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Enjoying Video Poker (without losing your shirt)

by Stan Hendricks

204 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0912; ISBN 1-55395-198-0; US$22.00, C$29.95, EUR19.50, £13.50

This book emphasizes that video poker is not a way to get rich, but can be highly entertaining with moderate expenditures if played expertly, based on a realistic evaluation of the odds. It explains in an entertaining manner an extremely simple method to "play the odds" and thus maximize the chance of success.

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About the Book      About the Author      Reviews      Sample Excerpts      Catalogue Info

About the Book Enjoying Video Poker... Stan Hendricks, who has never played a serious game of table poker, has nevertheless been able to parlay his engineering background, analytical mind and years of experience with computer spreadsheets into the development of a really simple method that enables anyone...expert or novice...to "play the odds" and maximize the likelihood of success in playing video poker. This book will show you, among other things, why... A casino can afford to offer nearly 100% payoff. It's usually better to hold a Jack than an Ace. Four cards of a flush is a better bet than an outside straight. Betting the maximum coins doesn't always give you better odds. A low pair is better to hold than a whole bunch of other options that might seem at first glance to be more desirable. Sometimes it may be worthwhile to "take a flyer" at a big winner even though the odds say otherwise. Your chances of getting an honest deal are pretty good. The cards you discard can affect the value of the cards you hold. You may have a better chance at a royal flush or high pair on the draw than you did on the deal. "Playing the odds" doesn't reduce your chance at a royal flush by very much. An inexpensive pocket game may be one of your best investments. Played expertly, video poker can offer a better rate of return than many other casino games; this book could pay for itself and then some in your first session! This book is not just theory; results have been carefully documented in 25,000 hands and further supported by several hundred thousand hands played for fun on one of the pocket games. Graphs compare dramatically the results of cautious or reckless play. Tables are provided that help you decide which game is best for you and how to play it for best results. Even if you are not interested in video poker, this book is entertaining reading, and the information it contains can really help you enjoy the game... (...without losing your shirt!)

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About the Author Born in Portland, Oregon, Stan Hendricks grew up in Klamath Falls where he was active in the Boy Scouts and enjoyed playing the clarinet and saxophone. After completing one year at Oregon State College, he enlisted in the US Naval Reserve and served two years as Electronic Technician's Mate. Hendricks then returned to college, and graduated with a BS degree in mechanical engineering. In 1952, the author married a wonderful woman named June and together they have four children. Hendricks has worked for 53 years as a senior estimator and project manager at Scott Company, a leading mechanical contractor. He enjoys camping, hiking, photography, music and reading.

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Reviews

    "Hendricks' book is full of tables, graphs and statistics. But he also explains what they mean.

    "'It's my feeling there are a lot of people out there who need the information and do not know it's available,' Hendricks said. 'My other thought is I know darn well a lot of people should never go near a casino and I don't want to be guilty of luring those in who should not go. But I want to give the public the information they need to level the playing field.'

    "On a visit to Las Vegas, one surprise was bookstores devoted solely to gambling, including video poker. Still, he thought there was room on the market for his system."

- from an article by Susan Skorupa in the Reno Gazette-Journal (Mar. 18, 2003)

Book Review, by Doug Noble; Democrat correspondent

Author Hendricks, who has never played a serious game of table poker, has nevertheless been able to parlay his engineering background, analytical mind and years of experience with computer spreadsheets into the development of a really simple method that enables anyone - expert or novice - to 'play the odds' and maximize the likelihood of success in playing video poker.

This fascinating book had its beginning a few years ago when Hendricks had a correctable vision problem which temporarily made reading for pleasure out of the question. To amuse himself he picked up one of the ittle hand-held poker games, on which he could read the big numbers without a magnifying glass. In short order, he was hooked. As he aptly puts it, "The seemingly infinite number of ways the cards could turn up and the intriguing questions about probabilities were like a dawning of a glorious sunrise over the horizon of an alien planet to someone who had never paid attention to them before."

It proved to be far more complex than he had anticipated, but by the time he realized this he had already spent so much time on "the little project" that he hated to quit. In his words "I had the proverbal tiger by the tail."

