Atlantic City Video Poker Event
Sep.07, 2010 in
Trump Taj Mahal, Video Poker
I’m giving you plenty of notice. Atlantic City video poker players will want to mark the weekend of November 20-21 on their calendars now.
Video poker guru Bob Dancer is scheduled to appear at the Taj Mahal to host a video-poker tournament and give a seminar on how to win one.
For those who aren’t familiar, Dancer has developed books, strategy cards and computer programs to help people beat the casinos at video poker. He gives regular seminars in Las Vegas, and has done them in Atlantic City from time to time.
No more details about his November visit are available as of now. He just mentioned it in a recent column. But stay tuned to this space, and I’ll share the 411 as I get it.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Bob Dancer is a snake-oil salesman, have you ever heard the casinos holding a Black Jack Card counting event with the MIT Team? No! If he is so successful, why is he teaching seminars. To make money, plain and simple. Not one so called professional VP- Player has ever showed a tax return and said here is my proof. No casino puts a game on the floor with an advantage for the player, they just like all this so called pro’s and all the books they are writing with the winning system. No player has the time or endurance playing a machine 24/7, until the life cycle of a machine is over. I am not saying there are not gamblers out there who write books and give up some useful tips about a certain games, but there is no long term system in VP, it’s a machine you’re playing, and only one man is known to beat a computer or machine, Gary Kasparov, he beat “BIG BLUE” IBM.
I like playing VP as much as the next person, and I consider myself a good player, but I am still looking for one person who can back up his or her statements, to make a living playing VP. Otherwise they would not waste time selling worthless books, or giving seminars sponsored by a Casino.
This is not a critique directed at you or your blog. This are just my thoughts on Bob Dancer and all the other so called experts.
September 11th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Jurgen-
I have seen some people criticize Bob Dancer for playing both sides of the fence, by writing books and software programs to help players win and at the same time consulting with casinos to help them find and exclude advantage players. I have met Bob, but don’t know him well enough to comment on these accusations. They may or may not be valid.
But assuming the games you play are truly random (as they are in New Jersey and Nevada), his math is sound. I’m not a math geek, but I had enough coursework in statistics and probability theory to know that the math works.
I have been playing video poker using Dancer’s methods for 10 years, and I can say that my results are about as the math would expect. I keep scrupulous records of my casino trips, put the results on spreadsheets, and my actual gambling losses are about what the math would predict. But the cashback and bonus money keep me even or a little ahead. (And no, I will NOT show you ANY of my tax returns to back that up. I have a paying job and gambling is a hobby.) And that’s all cold cash, not counting the free food, free rooms when I want them, gifts and being treated like royalty.
To win using the methods Bob Dancer teaches, you need the time and discipline to study and practice the strategies. You also need a bankroll of several thousand dollars to ride out the bad-luck swings. The casinos invite Dancer to give the classes, knowing full well that the vast majority of gamblers don’t have the discipline it takes to become a winning player. But the classes will give them false hopes, and they’ll play more.
The results are for the long term, over millions of hands played. You cannot judge the system based on one weekend in Atlantic City or Las Vegas.
If you come to Atlantic City once a month or to Las Vegas twice a year, it is probably not worth it to you to study the strategies and practice them on your computer at home. You probably have a job, friends, a wife and kids and better things to do with your time. I’m single, no kids, and live 10 miles from Atlantic City. I go to the casinos about twice a week. So it is worth it for me to read about the strategies, scout out the good promotions and spend several hours a week practicing the games at home on my computer. It may not be worth it for you.
But I can tell you from my personal experience, that this does work in the long run if you put the effort into learning it.