getting started with video poker

[Roswell]

Can anyone recommend a good book or website on optimum video poker strategy?

[playersare]

'video poker - optimum play' by Dan Paymar is the standard IMO.

wizardofodds.com is fine too.

[Roswell]

So the idea is, if you play perfect strategy on machines with big progressive jackpots, your expectation is higher than 100% because of the royal?

Or, your expectation is 99.5% with perfect play on Jacks or better, but the comps swing you to +EV?

[Packerfan1]

The store at Las Vegas Advisor carries Bob Dancer's VP strategy cards, which we use a lot while playing in Vegas. They are worth every penny of the $6-$7 they cost. Think the link is www.lvashop.com (http://www.lvashop.com), or lva.com

Also check out the VPFree group on Yahoo, they have scouting reports on where the full pay machines at all the casinos are (playing only machines with 99.5% return or better is a big key), and finally you can play/practice most of the popular games at www.videopoker.com. (http://www.videopoker.com.)

Hope that helps,

Pack

[bonuspokergod]

As u see, people have already chimed in with the long-term nonsense, buy this book, buy these strategy cards, play only "positive EV" machines and u will "win" by a tiny percentage point by the time u step into the grave if u play as many hands as possible when you have the "advantage", whatever that is. Problem is that the long-term doesn't exist for humans. It only exists for the machines and the casinos. You & I, and everyone else (whether they admit it or not), only play the game in the short-term. No player has the advantage over any casino game ever in the long-term, period, so you shouldn't approach the game of video poker that way.

Do yourself a favor and check out www.vptruth.com (http://www.vptruth.com) before delving into video poker. Since you are new you have a chance to start with the right approach. You won't be asked for your credit card number, you won't be asked to buy or subscribe to anything for a fee, and you won't be inundated with pop ups and banners for illegal online-gaming sites. All emails & questions will be answered, and there is a huge wealth of information on the site FOR FREE. Imagine that....A pro gambler who doesn't have his hand in your pockets. The guy will even meet with u and train u for FREE if his & your schedules can be worked out.

[playersare]

[ QUOTE ]
So the idea is, if you play perfect strategy on machines with big progressive jackpots, your expectation is higher than 100% because of the royal?

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that's one way that people exploit VP. without progressives, you'd have to grind 25c FPDW or dollar 10/7 DB, the latter of which has a difficult strategy chart and lots of variance. occasionally you'll find a joker variety or All American that is +EV off the top as well.

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Or, your expectation is 99.5% with perfect play on Jacks or better, but the comps swing you to +EV?

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generally the cash back rates peak around 0.33% which is just short of positive territory. however, when double or triple points promotions are on, you have a slight advantage. as for the comps, you can probably get as much free food as you want, but not every one needs a hotel room (you probably have to be local to the casino in order to play the amount needed to come ahead in the long run).

for recreational players who visit their favorite casino 5-10 times a year, you can grind one long session of JoB and their marketing department will send you all kinds of offers in the mail which will pretty much make gasoline your only expense on future visits.

[playersare]

[ QUOTE ]
As u see, people have already chimed in with the long-term nonsense, buy this book, buy these strategy cards, play only "positive EV" machines and u will "win" by a tiny percentage point by the time u step into the grave if u play as many hands as possible when you have the "advantage", whatever that is. Problem is that the long-term doesn't exist for humans. It only exists for the machines and the casinos. You & I, and everyone else (whether they admit it or not), only play the game in the short-term. No player has the advantage over any casino game ever in the long-term, period, so you shouldn't approach the game of video poker that way.

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so you are guaranteed to win every time at any VP machine regardless of paytable just by TRYING harder? lol.

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You won't be asked for your credit card number, you won't be asked to buy or subscribe to anything for a fee

[/ QUOTE ]
have you visited this site recently? his two books are being pimped right on the front page...and they're most definitely not free.

the "true reality" is, VP is not going to make anyone a whole lot of money in the long run or the short run. no one is telling people to quit their day jobs or switch from more lucrative casino games like BJ counting or 'regular' poker. VP is primarily a comps play and the best strategy is to lose the least amount of money while getting the most amount of free stuff from the casino in return. that's when the paytables come into play. even without hitting a royal or other high hands in a session, it most definitely makes a difference whether you grind $10K into a 99.5% machine vs. a 97% machine. pennies saved are pennies earned.