In Writing "Enjoying Video Poker," Hendricks pointed out that he is not advocating that people should gamble, but only suggesting that if you do you might want to base your betting decisions on as much rational information as avaliable, rather than hunches, impulses or guesswork.

As a warning Hendricks opened his educational and entertaining book with the following:

"PLEASE READ THIS!

"Gambling is just that, gambling. There is no sure things;there can be no guarantees.

"In writing this book I have done my level best to develop a method that will enhance your enjoyment of video poker by helping you to minimize the inevitable losses and perhaps augment your occcasional winnings. In my opinion I may have succeeded beyond my hopes and expectations, but I can guarantee absolutely nothing.

"If you can't accept these terms, don't buy this book."

After thousands of hours of calculations and even more thousands of experimental hands of poker, he published this book filled with hundreds of graphs and charts and an easy explanation of them.

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Sample Excerpts

CONTENTS Dedication Acknowledgments Cast of Characters Please Read This Foreword Why you may enjoy the game a lot, and why a rank beginner may be able to give you some information that could save you a bundle. Getting Started A brief definition of terms and explanation of the rules of the game for complete novices. The Deal What happens when we are dealt a five-card poker hand from a 52-card deck...what the winning hands are, what they pay off and what our chances are of being dealt them. The Draw This chapter explores the very heart of the game. Up to this point, Lady Luck has been firmly and totally at the helm; now we at least get to put a tentative finger on the wheel. The decisions we make now may determine whether we enjoy the evening or walk away crestfallen. The "Nitty * Gritty" This chapter combines the evaluation of the payoffs we might get from holding various card groups with an analysis of our chance of being dealt them, to determine what our overall chances are of holding our own against the house on the long haul. One Thousand Hands In this chapter we put our theories to test by pitting two fictional adversaries, one conservative and one daring, against the same one thousand poker hands. Three Wishes This is a reprise of Chapter 5, using different betting strategies. Black Magic A few moments of unadulterated relaxation; we've earned them. Play it Again, Sam This chapter pits our two mythical opponents against another one thousand hands, this time employing (and enjoying) what they learned in Chapter 7. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Here we see how our theories work out in real casino action. Variations Here we explore some of the many variations in payoff schedules offered by casinos to tempt us with dreams of bonuses and high payoffs. "If at First *" This chapter reports on two more sessions in casinos. Watch Out For the Curves! This is a collection of curves showing graphically the results from playing a large number of hands. The Deuce, You Say! Here we explore the "Deuce Wild" games...how they differ from the "Jacks or Better" games and how to play them for the best results. Closure Here we review a few things we discussed and add a few more thoughts that didn't seem to fit anywhere else. PLEASE READ THIS!      Gambling is just that * gambling! There are no sure things; there can be no guarantees.      In writing this book I have done my level best to develop a method that will enhance your enjoyment of video poker by helping you to minimize the inevitable losses and perhaps augment your occasional winnings. In my opinion I may have succeeded beyond my hopes and expectations, but I can guarantee absolutely nothing!      No one is infallible; although I have put a lot of effort and time into the analyses needed to calculate the odds, errors in logic or math could have sneaked in. I strongly feel that any errors that remain after all the checking, double-checking and triple-checking will not significantly affect the outcome of your application of this information, but again...I can guarantee absolutely nothing!      If you can't accept these terms, don't buy this book!      Video poker, an electronic game derived from the traditional five-card draw poker game, has become extremely popular in casinos ... probably because many folks prefer to have some control over the results rather than just pulling a handle or punching a button and letting the machine do the rest. Another reason for its popularity is that, when played expertly, it can provide a higher average rate of return than most conventional slot machines.      By far the best reason to play video poker is that is just plain fun! ... that is, if we can play the game without it costing too much. There's not a whole lot of folks around who enjoy losing money. Absolutely the worst reason to play the game ... unfortunately the most popular reason ... is to expect to win lots of money. Even if you do manage to rope a royal flush on your first ride out of the chute (your chance of having this happen is one chance in six hundred forty-nine thousand, seven hundred forty), it is almost impossible to resist the temptation to keep going and try to add to that bonanza. Before you know it, that herd of wild steers known as "the odds" will have trampled you into the dust, choking and spluttering "uhhh ... what happened?"      