Video Poker A Grinder's Story

Please see Al's request for a blog on my VP. Its the only reason I wrote it.

 

@VegasGalPoker: I'm chiming in only because I am concerned for you. Your posts are almost exclusively about how you did when you gambled. They are, "your past results". Results, especially daily ones, are mostly a function of random chance and cannot be used to judge expectancy. To maintain a healthy functional attitude towards gambling you must focus almost exclusively on the future and how you play, and what your edge is when you play. This is something you calculate PRIOR to playing, and it isn't altered, modified, proven, or disproven by your outcome once a result is tallied.

It is quite clear by your original post that you have a sense of pride and validation as a direct result of how you did last year. Simply put, this is a very dangerous mindset...and it's exactly how most problem gamblers get their start. They play something, experience positive fluctuation(Luck), and immediately link their behavior with the positive outcome, when it was only ever the natural and expected perturbations of random chance. Randomness really is very random, and all scientific studies into the subject have confirmed that the human mind has almost no ability to truly grasp it.

To avoid our natural human deficiency(mine as well, as I am human), when it comes to random chance, there are a few mental attitudes one can adopt to mitigate the impact:

1. Cultivate a sense of self worth exclusively for things over which you can have a direct influence. Examples:

a. How accurately you play a mathematically correct strategy.

b. Your ability to do math and calculate expected value.

c. The quality and number of profitable situations you find and are able to take advantage. For instance, if you found a casino with 100%+ return machines that was going to send you $1,200 a month in freeplay for playing there...be happy...just on the sole fact you found the opportunity. And here's the important part: Be happy even before you have played a hand. You found a good play!!! Yay!

d. The number of different strategies you have memorized and can play with 99.9% accuracy.

e. Etc...and anything else which is a function of your mental acuity, hard work, study, and knowledge. And not anything having to do with results, which can make even the most deplorable gamblers ahead in the short term...

2. Avoid getting happy when you win and unhappy when you lose.

a. You probably don't jump for joy on Fridays when picking up your paycheck, and the same applies to jackpots. They are simply one hand out of many you are expected to get playing video poker. Nothing to be excited about, regardless of what they pay. They are just part of the return of the machine.

b. If you play 8 hours on a machine where you have a 2% edge, make no miscues, and no serious strategy errors, go home happy and content that you put in a good days work. Do not in anyway factor in your result (totally dependent on random chance) to this feeling of satisfaction one should always feel for a “job well done”...

3. Reserve your disappointment and anger for yourself when you make mistakes, and this is the key part of this statement: EVEN WHEN YOU WIN. If your win was the result of playing something you should not have been playing in the first place, and or the result of a strategy error, you should feel shame, not pride. I know this is hard to understand, but try. Results in the extreme short term are very poorly correlated with your accuracy. If for instance you miscued and held only one ten, instead of a pair of tens, and then drew 4 cards and hit a Royal, you should not be proud of your Royal. You should be really pissed off at yourself for not holding a pair of tens. And you should try never to let that happen again. What happened after your mistake is irrelevant, as that's controlled by random chance; it was still a mistake. Which cards you hold, however, is not random and is within your control, and that is why it is this part of the exercise on which you should focus all your attention, self affirmation, or chagrin.


While I'm an atheist it's worth noting that the concepts I'm sharing were well understood thousands of years ago and are nothing new.

Ecclesiastes 9:11King James Version (KJV)
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Be Well ~FK

 

Great post, Frank, and excellent advice for everyone. To underscore the point, remember that "luck" exists only in the past tense. You might say rightfully "I was lucky today" but that's only an observation of past experience. To extend that into the future ("I'll have better luck tomorrow") is just wishful thinking that must be avoided if you are to be a successful gambler. Or to be successful at anything, for that matter.

 

As far as blogging about your results, my personal opinion is this is a terrible idea. You'd be potentially drawing validation from something which should not matter. If you instead blogged about improvements to your accuracy and technique of play it would be more constructive. Think of this parable:

If you had an amazingly flashy technique for flipping a coin; having it land on your head, slide down your face, flip again off you nose to bounce off your elbow, then knee, to finally come to rest in your palm...I'd be REALLY interested in how you learned the trick, and perhaps even interested in learning to do it myself!!!

