VIDEO POKER

Players Should Feel Free to Personalize Their Strategy

Which Do You Prefer?

In my Quick Quads strategy for 9/6 Double Double Bonus, available for free at this link, I use the following rule at one point:

In the strategy for the same game created by Michael Shackleford, aka "The Wizard of Odds," the same section of the strategy (available for free at this link) is listed as:

This is not a "my strategy is better than his" article. In fact, the two rules are 100% equivalent, and actually contain the same ambiguity. From the hand 44432, neither strategy indicates that 4443 > 4442. Similarly, from 4442A, neither strategy indicates that 444A > 4442. (Players familiar with the game will know their way around this ambiguity instinctively. Nonetheless, I'm rather surprised that both Shack and I independently chose to omit this.)

My reason for bringing this up is that some of you will prefer his presentation and some of you will prefer my presentation. It's even possible that your preference will change over time --- perhaps you'll like his way when you're brand new to the game because you find it clearer, but once you're familiar with the game, you find the conciseness of my presentation preferable. This difference in presentation isn't unique to this game, this rule, or with respect to the Wizard and me. There are a LOT of different ways to write a rule.

Players who use strategies a lot should strongly consider personalizing them. You can stay with what the strategy-designer has prepared, if you like, but many of you will find that you wish the designer had phrased things differently. To make the strategy most useful, you need to rewrite it so it fits your needs.

I'm bringing this up because I was sitting next to somebody in a casino who had a laminated strategy --- but it wasn't mine or any other format I recognized. I knew the player and asked him where he got the strategy. He was embarrassed as he told me that he started from my strategy and tweaked it because he liked the way Skip Hughes' strategy wrote a few of the instructions, even though he liked mine better overall. He didn't want to insult me or anybody else by his personal tweaking.

I assured him I wasn't insulted. I told him that my opinion of him as a player INCREASED because he did this. Anybody who takes the time to personally tweak a strategy is likely to know the ins and outs of the game better than someone who doesn't do this.

If you use someone else's strategy "off the shelf" you are likely to be misplaying a few hands. Not that any of us are trying to trick you, but every strategy uses a type of shorthand --- and sometimes shorthand notations from one strategy are slightly different from the same notation in another notation.

For example, in my 10/7 and 9/7 Double Bonus strategy I say that 'QTx' > 'QT' and in my 9/6 Double Double Bonus (both regular and Quick Quads), I say that 'KTx' > 'KT'. Whether the use of "x" in these two instructions is the same or not depends partly on your point of view. In both cases it means a card of the same suit which is too low to be part of any 3-card royal flush or 3-card straight flush. That is, in 'QTx' the x could be any suited card in the range of 2-7 and in 'KTx' it could be any suited card in the range of 2-8. The reason for the difference in range is because cards that could be in a 3-card straight flush with 'KT' are not the same as those that could be in a 3-card straight flush with 'QT'.

To me, using the "x" is perfectly clear and the fact that it has different ranges in these two instructions is something I can deal with "on the fly" because I understand the underlying meaning. I know others who prefer to phrase 'QTx' as 'QT2'-'QT7', simply because it is clearer to them that way. I know others who try to use the strategy without tweaking and when they are looking up one of these hands say something like, "What the heck does the 'x' mean? Why can't he do a strategy in English?"

To my mind, the main place you use a strategy card is at home when you're practicing on a computer. I don't believe someone is ready to go to a casino and play with real money until they can play at least 99% accurately (I'm talking about what I believe you should do. My standards for myself are MUCH higher). If you practice this much, possibly you're going to come across some hands that you think should be explained differently on the strategy card. Great! Make the change so that it works for you.

Strategy cards are much more useful at home than they are in a casino. At home you can spread out, get comfortable, and check out every hand. In a casino it can be more difficult to spread out comfortably --- and because of this difficulty frequently isn't done. If you've used the card enough while practicing so you are at least at the 99% accuracy level, you've essentially memorized the strategy to the game and it is only on rare occasions that you still need to consult the card. Under these conditions, a strategy is useful in a casino.

Whether or not I believe you should know a game at the 99% accuracy level before you go into the casino, I'm not naive enough to believe that everybody follows my advice. So be it. It is my belief that the players who have gone to the trouble to tweak a strategy to make it their own are far more likely to be successful players than those who don't.