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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.

Jan. 13, 2009

My New Book: "Video Poker for the Intelligent Beginner"

I have a new book out by Huntington Press. It's the first book I've written that's geared specifically to beginners. I've been asked how this book differs from "how to" books by other authors.

The premise behind VPIP is that if you're going to beat the casinos, you need to be smarter than average. This is common sense. Casinos make money off most gamblers, and supporting smart video poker players isn't something they're here to do. Therefore, to succeed in an environment where the casinos set the rules, you need to be a cut above the general public. Video poker books claiming that anyone can become good enough to end up being a net winner are selling pie in the sky.

The first section of the book provides an overall view of dozens of video poker games. It explains the similarities and differences between Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker, etc. The games are separated based on variance (which is a stand-in measure for volatility). Using this data, players will be able to categorize most video poker games in any casino and determine which, if any, constitute smart plays.

The second section of the book teaches the use of strategies. I use the strategies from Video Poker for Winners for this exercise, but any good strategy works. This section shows you how to parse a hand into the eligible combinations, then locate them in the strategy. Once that's done, it's simply a matter of choosing which line on the strategy comes first.

For example, from 5h 6h 7h 8c 8s, the three relevant choices are the 3-card straight flush ('567'), the 4-card straight (5678), and the low pair (88). By using the methods described, you'll see that in Jacks or Better you should choose 88, in Double Bonus the best choice is 5678, and in NSU Deuces Wild smart players select '567'.

I've been teaching video poker classes for more than a decade and have become convinced that just giving beginners a strategy and telling them to "use it" is not an effective way to educate. I believe it's necessary to give numerous examples demonstrating how a strategy is and isn't used.

The final section of the book teaches players how to use the software Video Poker for Winners. I go over examples of how to figure out how much a "Card of the Day" promotion is worth (where you receive an extra 100 coins for four 3s). I use Double Double Bonus as the example, because it has kicker hands (i.e., four 3s with an A, 2, or 4) as well as non-kicker hands (i.e., four 3s with a 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, T, J, Q, or K) that are affected. This section discusses various types of information you can glean from the bankroll calculator --- both short term and long term, and discuses what the numbers mean. A myriad of topics that the modern player must be familiar with are also addressed here: slot clubs, bounce back cash and other promotions, slot tournaments, video poker tournaments, and team play.

Video Poker for the Intelligent Beginner retails for $24.95 and is now available at BobDancer.com and will be available soon at other outlets. It will be available at my every-Tuesday-afternoon classes at the South Point, where the new semester begins February 3.