I would not want to see, nor would I be interested in a daily account of what you flipped. Heads or tails...

Only the method of flipification is the interesting part.

I can speak only for myself on this point. If there are those out there interested in other people's random daily results, I have no comment..

 

I was only observing that it would not be incorrect to say "I was lucky today" if indeed you did win, but it would be a better mindset to say "I came out ahead today through a combination of luck and my accurate play on a game where I had an advantage." But gambler's like to brag about their wins and try to forget about their losses, so it's unlikely you would every hear anyone but objective players such as Frank (and myself) say that. And hey, I like that new word "flipification."

 

I had written that post before you posted your post, I just hadn't hit the "post reply" button yet. So nothing in it was in reply to what you had said. Just FYI...

As far as talking about daily results in anyway. I'm against it. I believe the only number that matters is "your lifetime earn"... Daily results should be seen only as a slight increase or decrease to your lifetime results. In this way one never feels up or down on a daily basis. At worst one feels "very slightly less up" than they already were when walking in the door.

If you're up $500,000 on your gambling over your life, walk into a casino and on that single day lose $1,000. You are not a $1,000 looser. You are simply now a $499,000 winner.

Please note the same is true in reverse: If you are down overall for your life, you cannot claim "a win" of any kind until you first get even. Any daily result would only be a loss reduction... If you call it a win you are lying to whomever you're saying that to, and more seriously you're lying to yourself.

 

Frank and Dan-WOW! Thanks fellas for posting. I'm glad you wrote that I shouldn't blog. I would not want to rehash my days; it's enough I record every casino, mchine number, every dollar in/out. And then have to tally it up for the IRS. I'm working on it now, for my taxes.
What you wrote about making the right plays was heart warming-I do try to do that every time-lately, it simply has NOT worked. I've felt horrible. For the last two years, it HAS worked. I don't know what's happened. so I've slowed down, considerably, rather than fight what happening.

Instead of playing dollars, I'm playing quarters (nickles if the progressives are high). I'm hitting taxables, but they're not for a lot of money. My loses aren't as awful as they were when I was playing like I did coming off of 2014. Truly, we lived wonderfully. I started out gambling and learning as a quarter player. I'm just starting over. I'm doing all the same things I did when I started out. I hope it turns around-if not, I can't lose 'that' much if it doesn't. I find that now, when I do get a win. I RUN home. Save the money for the next day.

Last year, I'd hit 3-4 taxable in the same hour. It must have been an blip in the poker timeline, I guess. Maybe things are now as they shouold have been. I'm relearning restaint. And that's a good thing.

 

If I understand correctly, you're saying that for some time playing correct strategy accurately did not work for you, then it started working. What you have found out is that "random" does not mean that a 101% play will give you a 1% gain every day. Randomness is naturally clumpy and streaky, and there is no way of knowing when a streak will begin or end.

So in other words, it always worked for you. You experienced a losing streak then a winning streak, with a spike here and there. So just continue accurate play on positive expectation games, but don't ignore risk.

The best way to evaluate your bankroll is to use the Sorokin risk of ruin formula. It's difficult to calculate by hand, but it's implemented in Optimum Video Poker. You may be surprised to learn how big a bankroll you need to keep your risk in line with your emotional tolerance of risk.

 

Aside from the excellent advice of those above, some of us would love to read about the journey, who knows, you might mention something that one of the real experts in casino gambling, may tell you to avoid.

You go to a casino daily (in most cases), how do you pick the casino and type machine you are going to play? When do you leave it, change the game, quit for the day, take a break, get a distraction. Do you find certain times of days, days of the week, or locations of particular machines relevant in any way other than superstition? Have you hit a jackpot on one machine, hit another on the next machine waiting for payout or operator to come, or even done it with 3 or more machines?

Is it funny or sad for you to look at players who rub objects on the machine for luck, talk outloud every spin and turn?

I recently played cards at Perryville MD Hollywood Casino and there was a guy playing $25 slots, $75 total a spin. He won, the attendant was called, he hoped on another machine, he won, attendant called, lots of cheering, this went on for over an hour. At $92K he stopped to go play the table games. I was told he returned to the same slots 3 hours later with 12K left. He blew that, and went back to the tables to drop another $25K. Disaster....