Rob Singer is right that a great majority of people will lose money at VP in the long run - well of course! the paytables dictate that by default. what does he offer as an alternative? some cockeyed voodoo progression strategy:

http://www.vptruth.com/stratsingleplay.cfm
"Much of the criticism on this play strategy has come from those who do not understand that this is video poker denominational progression, and not Martingale progression."

please.

[Terry]

Paymar and Dancer are excellent sources for information on video poker. Internet forum posters who call themselves god and who promise to tell you the undeniable truth are not.

[bonuspokergod]

If GOOD LUCK comes your way, and you know what to do when it does, then you will overwhelmingly be a winnner. Most of the advantage players just keep playing thru winners at the same denomination and grind down to nothing, or they take pot shots at higher levels after a big winner and lose it all the more quicker.

The VP gurus would have u believe that to win consistently takes their supposed skill. It doesn't. The game is 95% luck.

[ QUOTE ]

so you are guaranteed to win every time at any VP machine regardless of paytable just by TRYING harder? lol.

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Always have been there, always will be I guess. $$ from the books go to charity. No need to buy the books to learn how to win consistently, because his play strategies are on the site to download FOR FREE, not to mention 4 or 5 years worth of weekly articles detaling a lot of his sessions, also FOR FREE. The books are an explanation on why/how he got started doing this.

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have you visited this site recently? his two books are being pimped right on the front page...and they're most definitely not free.

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[bonuspokergod]

Rob's results say otherwise, and my limited tries & results mirror his. But hey, if you want to play for comps go right ahead, more power to ya! Lose a ton of money and rack up those points! You might even have some luck..err I mean skill along the way and hit a Royal!

[ QUOTE ]

the "true reality" is, VP is not going to make anyone a whole lot of money in the long run or the short run. no one is telling people to quit their day jobs or switch from more lucrative casino games like BJ counting or 'regular' poker. VP is primarily a comps play and the best strategy is to lose the least amount of money while getting the most amount of free stuff from the casino in return. that's when the paytables come into play. even without hitting a royal or other high hands in a session, it most definitely makes a difference whether you grind $10K into a 99.5% machine vs. a 97% machine. pennies saved are pennies earned.


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[Roswell]

Thanks for the responses. I'll try to find Dan Paymar's book.

[playersare]

dude, anyone can be a winner at any casino game if they are simply lucky. what Rob Singer advocates is no more strategic than hopping on your left foot 3 times before hitting the draw button. his "strategy" may work for him and it's his prerogative to set up a web site to try and evangelize it. but the undeniable truth is that it's not a mathematically profitable system, and long term or short term, math is money. if you want to get technical, in the scope of the existance of the universe, Rob Singer's entire life is the 'short term' no matter how many millions he ends up lucking out on Martingale with.

in the 'long run' which conveniently will never happen in Rob's mind, he should theoretically end up around the same as all the $10/hr FPDW grinders at the Fiesta Henderson on a gross-wagered basis. maybe even a bit lower since he knowingly plays less than optimal paytables as long as the machine is a "lucky" machine. I mean, how you can argue against such a rock solid accounting system such as this:

"While others are obsessed with number of hands played, how many hours they play in casinos, how fast they play, and how many points they get on their slot club cards, I only concentrate on - and keep records of - my winnings."

Rob Singer got lucky. I guess it's +EV to be his friend, but his VP system is garbage. end of story.

[bonuspokergod]

Haha. Ok dude.. enjoy that long-term, your .002 % profit when u get there, and all those wonderful gifts from your loving casino host along the way.

You might want to read up on what Martingale is though.

BTW, Rob is up about $34k so far this year with about 7 hours of play, and not in dumps like the Fiesta or on stupid games like Deuces Wild. Doesn't sound like grinding to me.

End of story.

