My History in Video Poker

[mickey crimm]

There is no way I could post it all in a few posts.  So I will make posts as time permits.  My memory can play tricks on me but I will try to be as honest and accurate as possible. 
 
First,  new people getting into video poker  have a much tougher row to plow those those of us who got into it in the mid-nineties.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  There were big advantages everywhere. 
 
Video poker raised my standard of living.  I mean really raised it. 
 
I made a post a few years ago on vpFREE from Ely, Nevada.  I had a big play working there which I will describe in a later post.   Jean Scott emailed me and asked if she could publish it in her Frugal Fridays column.  I certainly said yes.  I don't know how to post a link, I'm computer illiterate.  But you can find it by going to lasvegasadvisor/frugal friday archive. 
 
She published it in two parts called "Aprill 13, 2006, Gamblers Angles."  And April 21, 2006, Gamblers Angles 2."  I gave alot of my background in the articles. 
 
Feel free to make comments both good and bad at any time.  I'm a big boy.  I can take it. 
 
 
 
 

[New2vp]

One link to the archive of those articles is:http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/frugalfr ... nteresting though high-risk story.  Glad to hear you are doing better now, though it sounds like you felt you were doing just fine back in the day.  I'm looking forward to posts of any unusual situations that you came across while video-pokering.

[damule]

Mickey,
 
     What an incredible story. You're a god in my eyes. To have the patience to watch and stake out and learn the angles is amazing. I've always been more of a bull in a china shop type, looking for the high paytables and banging them, I usually don't look any further. But you have a skill that few others possess.

[mickey crimm]

The concept of the "bonusing" or "banking" slot came in very handy in my casino hustling career.  It wasn't just video poker.  We were all-around casino hustlers.   The  hired help called us hustlers. We called each other hustlers.  If two hustlers were talking to each other and one said "Do you know Ciincinnatti Jack?  He's a hustler." That meant Jack was a sharp gambler and  in the know.  
 
By the way, Cincinnati Jack is a real person.  And he''s a casino hustler.  Don't get him mixed up with Short Stack Jack.  That's a different hustler.  Jack's got a few flaws though.  Most hustlers do. Jack once told me "In this business I'm the fastest guy from $0 to $1000."  To which I replied "Yes, Jack, but you're also the fastest guy from $1000 to $0." He's in Reno these days. 
 
I found the Piggy Bankin' slots in Laughlin in October 1996.  They were manufactured by a company called Williams out of Chicago.  There were six quarters and six dollars  in Harrah's; eight quarters in Gold River; a couple of dollars in the Golden Nugget; six quarters, a few dollars and a five dollar machine in the Pioneer; two dollars in the Ramada Express; eight quarters and two dollars in the Colorado Belle; sixteen quarters and six dollars in the Edgewater; and eight quarters and 4 dollars in the Riverside. Williams came out with more banking slots called Shopping Spree, Safecracker, and X-Factor. 
 
It was just a matter of walking around and monitoring the machines for plays.  I went from living out of a backpack and sleeping bag, eating out of grocery stores,  to hotel living and eating steak and eggs for breakfast, steak sandwich for lunch, and steak and lobster for dinner.  It was worth a couple hundred a day. 
 
That time was just the start of the advantageous slots boom.  And it was the time I started meeting a different breed of cat in the gambling world:  the casino hustler.  I met them around the machines.  They were doing the same thing I was doing.  I made friends with them; questioned them; picked their brains as much as I could.
 
A couple of months later Silicon Gaming came out with a multi-game machine called the Odyssey.  It had several banking games on it called Fort Knox, Buccaneer Gold, Riddle of the Sphinx, and Lady of Fortune.  Along with a beatable video poker game called Bonus Playoff; which I will write about later. 
 
It was a good thing the Odyssey came out.  Because I was up in Las Vegas playing the pigs; there were gillions of dollar machines on the Strip.  I walked into Circus Circus one day and the 14 pig machines were shut down.  I asked the attendent why.  She didn't know.  I got on the bus and went downtown.  I walked into Binions and the pig machines were shut down.  I said to myself "what the hell is going on here?"  I walded over to the Golden Nugget and the pig machines were shut down there. "Aw, hell!!!" I said.  I looked on the machine for the name of the manufacturer.  I went to the phone book,looked up their number, and gave them a call.  "What's going on with the pig machines" I ask the secretary.  "Were being sued by IGT" she said "for violating the Telnaes Patent.  They got a court order to have the machines removed and we are scrambling for an injunction to keep them from being removed."  By the time they got the injunction most of the machines were gone and didn't come back.   
 