I can't believe it sometimes when I see these actions. I believe if I hit $92K I'd stop, or I'd cash out $85k and try to parlay the $7k, but they would not get my $85 or get me to leave machines that were paying.

Your thoughts?

 

Al-Not surprisingly the way I pick which casinos to go to daily is by virtue of which casino is giving me free play that day. I sort them out geographically. Do all my freeplay near my house on one day, alll of Boulder Hwy the next, Flamingo Rd the next then Downtown. BUT if there is a progressive that I want to try to hit, that carefully mapped out strategy goes down the tubes, lol. Type of machine is always video poker.

I learned from Bob Dancer's software and from his classes to work on JoB first then proceed from there. I can't say I'm an expert on anything, but I try to play perfectly. DB, DDB and TDB are my favorites probably in that order. I ABSOLUTELY suck at any sort of wild game.

I leave a game as soon as anyone hits whichever part of the progressive I was aiming for gets hit. Its not always the royal that I'm going for. Sometimes it's the aces with a kicker. No specific day of the week is batter than another, but I find that on Monday morning, most of those progressives that were high during the weekend have been hit.

Yes, on more than one occasion I have hit a royal and while waiting to get paid I've a royal or AAAkicker on the machine next to it. It happens more often than one would think.

People?!?! I wrote to Frank Scobelette about the following situation and can you believe it, he told me, "No, it is NOT acceptable to slap the people who do what I'm about to tell you." I was so dismayed. Obviously I had no intention of hitting them, but you know what I mean. Here is what kills me about playing any progressive, but most especially a very high progressive. People who play one coin (one dollar if it's a $1.00 denom or one quarter, etc) or less than max. They will sit there for hours playing and hit the royal get $250. They didn't hit $250, they lost $6,573, or whatever and they STILL DON'T GET IT. Am I the only one who hates this? Frank, Dan, does this bother you?

I do think people who punch the space of the machine where the card that would have given them royal should have been have no business playing. A little too angry for me. This is just my opinion. And also, in my opinion, I get unnerved by those players who SMASH the buttons like they are the most angry/hateful people in the casino. They're breaking the buttons. It is so disrespectful of another's property. Even if that property belongs to a large corporation. I'm amused by the superstitious ones.

 

Dan, Streaky and video poker. I had completely forgotten about the nature of variance. I know variance and forgot-I simply was angry and depressed about my game. I has worked for me for years. Variance finally caught up. It hadn't till this year...Thank you from the bottom of my VERY emotional heart.

 

that's what I'm taking about, a story anyone can understand and feel they walked through the doors with you, thanks for taking the time. to those who strictly want another type post, ask her, she seems capable and versatile to do it (I suggest more players not be so lazar focused they can't see 10 feet past themselves, nor 360 degrees. Occupational blindness is a terrible infliction. Again, props to you Gal

 

No, VegasGal, I do not hate people who play short coins, whether it's a flat-top or a progressive, nor do I hate the people who play max coins but make a lot of strategic errors. These are the people who make the good games profitable for the casino, thus giving us the opportunity to make a profit.

I do pity them, and I offer my products that could teach them to become advantage players. It's their own choice to ignore such offers and remain ignorant gamblers. What I do hate is that these idiots also vote.

 

LOL about the voters., Dan. Al, eight years of graduate school will do that to a person. I can write, for sure, I can argue (logically), just a wee bit too emotional for my own good, particularly if I intend to stay a gambler. I have the ability to step back for a while and do other things till I cool off. Luckily I have a lot of impulse control-I can proudly say I have NEVER slapped a stranger who has played only one, or less than max coins on a progressive, though I have been sorely temped to.

 

Not in the slightest. In fact I love it...a lot...! They are contributing money to the progressive meter without any chance whatsoever of hitting the progressive and they are taking up a seat from someone who might play max coins and be true competition. Short coiners, or "Hugos" as we call them are AWESOME. Buy them drinks if they aren't playing enough coins to warrant comped drinks and chat them up. They are your best friends.

And please note: The hands you are playing on your machine are random and totally independent from the hands they are playing. If they hit a 1 coin Royal it in no way effects your chances of hitting a max-coin Royal on your machine. The only effect it will have is that if you do hit one, it'll be higher as a result of their play.

