Author: T

Once you’ve identified the good machines and decided to sit down and play, the next step is to use an expert strategy. Don’t expect to play flawlessly the first time you sit down.

Because the different machines all have their own special strategies, you should stick with one type of machine until you’ve thoroughly understood and mastered its specific expert strategies.

Once again, Jacks-or-better is the most basic choice, and by mastering its expert strategy, you’ll have a better chance at the more complicated strategies of other video poker machines. The following strategies can be used for progressive Jacks-or-better and even bonus poker without losing much of an advantage.

The most important concept to grasp at the beginning is the need to eliminate costly mistakes. Most of those mistakes are made by confusing video poker with live poker – whereas in fact we know that there are key differences – and can be generalized as follows:

NO. OF	ODDS OF	CASH AT STAKE
DOUBLES	WINNING	AFTER WIN
1	50.00%	£10
2	25.00%	£20
3	12.5%	£40
4	6.25%	£80
5	3.13%	£160
6	1.56%	£320
7	0.78%	£640
8	0.39%	£1,280
9	0.19%	£2,560
10	0.09%	£5,120

Jim Wilson makes a monthly excursion to Caesars Palace. He flies from his home in suburban Chicago and spends a long weekend in Las Vegas, taking in shows, betting on an occasional sporting event, but mainly playing the slots. Jim knows that Caesars Palace is known for its high-limit table game players, but has come to realize that in most cases slot players are valued just as highly by the casinos. With a gambling budget each trip of about $1,000, Jim can play for hours each day and
still have a good chance of winning.

Slots are not like table games where a player can estimate the house advantage and play accordingly. On slot machines, a player never knows what the house advantage is. It can vary anywhere from 2 per cent to 30 per cent.

Jim made the most important move the first time he came to Caesars Palace. He joined the Emperors Club, Caesars’ club for slot players. He received his players’ club card, which he inserts in the card reader available at every Caesars Palace slot machine. That way his play is recorded by the casino, and he becomes eligible for the various levels of complimentaries the casino prorides to its better players.

When Jim arrives, he divides his $1,000 fund into four slots of $250, one for each of his four-day stay. He then divides that daily fund into five sessions of $50 each. That way, Jim is not held hostage to a brutal losing streak and will not lose his entire stake during one gambling session. Jim’s next step is to decide what machine’ to play. In most eases, dollar machines will pay back at a
greater rate than 25 cent machines. But should he be unlucky, his session stake could disappear more quickly at the dollar machines. He also knows that his Emperors Club points pile up at a much faster rate on the dollar machines. Jim feels confident, so he choose to play the dollar machines.

Being a frequent player, Jim realizes that there are several different varieties of machines, aside from the brands and themes. Multi-casino, linked, progressive-slot machines offer huge payouts that can reach as high as $10 million. While those machines are attractive, and their overall payout percentage may be comparable to other $1 machines, unless a player wins the hig jackpot, the payouts are infrequent and small Other single-casino progressive machines offer high jackpots, but the payout
percentages are again weighted towards the big payout, and smaller jackpots are less likely. So Jim opts for the machines that offer smaller top awards, but payout more frequently. That gives him a better chance to break even or possibly win a hit.

Jim’s next step is a little less than scientific, but he has used it to good success. “Scouting the slots”, as Jim calls it, allows him to take note of which slots seem to be more active. If he sees a player winning steadily, he mentally notes the type and location of machine, and later may return to that spot to try it himself.

While a “hot” machine can be explained as the computer program cycling through a payout period, Jim also knows that some machines are set at a higher payout than others. It therefore follows that certain machines permanently pay more than others, Jim has found this to be the case on many occasions.

Another tool that Jim uses is the slot attendants, the employees who work the slot section. Jim knows they work long shifts with nothing else to do but watch the slot machines. On many occasions, he has asked a slot attendant to steer him to a machine that is “due”. While it doesn’t always work, it has paid off often enough. Jim now has “friends” in the Caesars Palace slot department who understand that when Jim hits a jackpot on a machine they recommend, they get a hefty tip.

Jim finally settles in at a $1 machine, and begins to play. He always inserts the maximum number of coins because he doesn’t want to lose out on the bonus paid when the top award is hit.

After falling behind, he begins to make some small hits until he enters the “plus” column. At every session, Jim sets a goal of 20 per cent. When he wins $50, he quits. He then puts the $300 in an envelope and mails it home. He won’t be tempted, and he’ll leave Las Vegas without having lost everything.

