Dear Mark:
Maybe it’s me, but a roll of quarters
doesn’t seem to last very long anymore when
playing video poker. Is there a way I can
slow down my money going to them? Ruth T.
A true conundrum! Could be “them,” that is,
if “them” tightened the paytables, or it
could be you, because of your skill level or
the speed of your play, or all of the above.
Remember, Ruth, a column or two back when I
mentioned that the casino uses what’s called
a win formula. Although my example was for
blackjack, the same holds true for video
poker.
Take your average bet, the number of hours
you are possibly going to play, how fast you
are going to play video poker, and the
casino’s advantage over your play. With this
little bit of information, you can easily
figure out how fast your roll of quarters
goes to, guess whom --- them.
So along comes Ruth, bopping on down,
betting $1.25 a hand for two hours, playing
240 hands. Pair that with the five percent
advantage the casino holds over the typical
video poker player who’s just winging it and
doesn’t use perfect basic strategy, and you
should already be halfway through you’re
your donation to them of your second roll of
quarters ($1.25 X 2 hrs. X 240 hands X .05 =
$30).
Quick story. I didn’t get my driver’s
license until I was almost 18 years old
because I got tossed from the class for
making a flippant remark to the drivers’-ed
instructor, Mr. Miller, that “speed doesn’t
kill, impact does.” Okay, I also replicated
his little nasal beep before I said it, but
he was right: speed does kill, Ruth, and
especially in a casino environment. The
faster you play, Ruth, the more decisions
there are per hour. And since the casino has
the edge over your play, the faster your
rolls of quarters become theirs.
So what you need to do, Ruth, besides
finding the best paytables possible and
improving you play by learning perfect basic
strategy, is to slow down your play. You
can, if you are not on a coinless machine,
play coins instead of credits, press the Bet
One button instead of pressing the Bet Max
button, and take a little extra time to
study your video poker hand by checking your
video poker strategy card more often.
Dear Mark: In
blackjack, how do you play an Ace/seven
against a nine? The dealer told me to hit
it, but all the players (four of them) on
the game said stay. I’ll go with your
advice, so do I stay or hit? Gary P.
Never expect herd behavior, a group of
players acting together without knowledge of
basic strategy, to dictate sound play. The
dealer was right, Gary. You always hit a
soft 18 against a nine.
No blackjack hands are misplayed more than
the "soft" ones (those containing an Ace).
What the mob didn’t realize is that a soft
18 (Ace/7, or for that matter
Ace/3/Ace/Ace/2) is a losing hand against
the dealer’s nine.
Here’s the arithmetic: With a soft 18
against a 9, you'll win eight times out of
20 if you stand, but nine times out of 20 if
you hit. And the winner is?
Fortunately, Gary, a soft 18 is an
open-ended hand, so you always want to
improve your chances by hitting one against
a nine.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week:
"Numbers make the games work, the same way
they make the universe function." --Basil
Nestor
