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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.

April 21, 2009

How Many Video Poker Games Should You Know Well?

Every video poker game has its own strategy. Learning the first game is probably the hardest. Learning subsequent games is sometimes easier, but it also makes it easy to get confused going from game to game. Let's look at some circumstances under which it makes sense to only know one game, and some other circumstances under which it makes sense to know many games.

Knowing only one game

1. This makes sense if there's only one casino you play at and only one profitable game to play at that casino.

2. This makes sense if you have limited time to devote to video poker. Whether the game you know (or about to learn) is the best or not, you simply don't want to invest a lot of time learning another.

3. This makes sense if you are easily confused by different strategies. Full Pay Deuces Wild and NSU Deuces Wild, for example, have most of their plays in common. But enough of them are different that it is easy to become confused going back and forth.

Learning many games

1. This makes sense if you play at several casinos. The best play at one casino may not be the best play at another. To play at both requires you to learn more than one game.

2. If a promotion makes another game better to play, you have to learn the other game to take advantage of the promotion. For example, double pay on four fours works a lot better on Double Double Bonus than it does on Deuces Wild. Even Card of the Day promotions which pay a fixed number of coins for specific quads are worth more on games without wild cards than they are on games with wild cards.

3. This makes sense if you're the sort of person who will get bored playing the same game all of the time.

4. This makes sense if you have the intelligence and aptitude to keep different strategies straight in your mind. This is not a trivial ability. Those who have this ability take it for granted, but not everybody has this talent.

5. If the game you used to play has disappeared, you must learn a new game if you're going to continue to play intelligent video poker.

6. If you're moving up or down in stakes, it's very possible that the game that was best at your old stakes is no longer best.

There are other things to think about, but this list will get you started. Obviously it's a personal decision and the decision depends on your circumstances.

I have never learned a video poker game just for the fun of it. Always it has been because I've believed that learning this game would create a sufficiently profitable opportunity to make it worth my while. I guess there have been some games (like Double Double Bonus) that I learned just so I could teach them. But knowing this game has come in handy occasionally as sometimes I've had occasion to play it in a casino.

Learning the first game well is generally harder than learning the second game --- so long as the second game is similar. I learned Jacks or Better reasonably well before I tackled Double Bonus. When I began to study Double Bonus I already knew that 'JT' > 'QT' > 'KT' > 'AT' and that holding high cards by themselves was part of the game. I was used to differentiating between various 3-card straight flushes. There were significant differences between the games, but knowing the first one game me a framework onto which to put my new knowledge.

Knowing one game at the 99.9% accuracy level is much better in my opinion than knowing several of them at the 99.0% accuracy level. Although playing at the 99.0% accuracy level is an accomplishment, it is nowhere near the level you need to be at if you want an advantage over the casino. You don't need to get into penalty cards to know a game at the 99.9% accuracy level, but you do need to study and practice. Pulling out a strategy card and consulting it occasionally is not the way to obtain this level of accuracy. Practicing several hours on a computer is a much better way to go about it.

However many games you know, you need to review them periodically. Knowing how to play some of the tougher hands is knowledge that deteriorates over time. Ten months ago I could play NSU Multi Strike at the 99.99% accuracy level, but the game was pulled from the casino where I played it and I needed to stop playing it. I doubt if I'm much above the 98% accuracy level today. (I could get up to speed quickly enough if the game reappears for interesting stakes, but until then I'm making no effort to retain "useless" knowledge.) Perhaps your memory is better than mine, but even the best of memories deteriorate over time.

Reviewing strategy is especially necessary if you're switching between games. If you've been playing Deuces Wild for a few weeks and all of a sudden another promotion comes along and you're going to be playing Double Bonus, it's probably a good idea to study a bit before you start playing. The games are so different you need to switch your "mind set" as you go from one to the other. A few people can do this instantaneously, but most need to take some time to get up to speed.

Turning on Video Poker for Winners to autoplay with the autohold feature turned on is a good way to get yourself back in gear if you haven't played a game for a while. If you used to know the game well, as the cards are dealt and played for you, much of what you knew will come tumbling back.