Most casinos have sets of slot machines that are grouped by denomination called carousels. They usually have a theme that is designed to attract a certain kind of player. In Nevada, casinos advertise carousels with a higher payout, by using a slogan such as “Up to 97 per cent payout”. The disclaimer is the “up to” phrase, which means that only a few machines in the carousel may pay back as high as 97 per cent.

Carousels are sometimes linked together to calculate a progressive jackpot. These types of machines differ because the top jackpot is not a set amount, but increases as players deposit more money. For example, the top jackpot may increase by 20p for every pound played in the carousel. Every machine contributes to the jackpot, and the first machine to hit the jackpot symbols wins the award.

When the jackpot is won, the top award reverts to the minimum amount that is determined by the casino.

The Megabucks, Quartermania-style and Megalackpot slots are machines linked together between different casinos. The jackpots on these machines can reach the multi-million dollar level, much higher than individual casinos would be able to offer.

The machines are linked to a central computer by phone lines, cable, DSL or other communication systems, allowing the machines to communicate a running tab to the central jackpot controller of the portion of coins deposited in each machine which is predetermined to increment the jackpot. The jackpot is hit in the same method as a stand-alone game – when the random number generator of any machine on the network selects the top jackpot combination. Once verified, the jackpot message is sent to the central computer, which resets the jackpot to the predetermined minimum amount.

If you want to play progressive machines, deposit the maximum number of coins because you are not eligible for the top jackpot unless you do. Imagine how painful it would be to hit the winning combination and only have one coin in. Instead of winning, say, £3 million, you’d only win £3,000. It’s one of the few instances where winning would hurt.

Where did slot machines come from, and how have they achieved the remarkable popularity we see today?

Although the first slot machines were manufactured on the East Coast of the US, they didn’t start to gain acceptance until they had migrated all the way across the country to San Francisco around the end of the 19th century. In the aloons and brothels of the notorious Barbary Coast and the Tenderloin districts in America, customers won a cizar or a free drink when they played a nickel in the primitive slot machines, which at that time used playing cards as winning symbols. Few of the players understood the math of those devices, and consequently the proprietor” raked in enormous profits.

There were many slot-machine manufacturers in those days, but only one is credited with creating the “modem” slot machine that included spinning reels and cash payouts. Charles Fey, a German immigrant, invented the Liberty Bell slot machine in 1899 that stands as the template for every machine built from then to the present day.

The three-reel design was copied by many other manufacturers and, by 1905, thousands of slot machines could be found in the US, in cigar stores, barber shops, saloons and bowling alleys. The Liberty Bell was a simple machine to explain. Each reel operated independently of the other, and stopped one after
the other. Each reel had ten symbols or “stops”. As a result, there were 1,000 different combinations (10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000). Three specific symbols had to be lined up in order to win the jackpot, which meant there was only one way to win out of 1,000 possibilities.

The early machines were often rigged to prevent the big jackpots from hitting, but even this fix didn’t prevent the growing popularity of the aptly named “one-armed bandits”.

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed the factories of every slot-machine manufacturer, but, along with the rest of the city, the companies returned after the destruction with even greater force. But when preachers blamed the earthquake on God’s wrath on the sins of the city, slot machines were outlawed in San Francisco in 1909, and soon after in California and Nevada.

To skirt the law, slot-machine manufacturers disguised their machines as “gum” machines that would dispense packs of gum for jackpots. To further camouflage the machines, playing card symbols were replaced by fruit – cherries, lemons, oranges, peaches, etc. – and labels of the gum brands dispensed that evolved into the “bars” on today’s slot machines. The imposition of Prohibition in 1918 ushered in the return of illegal slot machines and the lure of banned liquor and gambling caused an explosion of slots during the Roaring Twenties. The “Golden Age” of the slot machine ended quickly when Prohibition was repealed in 1934. Except for Nevada, where gambling of all sorts was legalized in 1931, slot machines were illegal and not tolerated across the whole of the US. A mini-revival of slot machines was enjoyed after World War 2, until Congress passed the Johnson Act, which banned slot machines in all states which hadn’t legalized gambling as a whole.

When video poker was first introduced, few people realized that the pay tables would play such a large role in determining how much and how frequently the machine made payouts. Since serious players began to analy e the pay tables, it has become apparent that choosing the correct machine to play makes all the difference.

There are generally two types of video poker games – non- wild card games, such as Jacks-or-better and Bonus Poker, or wild card games, like Jokers Wild and Deuces Wild. While this is a general classification, there are many versions of these machines, and that’s why it is so important to understand what makes a good pay table.