Fortunately, it really is possible to play video poker without a major money drain when averaged out over an extended period, while still preserving a reasonable chance at an occasional high-paying hand. (Of course, there is always the possibility that in any one session we could encounter a disheartening "cold streak", but we could also find an exhilarating "hot streak".      What we need is a simple method to decide which cards to hold to offer the best chance of success. Your guide in the quest for this priceless knowledge, this talisman to ward off the evil spirits, will be none other than *      A rank NOVICE?      A more unlikely candidate to write a book about poker would be hard to find; I have never played a serious game of table poker with real cards, against real people, in my life. For such a complete tyro to venture to add yet another poker book to the scores already on the shelves, many written by world-renowned experts, reeks of a shameless audacity. I now have to explain very quickly, before I scare you away, why you may nevertheless find it worth your while to listen to what I have to say on the subject. (This will take a little explaining).      This book happened by accident. A few years ago, a vision problem (fortunately correctable) temporarily made reading for pleasure out of the question; it was just too much work. To amuse myself, I picked up one of the little hand-held poker games; I could still read the big numbers without a magnifying glass. In short order, I was hooked. The seemingly infinite number of ways the cards could turn up and the intriguing questions about probabilities were like the dawning of a glorious sunrise over the horizon of an alien planet to someone who had never paid much attention to them before.      With minimal prior exposure to poker, I was starting from square one in deciding which cards to hold. The books I saw on library shelves and in bookstores were mostly oriented toward the strategies of the traditional table poker games involving flesh-and-blood foes. These books provided some help in defining the odds for the most commonly occurring hands, but left great gaping holes ... questions about the odds for the many variations from the more common hands ... which at that time I could fill only by guesswork. Guesswork didn't appeal to me; I decided to try to fill in the holes for myself by rational analysis. This proved to be far more complex than I had anticipated, but by the time I realized this I had already spent so much time on "the little project" that I hated to quit; I had the proverbial tiger by the tail.      Rather than simply rehashing information previously published, I decided to make a completely fresh start, hoping to come up with a new way of looking at things that could be helpful, not only to me, but also to other players (I also preferred to avoid being a plagiarist). It may be that I just ended up "reinventing the wheel", and I may have done some analyses the hard way as contrasted with more sophisticated techniques used by the experts, but at least I've had fun doing it. I hope you enjoy reading the book and get some benefit from it.      Gradually, after I made lots of mistakes and had to start all over again, far more times than I care to remember, everything began to make sense. My technique was to create individual computer spreadsheets to calculate the probabilities for each card combination I wanted to evaluate. First I applied this technique to the well-known hands for which information was already available. After debugging these spreadsheets until I came up with the right answers, I then felt confident to go on to the less common hands and apply the same technique to fill in the information gaps. Many months and nearly two hundred spreadsheets later, I was ready to consolidate this information into much larger spreadsheets with the ultimate goal of organizing all these little bits of information into a useful concise summary.      The end result of this monumental exercise is an extremely simple table showing the relative values of all (or nearly all) the card combinations we might consider holding, reflecting not only the obvious primary goals but also any possible lesser payoffs, to help us decide which of the available options provides the best overall odds.      After all this analyzing and summarizing, the nagging question remained: "How can I really be sure I've come up with the right answers?" My solution to this quandary was to use the pragmatic "proof-of-the-pudding" approach. I dealt one thousand poker hands using real playing cards, carefully recording each hand and the cards chosen to be held by two fictional opponents, one as cautious and conservative as the old comic strip character "Mr. Milquetoast" and the other daring to the point of reckless abandon, and then analyzed the results "eleven ways from Sunday". Much later, I repeated the previous experiment by dealing yet another one thousand hands. (I must be a glutton for punishment, an extremely determined researcher or the world's slowest learner ... take your pick! ... maybe all of the above). Still later I played three series of one thousand hands each in Nevada casinos to test the method in the real world; it really works! Even later another twenty thousand hands were added to the mix (ten thousand more for the "Jacks or Better" game, plus ten thousand for "Deuces Wild"). Admittedly, even this large sampling is no guarantee that we would get similar results on the next twenty-five thousand hands, but I'm satisfied; I think you will be too.      