"Professional -- One who derives all or most of his or her livelihood from a particular endeavor." That may not be the first definition in your dictionary, but it's very close to the IRS's definition of a professional gambler, and it seems to be the best when classifying video poker players.
I have occasionally been accused of being a "pro." That is, a professional video poker player with little interest in helping tourists and other casual players. I want to assure all of my readers that, although I consider myself to be a professional game analyst, writer and publisher, and a modestly skilled player, I am not a pro player, and I do not write specifically for any small group. Although my work is valuable to everyone ascribing to be a be a winner at video poker, I continue writing primarily for recreational players.
Video poker players are not all alike, and neither are video poker writers. Many people feel that Bob Dancer writes primarily for pros, and that Skip Hughes and John Kelly write mainly for semi pros, yet these writers all serve a wide variety of players who find their work highly valuable. There are also many writers who obviously know nothing about the subject. At the bottom of that spectrum, Rob Singer writes for gullible gamblers looking for the proverbial free lunch; that is, that elusive big win without putting out the effort to learn an accurate strategy or even to recognize and favor the games that offer a positive expectancy.
Jean Scott (author of The Frugal Gambler) and I write mainly for a much broader group -- all of those intelligent people who realize that there is more to video poker than luck, and who want to have an honest chance of being a winner while having fun and earning good comps.
I first recognized the need for accurate yet easy-to-use strategies shortly after starting to play video poker in 1989, so associate Chris Meyers and I set about writing our own computer programs to analyze the three basic games, Jacks or Better, Joker Wild (Kings or Better) and Deuces Wild. The biggest surprise was that Deuces Wild, indicated by prior analysts to offer only 98% maximum payback, turned out to be the best of the three, actually offering over 100.75% expected long-term payback with accurate play, or as much as 101% on certain quarter machines that were then quite widely available in downtown Las Vegas at that time. (A very few of those 101% games still exist at the Plaza, with 0.2% slot club cash rebate added.)
After optimizing the hand rank tables (the classic form of video poker strategies), we re-wrote those three strategies, creating the Precision Play (tm) rules. For the first time, it became easy for anyone to achieve very close to a game's maximum payback while still having fun. To get you started, here are the freshman level rules for standard Deuces Wild:
Always hold every deuce dealt to you. This may be obvious to you, but I have seen people discard the deuce from a wild royal to draw for a natural royal flush.
* Dealt 4 deuces: Hold all five cards to minimize the chance of an error.
* Dealt 3 deuces: Hold any five-of-a-kind or wild royal; else hold only the deuces.
* Dealt 2 deuces: Hold any four-of-a-kind or better, any two royal cards, or any two suited and adjacent cards 6-7 or higher; else hold just the deuces.
* Dealt 1 deuce: Hold any made pay, except always draw to any 4-card royal or open-ended straight flush. Lacking any of those, draw to any 4-card straight flush, any 3-card royal with no Ace, or any two suited and adjacent cards 6-7 or higher. Else hold just the deuce.
* With no deuces: Hold any made pay, except always draw to any 3- or 4-card royal or 4-card straight flush. If dealt two pair, discard one pair. All 4-card flushes and straights (even inside straight draws) are playable. Hold a 2-card royal if there's no Ace or King. Otherwise, draw five new cards. If you have been playing this game with no knowledge of the correct strategy, you will probably find that these rules recommend holding fewer cards than you did before. This points out the most common playing error of unskilled players -- holding too many cards. Remember, every card you hold means one less chance of catching a wild card on the draw.
Even these simplified rules will yield over 100% payback from a full pay Deuces Wild game. You can recognize a full pay Deuces Wild game by its 5-for-1 payoff for four of a kind and 15-for-1 payoff for five of a kind. (Look at the first column of the payoff table.) Most other forms of Deuces Wild offer less than 100% payback. There are exceptions, but each game requires a strategy specific to the payoff schedule. The four of a kind payoff is the most important since more than 30% of this game's total payback is from quads. A cut to 4-for-1 thus costs more than 6%. There are often increases in other payoffs, but not enough to compensate for this big loss.
The complete Precision Play rules for Deuces Wild in my book, Video Poker - Optimum Play, will yield very close to the game's potential 100.76% payback. For those who prefer hand rank tables, one of the 18 cue cards that I publish is specifically for this game. |