To begin with, let’s concentrate on the non-wild card games. The first rule of thumb is never play a machine that does not return your investment on a high pair – a pair of Jacks to Aces. Although these machines are thankfully disappearing, it used to be common to find machines that required the players to make a two pair before returning their bet. This is an unacceptable option, and there really is no need to play these machines given the proliferation of Jacks-or-better machines.

Let’s examine a Jacks-or-better pay table. This is usually located above the screen, and it generally gives you the payouts for the number of coins inserted, usually from one to five. On most modem machines, the pay table is located on the screen itself, just above the area where the hands appear. Look at the various rewards. You’ll notice the hands correspond with the poker hands we discussed earlier. But because you’re not playing against opponents, you get paid back at a progressive rate beginning with the high pair
.
The area you should concentrate on is the payout for the full house and the flush. In Jacks-or-better games that do not have any bonus for four-of-a-kind hands (ie, all four-of-a-kind hands pay 25-1), the best machines are ones that pay nine coins (for one coin) on the full house, and six coins for the flush. This is called a “9/6” machine. This machine, of course, is preferable to an “8/5” machine that pays eight coins for the full house and five for the flush. Other
machines – 7/5 and 6/5 machines – are far less favourable and should be avoided unless there is no other choice.

Bonus Poker and its variants, most notably Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus, increase payouts for different four-of-a-kind hands, and have different full-house and flush “keys” to watch for. The best Bonus Poker machines
offer a payout of eight for the full house and five for the flush. The best Double Bonus Poker machines offer payments of ten for the full house and seven for the flush. In Double Double Bonus, go back to the original 9/6 pay table. Machines that don’t reach these levels have a lower payout percentage. You will note that in Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus, the two-pair hand returns the same as the high pair – a return of your initial wager. This is more than offset, however, by the huge returns for four-of-a-kind hands. The best Double Bonus pay table, for instance, returns over 100 per cent payout with optimal play.

One other factor is important when choosing the best video poker machines. Las Vegas, and other areas in Nevada, are video poker heaven, where you’ll find the best and most generous pay tables in the casinos in the Silver State. Generally, these machines cannot be found anywhere else.

Atlantic City is improving, but finding 9/6 machines requires a diligent search because very few casinos offer them. On the other hand, Atlantic City is far superior to some riverboat or dock side casino jurisdictions or Indian casinos (with the notable exception of the two Connecticut Indian casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun), for a couple of related reasons. Most of these new casinos cater to relatively new players, who usually gravitate to the slot machines because they are not intimidating, and it takes little knowledge to play them. When they do wander into the video poker area, they don’t really understand the game, so the slot executives have little reason to offer them the best payouts. Even if a player is educated, he most often has no alternatives.

In the UK, video poker is one of the most popular A WP games. Players will sit for hours in the slot arcades or in their local pubs playing these machines. But the same principles we’ve discussed in this chapter apply to thes machines. Pay attention to the pay table. Understand how a small change in one category on the pay table can affect your chances of winning. Educate yourself, and you’ll have a better chance of winning.

You’ve decided that your starting hand is strong enough to continue to play, and you’ve matched the blind and any raises to see the flop. You’ve entered the area which will determine how far you go – the crucial stage in Texas hold’em.

If you’ve entered the flop with two suited cards and the flop contains two more of your suited cards you should definitely bet. While your hand currently has no value, there are two reasons why you should bet as if it did. First, you may get that fifth card for the flush, which will give you an almost certain winner. Second, by betting, you may chase some or all of the other players out of the game, allowing you to steal the pot. If you don’t improve your hand on the flop, it’s probably a good idea to fold and look ahead to the next hand. In most hold’em games, you’ll encounter a raise on the betting round following the flop. If you’re dealt something like there’s not a lot that can happen in subsequent rounds that will improve your hand sufficiently. And with two suited cards on board, you may be blocking a flush by an opponent.

Occasionally you’ll have a great starting hand, such as a high pair, but the cards that fall from the flop do you no good. Even worse, they seem to have helped one of your opponents to a hand that will crush your pair unless you’re willing to spend a lot of money to find out whether your opponent has a straight, a flush, or even worse, a straight flush, you have to bite the bullet and throwaway your pair.
Like high pairs that face a completely different situation on the flop that may aid an opponent, low pairs that aren’t helped by the flop should usually be folded. For instance, if you hold it’s going to cost you substantial bets and rai es to ee the last two cards, and the chances are that you’re not aoine to match those Sixes. Save your money and get out gracefully. When you’re drawing for a flush, and a pair how on the flop, you should continue to play, even though ‘ou may be eventually beaten by a full house.

