Archive for May, 2009
Victory At Jacks-or-better Draw Video Poker
It's the granddaddy of all the video-poker games and, in the estimation of many players and experts alike, Jacks-or-Better video poker is still the best and brightest game to play if you want to have a shot at long-term wins. The best Jacks-or-Better machines return between 99.5 and 99.85 percent and seme even go over the 100 percent payback threshold. The game is also attractive because it is not quite as volatile as the other forms of video poker.
Volatility in video-poker terminology just means long stretches of losing punctuated by explosive winning sessions. Jacks-or-Better is a little smoother than these other varieties. Of course, like all video-poker machines, you will experience more losing sessions than winning sessions since you must factor in that 40,000-to-one royal flush in determining the payback percentage.
My personal experience, for what it's worth, indicates that on the days when I've received one or more four-of-a-kind hands, those were my winning days. So four-of-a-kind has become a bellwether for me, and in Jacks-or-Better you can expect four-of-a kind to appear approximately once every 425 hands. If we assume a four-hour playing day (divided up into any number of sessions you want), with one hand every 20 seconds or so, you can expect to play in the vicinity of 720 hands. It would not be unusual to receive one, two or three four-of-a-kinds in that number of hands. (It also wouldn't be unheard of to receive none.)
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Video Poker Procedures
A slot machine is simple. You place your coins in and either push a button or pull a handle. The reels spin and a decision is rendered. Then you repeat the procedure. However, video poker is somewhat more complicated because the player interacts with the machine and where there's human choice, there can be human mistakes. So a wise player should know the mechanics of play as well as the strategies for play. You want to play in a smooth, swift, yet unhurried and unharried manner. Your mechanics should be perfect because a mistake could cost you money.
Step One: You put your coin or coins in. If you are playing full coin, then the machine will automatically deal you your initial hand. However, if you are playing less than full coin, you must hit the DEAL-DRAW button for the machine to deal the initial hand.
Step Two: You now analyze your hand. You will have to make one of the following choices: A.) Keep all the cards because you have a pat hand, or b.) discard all the cards because you have garbage, or c.) discard some cards and keep others.
To keep all the cards, you press the HOLD button under each card. Then you hit the DEAL-DRAW button. Since nothing is being dealt, the machine will record your win and either pay you or give you CREDITS.
To discard all cards, you simply hit the DEAL-DRAW button and all the cards will be replaced with new cards. If your new hand is a winner, the machine will record your win and either pay you or give you CREDITS.
To discard some cards and keep others, you press the HOLD button under the cards you wish to keep and then press DEAL-DRAW to replace the cards you wish to get rid of. These cards will be replaced and the machine will record your win (if you won) and either pay you or give you CREDITS. The key to success at video poker is to know what cards to hold and what cards to throw away.
Cautions: Make sure that when you hold a card that the word HELD lights up under the card. Sometimes the machine doesn't register your press of the HOLD button—for whatever reason. So you'll just have to press it again. Otherwise you'll discard the card when you hit DEAL-DRAW. If you do get a pat hand, do not think the machine registers it automatically. It doesn't. You must press HOLD for each card. Imagine getting a full house, four of a kind, a straight flush or, God forbid, a royal flush only to forget to hit HOLD for each card… frightening thought. But it does happen. I heard one story where a husband and wife were playing together at the Mirage in Las Vegas. The wife hit a wild-card royal and the husband was so excited that before she could hit the HOLD button under each card, he had reached over and hit DEAL-DRAW. The wild-card royal vanished to be replaced with nothing. The wife paused slightly to digest the happening, turned to her husband, who was described by the security guard as "a big, strapping guy," and slugged him right in the mouth.
So the mechanics of your play must include checking to see if the HELD sign lights up under the cards you are keeping before you hit the DEAL-DRAW button—either that or have a very forgiving wife.
Also, if you are playing coins and saving up credits, make sure you actually cash out your credits before you go. I know of cases where people didn't do this and left the machine thinking they hadn't won anything. This can happen because most video-poker machines automatically record your win as a CREDIT and you must press the CASH OUT button for the money to fall into the tray. I benefited from this recently at the Rio in Las Vegas. I went to a machine and as I was putting my coins in, I noticed that the credit light was flashing. I looked at the screen and there were 20 coins in credit on that machine. The person who had played the machine before me had evidently left, leaving behind a win for me. From my observations, the majority of people who leave their credits in the machine tend to be casual players who have just put a few coins in and then don't realize they have won. Often these people are strollers, ambling through the slot aisles, putting in coins and then not taking their credits. Of course, their loss can be someone else's gain.
In Vegas there's a man known as "Rat Tails," so dubbed because of his greasy hair that hangs, well, like rat tails over his shoulders. He also has a somewhat bug-eyed look. His appearance is rather reminiscent of the Pardoner's from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He usually works downtown where his unkempt appearance doesn't look so out of place. Occasionally, he can be found on the Strip. He is not a thief, for what he does is not illegal. He is a roamer. And scavenger. He roams the slot aisles looking for machines whose CREDITS have not been cashed out, or whose trays have a few coins that have been overlooked by patrons. He also checks the floors for coins, "particularly those lush places where the coins blend into the carpeting." This is how he makes his daily bread—or, rather, daily bottle—for he frequents his own version of "lush places" to spend his hard-found coin.
"I find a lot of quarters left behind," he says. "Sometimes you find dollar coins but mostly it's quarters. The quarters sometimes are sitting up against the wall of the tray and the person missed it when he took his coins. I find credits too, usually late at night on the weekends when people have had a little too much to drink. On the floor too. You'd be surprised how much money is just sitting on the casino floor. So I always walk with my head down."
He claims he makes "anywhere from $20 on weekdays to $100 a day on weekends." However, it isn't all fun for Mr. Rat Tails. "I work a full day mostly. I think of it as a job. I can probably tell you what kind of carpet is in what casino.
If they had a game show like Match the Carpet to the Casino, I'd be a winner."
Is the finding of credits or coins in trays or on the floor so unusual? One security guard at Caesars Palace told me that on a weekend night "you could walk from one end of the casino to the other and probably find $50 worth of coins on the carpet. Then come back in a couple of hours and find $50 more."
So keep a close tab on your CREDITS and your coins.
Another caution is in order here as well. Many books and articles on video poker extol the virtue of speed in the playing of video-poker hands—on full-payback machines, that is. Since the player has a long-term edge (or an even game) which will materialize over time, the more hands played, the better the chances for a royal flush and ultimate victory. While this is theoretically true, the old adage that "haste makes waste" applies to video poker. You want to play with speed, certainly. But there's a difference between playing smoothly and with speed and playing hurriedly. The latter will inevitably lead to mistakes that you can ill afford to make; mistakes that will, in the long run, lead to a diminishing of your edge. Just as a good golfer or tennis player concerns himself with the mechanics of his game, so too must a good video-poker player. If a slight reduction in your speed simultaneously reduces your frequency of mistakes, then you are helping yourself in the long run. In video poker speed sometimes kills.
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