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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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Nov. 20, 2007

Robbie's Rule

A friend of mine that I'll call Robbie plays a lot of NSU Deuces Wild. There is one type of hand that he absolutely refuses to play according to the strategy rules. This hand is a 4-card straight with a deuce, where all three natural cards are unsuited with each other.

This hand is not simple. The completely accurate rule, letting W (for wild card) stand for the deuce, is:

From W567 --- Hold the W only if the fifth card is an A, K, or Q.

Hold W567 if the fifth card is a 9 or T.

From W678 --- Hold the W only if the fifth card is a K suited with one of the three natural cards, or any 3 or A.

Hold W678 if the fifth card is a J, Q, or unsuited K.

From W789 --- Hold the W only if the fifth card is a 4 suited with one of the three natural cards, or any 3.

Hold W789 if the fifth card is a Q, K, or A.

From W89T --- Never hold the W by itself.

Hold W89T if the fifth card is a 3, 4, K, or A (where the K or A must be unsuited with the T).

From W9TJ --- Never hold the W by itself.

Hold W9TJ if the fifth card is a 3, 4, 5, or A (where the A must be unsuited with the J and T).

From WTJQ --- Hold the W only if the fifth card is a 3.

Hold WTJQ if the fifth card is a 4, 5, 6, or 7.

Any fifth card that isn't listed yields a 3-of-a-kind or a 5-card straight, both of which are more valuable than a 4-card straight.

Before we discuss how this relates to "Robbie's Rule," let's look at these straights. Notice they are "perfect," where "perfect" means there are no gaps and at least enough spaces above and below to be filled in with natural cards. W567 is worth exactly $5.00 to the 5-coin dollar player. W456, which is imperfect in that it doesn't have two spaces below it before running into the deuce, is only worth $4.15.

Robbie has decided that this is too complicated to learn and so he just holds the deuce in each case. "Robbie's Rule," he calls it. This isn't a terrible play, as the cost for a 5-coin dollar player ranges from a fraction of a penny to 4.2¢. Still it adds up and since I play for much larger stakes than dollars, I've taken the time to memorize the rule completely.

If simplicity were Robbie's main concern, it would be better to ALWAYS hold these 4-card straights rather than NEVER holding the straights. Better yet, only hold them in the range of W789-WTJQ. With the other two perfect 4-card straights, W567 and W678, it's slightly better to always hold the deuce.

In addition to the complication factor (which Robbie is quite capable of dealing with but many players aren't), holding the deuce is more exciting --- which is another way of saying it has a higher variance. Going for the straight, you get a 10-coin straight or nothing at all. Holding the deuce, you can end up with any score of 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, 80, 125, or 1000 coins.

In late October of this year, Robbie was playing dollar Five Play NSU and on three separate occasions on the same day, just holding the deuce on one of these types of hands turned into four deuces. Whether it was correct strategically or not to hold the deuce in these three particular cases, Robbie doesn't know or care. All he knows is following Robbie's Rule paid off big dividends on this particular day.

"The best I could have gotten playing it your way was $10 fifteen times. My way I got $1,000 three times, not to mention a few other scores as well. I'll NEVER play it your way again!"

To my mind this is total nonsense. If Robbie wants to give up the small amount on these hands, either because the hands are too difficult or he likes the excitement of possibly hitting four deuces, fine. It's an inferior play, but not by much.

But just because three separate long shots came in on the same day has absolutely nothing to do with what you should do in the future. It doesn't mean you should use Robbie's Rule because your luck with it has been good, nor does it mean that you should avoid Robbie's Rule because you've "used up" your luck on this type of play.

Gambler's use quite a few "rules of thumb," and learning lessons from your experience is a valuable thing. But make sure you learn the right lesson. Just because some wrong plays came in three times on the same day in October 2007 is a very poor reason to change or not change your behavior in the future. Learning the math behind the plays and the correct strategies is an excellent reason to change or not change your behavior in the future.