Then we started hearing rumors of IGT getting into the act with bonusing slots.  And sure enough, out came machines called the "IGT Vision Series."
They had names like Wild Cherry Bonus Pie, Diamond Thief, Double Diamond Mine, Triple Diamond Mine, Slot Bingo, Money Factory, Jewel in the Crown, etc. 
 
 
 
I was living the Life of Riley.  Yes, Sir!  Casino living sure beats the hell out of living out of a backpack and working day labor.    It was off of all the above mentioned machines that I acquired the bankroll to play video poker. 
 
The bonusing slot boom is well over now.  But there are still a few things out there like S&H Green Stamps, Quick Hits, Indiana Jones. 
 
 
 
 

[mickey crimm]

MY FIRST ROYAL FLUSH
I got the idea of becoming a professional gambler at Binion's Horseshoe in April 1992..  I walked into the place credit hustling and, unbenownst to me, The World Series of Poker was going on.  There were poker tables everywhere and I walked around looking at everyone moving chips.  
A voice kept coming over the intercom saying "We're starting up a brand new no-limit Kansas City Lowball game on table 17.  Everyone is invited."  I looked over at table 17 and sitting there was an older looking cowboy, and owlish looking fellow wearing glasses, and a little bitty younger guy.  They turned out to be Doyle Brunson, Bobby Baldwiin, and Stu Unger. 
While watching all the action the proverbial lightbulb goes off in my head.  "If these people can do it so can I."  But talking about it and doing it are two different things.  By late May it was getting hot in Las Vegas.  Too hot for a guy lving out of a backpack and sleeping bag. 
 
I hitchiked up to Seattle with every intention of making my way back to Dutch Harbor, Alaska.  But after a few weeks I gave  up on that idea and thumbed east out of Seattle.  I hit the libraries of every town I passed thru reading poker books.  I wound up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming workiing day labor.  There were two directions to go out of Jackson to find a poker game.  East to Deadwood, South Dakota or North to Bozeman, Montana.  I hit both places. 
 
I thumbed up to Bozeman one day to play play poker in TJ's Cardroom in the Catspaw Lounge.  I was waiting for the poker game to start and seen a few video poker machines.  I deceided to play just to pass a little time.  I couldn't even tell you what game I was playing.  And, of course, I knew nothing about strategy or payback percentages at the time.  I was playing along when the machine dealt me a royal flush in spades.  My first royal was a dealt royal.  I was betting 25 cents and it payed $200. 
 
 

[marie meijer]

Thanks for sharing your story, Mickey. I enjoyed reading it the second time as much as the first in Frugal Fridays, back when! Whom do you wish to play YOU in the movie? Your recall is amazing, assuming you did not keep a journal when traveling lightly around the country! I'm gullible and ready to believe almost anything. However, at the outside chance it's all fabricated, it's still a fun read, requiring a vivid imagination! 

[oej719]

[mickey crimm]

Thanks for sharing your story, Mickey. I enjoyed reading it the second time as much as the first in Frugal Fridays, back when! Whom do you wish to play YOU in the movie? Your recall is amazing, assuming you did not keep a journal when traveling lightly around the country! I'm gullible and ready to believe almost anything. However, at the outside chance it's all fabricated, it's still a fun read, requiring a vivid imagination! 
 
There's no fabrication, Marie.  Unfortunately, it's all true.   I seen gambling as my last opportunity to have a career at something besides being a hobo. 
 
Fate can be stranger than fiction.  I was standing in Tehachapi Pas in California hitchhiking back to Las Vegas when a man in a van stopped and offered me a ride to Laughlin.  If he hadn't stopped I wouldn't have went to Laughlin and met the busted out blackjack player who told me about the pig machines.   I may have never found out about advantageous slots and jump started a bankroll to play video poker. 

[marie meijer]

Apologies and I do believe you! ty for not giving a rebuttal bordering on the obscene. I realize people do not always believe/understand/read what I write. I found your story interesting and am confident others did also!

[oej719]

I always read/ believe/ but not always understand what you write.