Video Poker For winners

[Hotshooter]

I just purchased Bob Dancer's Video Poker for Winners. For those of you that use the program, which mode of difficulty is similar to hands you will likely see in the casino beginner, mixed, intermediate, or advanced?

Also, the software allows you to play perfect play or against strategy what is the major difference between the two strategies? For a recreational gambler is the strategy mode good enough to train you to play in the casino?

[BobDancer]

the 'mixed' mode is very close to the random hands you see in a casino. it also doesn't teach you to play well as quickly because you're wasting a lot of no-brainer hands, like dealt flushes and the like. If you're using the software to improve your results, choose Intermediate or Advanced. The hands that will give you potential problems come up more frequently in those modes.

if you click on Analyze and then Strategy, at the top you'll see a button called Show Report. These are the hands that are going to be played differently in the perfect play mode versus the strategy mode.

In 9/6 JoB, on a hand like Ah Qs Ts 8d 4s, you'll see "strategy play," which is 'QT' and 'perfect play,' which is AQ. Playing against strategy is perfectly acceptable for recreational players. You can even be a low-level professional player and play against strategy. In that game, perfect returns 99.5439% an the strategy only returns 99.5429%. That means for every $1,000 in coin-in, the difference in the strategies is one cent. To many players that's a trivially small amount and it's not worth the effort to learn the exceptions.

Other games have higher greater differences between the strategy play and perfect play.

[Hotshooter]

Thank you Mr. Dancer

[Hotshooter]

I am confused on the following hand
10H 4H KH AH QD
why does the software tells me to hold 4 to a flush vs. 3 to a Royal

[Eduardo]

When asking about a hold, be sure to specify the exact game and pay table you are playing.

The answer to your question of "why does the software tell you to hold" something is usually that it has the best expected value when doing so.

[Hotshooter]

Eduardo sorry for the rookie mistake game is 9/6 Jacks or better.

[BobDancer]

Ah. The software doesn't tell you the 'why.' And it can't, simply because with thousands of different users, each one at a different place, any explanation would be too basic for some and two complicated for others.

That particular hand contains a "two pair penalty," the only one I've ever seen. For a complete explanation for every penalty card consideration for the given games, see the series of Dancer/Daily Winner's Guides. I talk about that hand in my Advanced Jacks or Better class, but the students are expected to know the basic strategy before they attend such a class. And the students already know my terminology (which would take a while to cover here).

No offense intended, but since you asked about the very first hand on the list of strategy exceptions, it's likely you have questions about several of the others too. The Winner's Guides cover them all.

[Hotshooter]

Mr. Dancer,
Do you have any of your materials or books that can be downloaded instead of the hard cover? Do you have any training videos i can purchase? I am a visual person seeing a video would help.

[BobDancer]

There are books that are in ebooks, but not the Winner's Guides. More information about those may be had at 1-800-244-2224. I have no training videos available.

[Hotshooter]

At what point would you consider practicing on Video Poker for Winners or any other software to be too much practice vs playing without the software where you only get a diminishing return?