To all my friends here, including former administrator Tom:
Thanks to your support, the administrator has invited me to return to
this forum and has assured me that the rules will be enforced
uniformly. I'm delighted to have so many friends here, and I want to
take this opportunity clarify just who I am.
Always an objective realist, I'm one of the very few in this business
who uses his/her real name. I also have a tendency toward a sarcastic
form of humor, which has sometimes provoked jealous persons to dig
deep, and if necessary far into the past, to find fault with me. I
apologize for allowing myself to be drawn into pointless arguments,
and I will try harder to follow the philosophy of Pythagoras: "Rest
satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they
please."
Now my views on video poker. I have never recommended short coin play
or any other changes in tactics or strategy in response to the way a
machine has been paying. In the "Subjective Observation" that was
cited to claim that I did, my stated conclusion was that doing so
would only reduce the expected return. I fail to see how anyone could
interpret this as recommending one-coin play.
For a purely recreational player who doesn't want to bet more than 25
cents per play, I do recommend playing one quarter on a full pay game
rather than five nickels on a short pay game. This and all of my
recommendations are based upon solid mathematics for the best ER.
Many perceived anomalies have been reported by my readers and
discussed in my publications. In some cases, I have even kept track
of events during my own play and recorded statistics that seem to
support the existence of an anomaly. I have also stated, however,
that whether or not the anomaly existed, it did not seem to affect
the game's return. That is why those writings appear in a booklet
with a disclaimer that it is to be read for entertainment only. I
have never recommended that a player should change strategy because
of a perceived anomaly.
Beginning with my first video poker publications in 1991, I have
often stated that "luck" exists only in the past tense. I have also
frequently stated that there is no such thing as a "hot" or "cold"
machine (at least not in Nevada or other well regulated gambling
area). The probabilities on the next play are the same regardless of
the player's or the machine's history.
I have always advocated using an optimized strategy rather than
attempting perfect play. My definition of an optimum strategy is that
which, for you, will yield the greatest expected win rate. For most
players, this means few, if any, penalty card considerations. Skip
Hughes has covered this well in this forum, and I go into this quite
extensively in two articles in the next issue of my newsletter.
I am happy to be back, and again thank my many friends for your support.
Dan
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Dan Paymar
Author of best selling book, "Video Poker - Optimum Play"
Editor/Publisher of VP newsletter "Video Poker Times"
Developer of VP analysis/trainer software "Optimum Video Poker"
Visit my web site at www.OptimumPlay.com
"Chance favors the prepared mind." -- Louis Pasteur
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