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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 more details and a schedule of Bob's free classes, visit www.bobdancer.com.

July 28, 2008

Taking Care of Business

Earlier this month, youthful golfer Michelle Wie was having her best performance since it seems like forever. She had overcome injuries and doubters and was sitting one stroke off the lead at the end of Saturday's play. Then she discovered she was disqualified for a scoring mishap that happened after Friday's round.

Apparently she initially forgot to sign her scorecard and by the time volunteers notified her of the omission (when she immediately returned and signed the card) she had "crossed the line" and gone too far away from the scorer's area. In the LPGA, certain rules are unforgiving.

This error was mental. The young woman is very bright (she's a student at Stanford, after all) but signing the scorecard somehow slipped her mind. Perhaps she was distracted somehow. I don't know. Rather reminiscent of the "absent-minded professor" stereotype where it's possible to be thinking about so many things you forget the basics. Whether that's a fair characterization of Wie or not, I don't know (I've never met her), but it serves as a place to start this column.

Some people need a checklist when they go play video poker. When you start to play, the list might have:

1. Check game type and pay schedule

2. Check denomination

3. Is slot card inserted and "showing green"?

4. Is your starting point balance recorded?

5. Are there any promotions today that affect the return? (i.e. is it double points until midnight, or perhaps an extra 100 coin for four sevens, or maybe whenever you get a quad you get a drawing ticket, or ???)

6. After playing a few hands, check to see if slot club points are accumulating at the appropriate rate.

A similar checklist for leaving the machine might include:

1. Did you cash out?

2. Did you record your ending point balance?

3. Did you remove and secure your card and your cashout ticket?

4. Did you leave any property near the machine?

5. Do you need to visit the slot club booth or see a host before you leave the casino? This could be to pick up cash back or a comp or ???

These checklists could be laminated and carried with you along with your slot club cards and strategy cards. Over time, as you find you are "burned" by forgetting something either before or after playing, you can add to this list. The distractions in a casino are numerous --- especially if you've had a much better or much worse gambling session than usual. Or if you're tired, inebriated, or otherwise not at your best.

Some people with a high opinion of their own competence have the attitude that they don't such check lists. Perhaps they're right. Not everybody does. But professionals in many areas use them. A pilot, for example, has preflight and postflight checklists. (As a passenger, I WANT the pilot to go through these checklists carefully, even though I assume he is competent enough that 99% of the time he would do everything on the checklist anyway. I want to know that he follows it 100% of the time. I don't want him to discover a WHOOPS at 30,000 feet.) Some athletes use these checklists --- personalized for their particular position and weaknesses. When I teach classes, I have such a list that includes how many of each of product I should have to sell. Do I have the projector with me? Etc.

Today's suggestion isn't for everybody and you'll have to decide for yourself if this is an area where you have ever had a problem. But if it is, creating and carrying a checklist is a rather easy fix for what could sometimes be a very expensive lapse.

Michelle Wie's lapse could have cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of us don't play for stakes where this kind of lapse in a casino is possible. But even losing out on a few hundred dollars because of "stupidity" like this is very annoying --- and so easy to prepare for.