Video Poker Forum

On Monday we drove over to Harrah's in Tahoe to celebrate our anniversary.  We booked a suite and the evening was wonderful.  Early the next morning, I walked down to the casino about 5 AM.   The odds were terrible, but if there's a video poker machine around I have to play it.  We both are avid deuces wild players and Judy plays a little loose with the optimum strategy.  She always takes two to a royal with the ace.  She hit two royals like that a few years ago in Blackhawk and she's done it ever since. She says she gets more wild royals and the hand is far from a throw away.  I checked it with VPW and the penalty is only a few cents a hand when playing max coin quarters. Anyway, three hands in the Ace King comes up and I'm all alone in the casino.  I thought about it for awhile and decided "What the Heck" give Judy's strategy a chance.  Here's what happened next.

Congrats Phil; of course Judy got half, right?

She doesn't need it.  Most times she kicks my butt.  

One of the hardest things to do is admit that us guys are not almost always right all of the time.

Excellent! That seems like a great hold to me. What was your alternative that would have avoided the "penalty"?

 Love it!

[quote=Olds442jetaway]One of the hardest things to do is admit that us guys are not almost always right all of the time.[/quote]My wife plays the same denomination all the time.  She never moves up and she never plays single coin. She plays slow and deliberate.   She almost always comes home with more money than I do.  She hits her royals on time and all is good.  On the other hand, she never takes any big machine pot shots, so I'm ahead of her for the year.  She's a better player than me and I'm struggling to play her way.  Got to get these big hits out of my dreams.  Repeat, Repeat, Repeat... 

Excellent! That seems like a great hold to me. What was your alternative that would have avoided the "penalty"?

The optimal play is to throw all five cards away. That's two suboptimally held royals I've seem on the net in a row...haha

But sometimes it pays off big! Nice hit Phil!

97.05% ER game, but as Han Solo says, never tell me the odds. Nice hit. Err is very small, and looking at the game overall, I'd be going for royals too. Cheers

[quote=DAAnMAAn]97.05% ER game, but as Han Solo says, never tell me the odds. Nice hit.
Err is very small, and looking at the game overall, I'd be going for
royals too.[/quote]This is an interesting point.  It's obvious a professional player would never play such a game.  Recreational players like me do and still enjoy the game without agonizing over giving up some ER.  If you must play a bad game like this, you might as well go for the royal.  What good is it to end the day without the royal and feel good about it for saving 80 cents?