The wise and
benevolent reign of strategy
28 November 2007
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark: Do you feel that video poker is a
good place to start learning poker skills for
the table game? I figure it's about the cheapest
way to learn. Gary A.
Video poker is based on the classic game Five
Card Stud, which challenges players to compose
the best possible five-card hand. The player is
dealt five cards with the option of discarding
any or all of them for replacement with newly
dealt cards. Although video poker and Five Card
Stud are kissing cousins, good video poker
players don't necessarily make for good poker
players, and vice versa.
There are many important differences, Gary,
between video poker and its table game relative.
For starters, video poker payoffs are based on a
scale, paying players for hands as low as a pair
of tens or Jacks all the way up to a Royal
Flush.
In video poker, a machine, not a dealer,
represents the house.
There are no opponents to bluff, nor any
21-year-old whippersnapper who, on every other
hand, goes all in. If you have Jacks-or-better,
you win. But in table poker, you could have two
pair and lose to another player who has three of
a kind.
A good decision in Jacks-or-better can be a bad
one on a table game. For instance, a kicker, a
high card with a pair, can be at times
advantageous to hold in table poker, but should
always be discarded on a video poker machine. I
could keep going, Gary, but I figure by now
you're getting the gist.
A better way of acquiring poker skills without
spending a boatload of quarters on a video poker
game is with a computer. A decent poker software
program can be far superior to even my yakking
in your ear, for both training and drilling. The
benefit of computer training is its ability to
test different strategies at no financial risk,
even with simulated high-speed play. Whether at
high speeds or at a live game pace, the software
accumulates plenty of data for later review.
This will enable you to spot costly trends that
you could have been making on a live poker game.
The key here, Gary, is that any knowledge
obtained without a casino outlay will make you
more dough down the road.
And then there's the Lazy Boy way, with a good
book on poker – Doyle Brunson's Super System 2
is a good start – or just watching it on the
boob tube. Why, at this very moment some poker
tournament is showing on at least a half dozen
cable stations.
Dear Mark: In general, do you feel it is better
to be lucky or good when it comes to casino
gambling? Tom D.
That saying, Tom, "It's better to be lucky than
good," has some merit if you're perched in front
of a Megabucks progressive, but to be successful
long-term at casino gambling, I would go with
being good over being lucky.
My oft -stated phrase in this column, "The
smarter you play, the luckier you'll be," is
based on the certainty that since casino games
are based on probabilities and percentages, so
mathematical strategy, and not serendipity, is
needed to be successful against the house.
I have found, Tom, that in almost three decades
that I have been in this business, gamblers who
maintain their success for long periods of time
are not the 'luckiest' individuals I know. It's
a solid grasp of the odds and probabilities that
will bring you far more success than any
misplaced reliance on a rabbit's foot. (Look
what it did for the rabbit.)
Gambling Wisdom of the Week:
"A card player should learn that once the money
is in the pot, it isn't his any longer." --
Herbert Yardley (1957)
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