy. A little bit of study will pay enormous dividends. And there are numerous books and Winner's Guides for further study if you decide to go that direction.

Nobody can be good at everything. Everyone is pathetic at many different things. While everyone has a different "common sense," mine tells me that if you are really lousy at something you should either take the time to get better or stop doing it.