If your opponent has a three in the hole, or another pair, he simply has to match one more card to obtain his full house. But because you’re only facing 2-1 odds, although you’ll lose to a full house, the risk is worth it. Sometimes, you may get what you’re hoping for, but by observing the betting of other players, you have to conclude that what you have probably isn’t enough to win. For instance, if you hold you’re working on a flush, which in most cases is a valuable hand. But if someone is holding a Five-Nine in the hole, there’s a good chance you’ll get beat. Or even worse, a Nine-Ten will be almost unbeatable.

Because Texas hold’em uses the five community cards, there are many combinations of cards possible, creating many different hands. That’s why it’s very important to pay attention to the community cards and the action taken by all the players to be able to discern exactly what hand your opponents are pursuing, or what hands they actually have.

The following hand will demonstrate how the game unfolds and the possible results of each hand. This is a perfect illustration of how you must be aware of all the potential hands created by the community cards, and the players’ individual hole cards.

In Texas hold’em, it is important to understand the relationship between the cards on the table and the cards in your hand. It is rare to hold a hand that couldn’t be beaten by someone else playing that hand. Sometimes when it appears you can be beaten, you may be holding a card that can block your opponents hands. Maintaining your composure, and examining every possible outcome of a particular hand, is crucial to success in hold’em.

You wouldn’t think that any game in which you only get two cards of your own would be very difficult or challenging, but until you’ve played Texas hold’em you can’t imagine its permutations and complexity. To the uninitiated, hold’em looks like seven-card stud with a few differences. In the end, however, the only thing that’s the same is that the hands are made up of the best five of seven cards. The critical differences begin with the starting hand. While this is always an important decision, it is not nearly as critical in hold’em as it is in seven-card stud. The decisions you make on the later streets make much more of a difference in your overall success in hold’em. The most important difference between seven-card stud and Texas hold’em is the use of community cards, which are dealt face up in front of the dealer. These cards all play a part in the development of each player’s hand.

Before any cards are dealt in Texas hold’em, the first player to the left of the button must post a “small blind” which is a percentage of the minimum bet. The second player to the left of the button then posts a “big blind” which is usually equal to the table minimum. After these bets are posted, the dealer distributes two cards to each player, beginning with the player who posted the small blind. Then the player to the left of the big blind has the option to fold, match the big blind, or raise. The betting then moves clockwise until all players have exercised their options. The players who posted the blinds have only to match the difference between the largest bet and the blinds to stay in the game. On subsequent betting rounds, the first active player to the left of the button initiates the betting.

After the first round of betting is completed, the dealer lays out three cards face up simultaneously in the middle of the table. This is called the “flop”. Another round of betting takes place at that time. Betting also takes place between each of the next two face-up cards, called fourth street and fifth street. Once again, these cards are all community cards that belong to all the active players.

When it’s time for the showdown, the player with the best five cards using his two downcards and the five community cards is the winner. In Texas hold’ em, there are frequently situations where players have the same hands. In this case, the pot is split.

Limits in Texas hold’em are similar to the situation mentioned in seven-card stud. The only difference would be the blinds. In a £2-£3 hold’em game, the first player would ante a small blind of £1, and the big blind would be £3.

Hands are crucial in seven-card stud, and unless you understand the value of starting hands, you’ll be fleeced by the experienced players. In general, there are four categories of strength in starting hands.

1. Very Strong Hands: a hand that consists of three of the same cards is the poker player’s dream. It won’t happen often – only once in about 425 hands – but when it does, you’ve probably got a winner .
But you don’t want to win just the antes and bring in bets, so you’ve got to be able to read the other players. Will a raise on the first round of betting chase out the other players? If you believe it will, you might want to hold off your first raise until at least the next round. On the other hand, if several players have already entered the pot, a raise is unlikely to force them to fold. Don’t get too cocky, however. Three of a kind is a strong hand, but it does occasionally get beaten.

2. Strong Hands: a high pair is valuable in seven-card stud but, in most cases, it will need some improvement. It is particularly dangerous if someone else has a higher pair. If this is the case, you should discard your hand. One exception is if your kicker – your next highest card – is higher than your opponent’s kicker. Nevertheless this hand should be played aggressively and, in most cases, you’ll play it to the river.

3. Good Hands: whether and how to play small and middle pairs are sometimes the most complicated decisions in seven-card stud. The most important factor is whether the cards you need to improve your hands are available. When you need another Four, for instance, and you see the third Four in your opponent’s hand, it doesn’t leave much of a chance to find the fourth in one of your draw cards. Another factor, however, is the size of your kicker. If you have a big card along with a small or medium pair, you’ve got another avenue to go if you get lucky.