~FK

P.S. 4 coiners are the best of the best and are known as, "Hugo's Second Cousin Twice Removed"...

 

If you are playing "high progressives" you should be getting very large taxables. As most progressives start out with worse return they often need to be 3 to 4 times reset to be playable. All over town right now there are quarter progressives over $3,000 (Reset $1,000) that still aren't high enough to be worth playing.

Do not confuse "high" with "Playable", the latter infers that the jackpot is enough over the cost to be worth the cost.

High can simply mean it hasn't been hit in a while and is a large amount over reset...but that doesn't mean it's playable. High Jackpots are NOT easier to hit, nor do they become "due" just because they are high... The only reason high is better is because it's more money...

There are several verities of VP with costs well over $4,000 for a QUARTER... One such verity of 10's or better we played only when the meter got over $8,500. And yes that's with a $1,000 reset. One might easily see a game of this type at $5,000 and think that was good. It was not...

Kapish?

 

If you did blog your daily results, what you should do both for yourself and as an encouragement in right thinking for all those reading it, is to list only a running total of your lifetime earn. In other words:

If you are up $35,000 over the course of your entire life, a week of daily entries might be expressed like this:

Monday: $35,000 - $200 = $34,800
Tuesday: $34,800 - $300 = $34,500
Wed: No Play
Thursday: $34,500 + $100 = $34,600
Friday: $34,600 - $800 = $33,800
Saturday: $33,800 - $400 + $2,400 JP = $35,800
Sunday: No play

etc...No resetting the clock for end of year, end of trip, going home, changing machines, leaving the casino, changing games, etc...Simply no resetting the clock. Start each new entry exactly where you left off the day before as though it were one gigantic life long "DAY"... Which incidentally, it is....

I like the idea of getting people to stop thinking of their daily (or weekly, or yearly) results as though they were independent of ALL their results. The machines don't know it's another year or that you went home and slept in your bed. Every hand you play is merely one in a long unending stream of independent random events no more or less connected to each other as a result of time that passes between hands. The pause between having drawn your cards and hitting the "max coin" button for the next hand is no different than a year long pause between hands for someone that visits LV only once a year. To the human mind things done, "in a row" seem connected. Things done days apart seem unconnected or at least less connected. But here's the thing, random independent events like drawing 5 cards on a VP machine cannot be done "in a row"... "independent" means just that... They are unconnected to each other, except for the confabulated ways in which our minds group them.

If you keep records and blog about them in a fashion that illustrates this, and get people to stop creating imaginary lines of demarcation in their heads, you will have done the world a great service...

~FK

 

I kapish! And I appreciate these lessons. I also have your book, the Secret World of Video Poker Progressives. As I was reading it, I so wanted to be IN it, I couldn't stand that I wasn't. I don't mean in the book, but on the teams.

 

I had another tip to add.

After looking at your dealt cards and making your selection, hit "deal draw" and then DO NOT LOOK AT THE CARDS THAT COME IN. Instead hit "max-coins" very fast so it deals the next hand immediately.

Why do this. you ask?
Because:
A: They don't really matter. They are what they are. If you get a big hand the machine will lock up.
B: You have no control over the drawn cards. So don't sweat them.
C: It slows you down. This method of play is much faster, and if you're playing with an edge, faster is more money.
D: It focuses your attention on the aspect of the game over which you have control. What cards you hold!
E: If you aren't looking at the drawn cards, you can't notice annoying meaningless patterns and missed hands.
E: It makes the game far less addictive.

If your response is that this makes playing less fun, my answer is, "good". The "less fun" part is why it's less addictive. If you sweat your drawn cards you are basically doing "what the casino wants you to do" and giving in to human cognitive bias. Or at least opening the door for bias, and leaving out milk and cookies.

~FK

 

I especially support Frank's reasons "E" and "E" (sic). Keep in mind, however, that Frank cannot conceive of anybody playing video poker for fun. For him, it's strictly work. Even if you are playing with an advantage, it's gambling, and many, many people gamble for fun. Personally, I enjoy playing video poker with the bonus that I can increase my bankroll with that activity. Also I could not make a profit publishing my books, cue cards and software if there weren't thousands of people who find it fun to play a game for profit.