All the while, I was continuing to amuse myself by filling in the interstices in my busy schedule with a few hands on the little hand-held game ... (interstices? ... chinks, cracks, gaps, whatever ... log cabins have interstices, why can't people?). Anyway, with all this chink-caulking or interstice-filling or whatever, I have yet to find anything to indicate that my conclusions are "off-the-wall". I feel that the large number of hands played using this technique would surely have uncovered any major glitches, even though a few minor errors may have slipped through the cracks (interstices?) in spite of a lot of double- and triple-checking.      This brief outline of the process makes it sound a lot simpler than it was; I spent much of my spare time for several years before I was finally satisfied that I had come up with a tabulation of information that was as accurate, complete and easily understandable as I knew how to make it.      The key to this method is known as "playing the odds", that is, holding the cards that offer the best overall chance of success, rather than being tempted by the high-paying long-shots. I certainly didn't invent this technique; it's been around as long as folks have been playing cards, probably since the cards were hewn from thin slabs of stone. (I wonder how they shuffled them?). All I may have done is to fill in some information gaps and then organize all the data into one cohesive table ranking the various possible choices in the order of relative desirability, so the technique is easy for anyone to use.      In writing this book I have made the assumption (probably unwarranted) that you are starting out abysmally ignorant about poker, just as I was at first; starting at the very beginning is not a bad way to make sure no vital information is overlooked. Even experienced poker players may find a few bits of helpful information.      There is not just one absolutely "correct" way to play this game; each player must make his or her own decisions based on his or her own temperament ... whether to stay with a "sure thing" or gamble on a possible larger payoff, for example. In the long run, however, you will lose less money (and may even win a little along the way) if you stay with the plays that provide the best overall odds.      You may have noticed that this book is titled "Enjoying Video Poker" ... not "Winning Big at Video Poker". If you think you can pay the rent by making a big winning at this game, forget it! While it is true that a royal flush gives a big payoff, our chances of getting one are so slim that we will probably have been evicted long before one emerges from the mist, and in the meantime we will most likely have fed a lot more money into the machine than our "winnings".      You probably also noticed the cover has a photo of a royal flush (a recreation of my first on one of the hand-held games). I am no more immune than anyone else to the thrill of bagging one of these elusive beasts; my critical comments on the subject of royal flushes are directed at the unrealistic expectations that tempt many players to abandon common sense in their pursuit. By all means, we should keep our eyes open to the possibility of landing a royal flush or other high-paying hand and pursue these hands when we can do so with a reasonable chance of success and without too large a sacrifice.      This book as you may have deduced by now, is as much about enjoyment as it is about poker. You are not going to get rich from this game, but you can have a lot of fun! Keeping in mind the book's title, a good slogan might be:      WHEN IT STOPS BEING FUN, GO DO SOMETHING ELSE!      We can safely assume that everything in this book is already well known to the casino owners; they have not acquired the means to build their lavish pleasure palaces by indulging in guesswork. Perhaps some information developed here may not be as well known to the general public as to the casino owners; if so, we may be "leveling the playing field" a bit.      In writing this book, I am not advocating that you should gamble; that is a purely personal decision. I am only suggesting that if you do decide to gamble on this or any other game you might want to base your betting decisions on as much rational information as is available, rather than hunches, impulses or guesswork.      Most of the preceding remarks refer to gambling in a casino, but you don't have to go near a casino to enjoy this game. There are excellent pocket games on the market at very reasonable prices that are played in essentially the same manner, with similar odds, as the casino games. A pocket game is a good way to learn for yourself which plays are the best choices, and is also a good way to pass the time when standing in a line, waiting in a doctor's office or whatever. (It also doesn't cost a dime, beyond the original nominal purchase price and an occasional new battery).      At the outset I should admit to a strong personal bias that has already become apparent: I hate to lose money; I work too hard for it. My original motivation, even before the thought of writing a book bubbled to the surface, was to find out if there was a way to enjoy the obvious fascinations of this game without it costing more than I cared to lose. If you share this goal, you may find this book "verrry interesting!"; even if you are far more venturesome, you may nevertheless find this information helpful in deciding just how much risk you really want to take.      