4. Possible Hands: these are hands that need help, but still have the possibility to become good hands. They include three-card flushes and three-card straights. Once again, the upcards of your opponents will give you the best clue about how viable your hands are. And once again, the size of your kicker is a consideration in determining the value of this hand.

DOWN THE STREETS
As mentioned previously, all decisions made affect your ability to win. As the game proceeds, however, the decisions made can become very costly unless you understand the possibilities. You must be able to assess not only your opponents’ cards but also exactly how they relate to your own hand.

Several strategies are called for in specific situations. If you make the hand you’re looking for, bet it to the limit. If you pull a flush on sixth street, for instance, you should not check. Since some of your cards must be exposed, your opponent will suspect a flush, and not bet into your check.
That means you’ll lose a chance to get a double bet by every active player into the pot. If you check and give the active players a chance to get another card, there’s a chance they may draw a hand that might beat your flush, costing you the entire pot. If you’ve got it, bet it.

If your opponent draws a third suited card, or a third card to a straight, check or call. This isn’t a point to play aggressively because if you raise, your opponent will undoubtedly raise as well. It could end up costing you serious money. Another situation to beware of is when a player pairs an
exposed card on the board. This gives him a good chance to have three of a kind. Even if he doesn’t, he may have a quality hand. Unless you can beat him with a better hand, or you’re looking at a particularly good pot, retire.

Once you have decided to bet on fifth street, it rarely makes sense to fold before the river. The only exception to this rule is if you can clearly see that your hand cannot be improved enough on sixth street to beat a threatening hand held by an opponent. If you decide to go through on sixth street, do not fold on the river. If your opponent is bluffing, you have a chance to catch him at it, and you only have to expose a bluff once in a while to make it worth your while to go all the way.

The obvious object of poker is to win the pot. That is easier said than done, but there are two ways to accomplish that goal. The first is to have the best hand at the table, and the second is to convince the other players that you have the best hand so they’ll drop out and leave you the pot. This is called bluffing, and is not nearly as successful as many of the experts would have you believe.

Before you begin to play, the most important thing to understand is the ranking of hands in poker. Many a game has been lost when a player – usually a beginner, but sometimes an experienced player – forgets which hand beats which. The most frequently confused hands are the full house, flush and straight. Commit to memory the chart in this chapter before even considering venturing out into the cruel world of casino poker.

Most poker games, including seven-card stud and Texas hold’em, use the rankings shown overleaf, which are the best hands, using five cards.

Casinos have their own language, like any specialized occupation or sideline, but no game has a more colourful shouting slang than craps. Much of this heritage has been lost as the legendary craps players head for the big game in the sky, but novice players would do well to review expressions they just might hear while playing their initial dice games.

The language of craps can be divided into two categories: colourful expressions craps shooters say to encourage the dice to roll their way, and the phrases dealers and stick men use to accept a bet or announce a roll of the dice.

The point numbers have all been given names, and with the exception of the five and ten, all have home towns that rhyme with their names.

In America, for example, the four is often called Little Joe from Kokomo, while the five is sometimes known as Little Phoebe. She has no hometown, but her cousin, Fiver, Fiver, Racetrack Driver, at least has a job. Our best friends, the six and eight are Southerners, known as Sixie from Dixie and Eighter from Decatur. Perhaps the nine was named after a former Rose Bowl Queen, Nina from Pasadena.

The ten usually goes by the name of Big Dick, but his hardway cousin, the five-five, is sometimes referred to as Hard Ten, Ladies’ Best Friend.

The dots on the dice have spawned a variety of other names. Snake’s Eyes is a pair of aces. Old-timers refer to the ace-deuce as Cross-Eyes, while Chopsticks and Rabbit Tracks are favoured nicknames for the hard six. Windows or the Square Pair is the hard eight. Twelves are usually known as Boxcars, but on occasion are called Sergeant’s Stripes, a reflection of the barracks games where many players cut
their craps teeth. The bets you can make have some distinctive names. The Buffalo Bet, for example, means that you put £1 each on all the hardways and £1 on the “any-seven”. A bet you’ll still hear a lot at the table is “C and E” which means “any craps” and “eleven”. On the odd rare occasion, you will hear this called “Chester and Esther”. Probably the most common word in craps today is “Yo!”, meaning Eleven. Legend has it that some long-forgotten dealer pronounced his elevens “yo-leven”. If you want to use it at the craps table, be sure to shout it with feeling.