[ QUOTE ]
dude, anyone can be a winner at any casino game if they are simply lucky. what Rob Singer advocates is no more strategic than hopping on your left foot 3 times before hitting the draw button. his "strategy" may work for him and it's his prerogative to set up a web site to try and evangelize it. but the undeniable truth is that it's not a mathematically profitable system, and long term or short term, math is money. if you want to get technical, in the scope of the existance of the universe, Rob Singer's entire life is the 'short term' no matter how many millions he ends up lucking out on Martingale with.

in the 'long run' which conveniently will never happen in Rob's mind, he should theoretically end up around the same as all the $10/hr FPDW grinders at the Fiesta Henderson on a gross-wagered basis. maybe even a bit lower since he knowingly plays less than optimal paytables as long as the machine is a "lucky" machine. I mean, how you can argue against such a rock solid accounting system such as this:

"While others are obsessed with number of hands played, how many hours they play in casinos, how fast they play, and how many points they get on their slot club cards, I only concentrate on - and keep records of - my winnings."

Rob Singer got lucky. I guess it's +EV to be his friend, but his VP system is garbage. end of story.

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[playersare]

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Haha. Ok dude.. enjoy that long-term, your .002 % profit when u get there, and all those wonderful gifts from your loving casino host along the way.

[/ QUOTE ]
I never said I was a professional VP player. I'm just a guy who has passed 7th grade math class. the fact that your profile indicates that you are somehow involved in the computer industry yet cannot see past the unabashed stupidity of Rob Singer's writings is monumentally sad.

for more information on bonuspokergod's gullibility, check out his NL short stack epiphany here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=begin&Number=5050519

if you were truly benefiting from vptruth.com then you wouldn't be stuck playing these micro B&M games and getting excited about $1300 which is not even 1/10th of Rob's average VP buyin. what's your source of Rob's profit figures? Rob himself? yeah great. keep riding his jockstrap but try showing some actual math here in 2+2 if you want to be respected.

[bonuspokergod]

I never said u were a VP pro either. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

So you are saying the GSIH SS NL thing is a fraud then?

I'm not a pro either. Don't want to or need to be. I have a job. I don't live near casinos right now, love to go play when I can find the time. When I do, I like to win and I recognize the fact that it is all short-term, over & over again, and largely based on LUCK. Both in VP & live.
Therefore, I know what to do with luck when I have it, and I'm not greedy. Rob's stuff has done very well for me, as well as Ed Miller's.

And finally, yep I'm a computer geek, unix guy. But I'm open-minded enough to accept that not all math theory comes to fruition in real human experiences.

Get that Martingale properly defined yet?

[ QUOTE ]
I never said I was a professional VP player. I'm just a guy who has passed 7th grade math class. the fact that your profile indicates that you are somehow involved in the computer industry yet cannot see past the unabashed stupidity of Rob Singer's writings is monumentally sad.

for more information on bonuspokergod's gullibility, check out his NL short stack epiphany here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=begin&Number=5050519

if you were truly benefiting from vptruth.com then you wouldn't be stuck playing these micro B&M games and getting excited about $1300 which is not even 1/10th of Rob's average VP buyin. what's your source of Rob's profit figures? Rob himself? yeah great. keep riding his jockstrap but try showing some actual math here in 2+2 if you want to be respected.

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[KingMedicine]

i was playing VP for a living for a couple years before i started playing poker. it most definitely CAN be done successfully, but, of course, its a grind since your edge is so small. as far as the poster who said that "you can never have an edge over a casino in the longterm" - well, he's flat wrong. there is no real debate to be had about it. positive VP games are harder to find than they were 5-7 years ago, but there are still plenty out there.

singer is a donkey - read his site and youll see for yourself. ill leave it at that.

as i have recommended many times before in this forum over the past couple years, check out www.bobdancer.com. (http://www.bobdancer.com.) his guides and his winpoker software are the absolute best and most exact tools out there for learning any version of VP.

there is also a great email group called vpfree - its a yahoo group. i dont take part in the discussions because i only play VP a few times a year now, but i monitor them constantly. PM me if you cant find it on your own and youre interested.