If you already own this book and have read this far, you must be at least a little interested; if you are just riffling though the pages in a bookstore trying to decide whether to buy the book, I suggest that you sneak a peek at Graph No. 1, immediately following this foreword. The two curves on this graph dramatically compare the fortunes of our two fictional opponents, Mr. "Close-to-the-Vest" (CV) and Mr. "High-Roller" (HR) while playing the first thousand hands. Put yourself in HR's shoes and translate his (your) point loss into real money; if you can still walk away without buying this book, you must be:      * Independently wealthy, or...      * Just plain not interested in the game.      Although I was primarily developing this information for my own use and entertainment, gradually the thought evolved that if the information was useful to me and filled an apparent gap in the knowledge available to the general public, perhaps other folks might be interested. Hence *this book.      A few friends have asked if I couldn't make the book a little shorter; of course I could. You want brief? I'll give you brief! I could write the essence of this book in just three words: "Play the Odds". However, if you need a little help in learning what the odds are or how they are calculated, I'm afraid you'll just have to read on.      Earlier drafts of this book made detailed references to the numerous spreadsheets used; however, it seems that very few people are interested in this much detail. Accordingly, this version of the book eliminates many of the tedious point-by-point analyses. I will, however, give you brief overviews of my analytical techniques so you will know I didn't just pick the numbers out of the air. The tables and graphs referred to in each chapter follow that chapter. Don"t be scared away by all the tables! You may want to skip over many of the tables, but they are there if you want to study them. The tables that are really vital are the ones that tell you which cards to hold. You probably won't want to skip over the graphs; they vividly show at a glance what can happen when we put ourselves at the mercy of the whims of "Lady Luck".      There is absolutely no way for anyone, no matter how talented, to develop a method that will guarantee winning results in any one hand, or in one session, or even in a whole series of sessions. If this were possible, Las Vegas would still be desert, inhabited mostly by jackrabbits, sidewinders and scorpions. A few members of the latter two species may still be around, in different guises. (I apologize to the residents of Las Vegas for this intemperate exaggeration; I couldn't resist the temptation. I know Las Vegas was a flourishing pleasant small town long before the explosive expansion of casino construction. My point is that without the huge profits generated by all the people who thought there had to be a way to beat the system, there would have been no such expansion). All we can hope to do is to maximize our chance of holding our own over the long haul, but to me this is a worthwhile goal.      This book is full of pronouns; in reviewing one of its many drafts, I cringed when I saw how many times I had used the word "I". Am I an incorrigible egotist? Perhaps, but the only alternative would have been to resort to beating around the bush and referring to myself as "the writer" or some such circumlocution. Similarly, when I refer to you, I will call you just "you" ... not "the reader". Most of the time the pronoun of preference will be "we"; it's a joint effort. Stripping this book of all personal references and other leavening agents would have left it a desiccated husk of its former self, like the dusty carapace of a hapless fly in a spider's web with all the juices sucked out, a dull dry boring pedantic tome that only the most dedicated reader could endure beyond the middle of the second chapter without falling asleep, so I guess you're stuck with my egotism.      Recognizing the truth of the old saying that "A picture is worth a thousand words", I have included between chapters a few pictures of poker hands, selected to illustrate pertinent points. Under each picture is a small table of "vital statistics" to show the payoffs for the various winning hands possible when certain cards or card groups are held from the hand shown in the picture; the figure in the right-hand column is the total of the payoff values of all the possible winning hands. The highest total value, of course, tells us which cards to hold for the best overall chance of success.      You may want to cover the tables until you have studied the hand and decided for yourself what cards you would hold if you were dealt that hand. I'm not going to tell you which choice is the best one in each case, for several reasons:      * In many cases there is not just one "best choice" ... it all depends on the personality, temperament and mood of the player, and ...      * You will learn more by figuring it out for yourself, and ...      * Why should I do all the work?      We may have just set a record for the world's longest preamble; much of the added verbiage was necessary to convince you that, even though I started out a greenhorn, I had a lot of on-the- job training and eventually was able to produce a very useful table that can save you money. 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