Video Poker Profits From The Ground Up

VIDEO POKER PROFITS

FROM

THE GROUND UP

By: Adam Gregory Koch

COPYRIGHT NOTICE:

SECOND SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright © March, 2015 by Adam Gregory Koch

All rights reserved.

Published by Adam Gregory Koch at Smashwords.

ISBN: 9781311525215

Facts themselves cannot be copyrighted; strategies and other information derived from mathematical formula and computation are facts. Any two people can do the math and come up with the strategies for themselves. As such, use and reproduction of these is not restricted. Any accompanying information is based entirely on the Author’s own experiences and general knowledge, no reproduction is authorized in any format. Any usage that falls within the Fair Use Doctrine guidelines is permitted. Any errors will be corrected and new editions released when appropriate. I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy in everything contained herein, but I have done my best to ensure everything is proper to the best of this author’s ability.

DISCLAIMER:

By reading this book, you agree to hold the author free of any liabilities arising from the use or misuse of information presented. Never risk more than you can afford to lose. There is no way to guarantee the outcome of any session due to the degree of random chance involved with the game despite it being mostly skill. This book is intended for informational and educational purposes only, in the hopes of helping you find success in your gambling endeavors. Any similarities between this and other publications are purely coincidental and unintentional.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to the legacy of video poker and all the enjoyment that it has brought to so many people over so many years. It is the author’s hope that it will continue to always live on in its truest forms in the casinos around the world.

***

Further dedication to all my friends, some of whom I have not seen in many years. You’ve not been forgotten, but often missed; I do not know that you will ever be aware of the regrets I have for letting those bridges fall apart in disrepair, or burn down for one reason or another, but for the most part they just simply vanished. Should this fall into the hands of an old friend, I should hope you will take the time to contact me.

***

I also cannot forget a dedication to my family. The most important thing I have in the world, and as time passes, it seems to be shorter in supply than it once was. There is not enough time or enough paper to say the things that should be said here.

***

I further dedicate the book to those working to legalize gambling both online and offline. No person elected or otherwise should have any say in how we spend money that we ourselves have earned and worked for. Bad enough they are spending money they take from us as taxes on things we ourselves do not support, and that is no more proper.

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." –Abraham Lincoln

CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT NOTICE:

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PECULIARITIES UNIQUE TO THIS SECOND EDITION

-New In the Second Edition

INTRODUCTION

VIDEO POKER OR NOT VIDEO POKER

THE RULES OF JACKS OR BETTER

JACKS OR BETTER STRATEGY

ODDS, PROBABILITIES, AND PARADOXES

WILD CARD VIDEO POKER

-Deuces Wild

-Joker Poker

GAMBLING MYTHS

AUTHOR’S EXPERIENCE, ADVICE & INSIGHT

PAYTABLES & STRATEGY APPENDIX

-8-5 Jacks or Better Progressive Strategy (99.59%*)

-Bonus Poker Deluxe (98.49%)

-Bonus Poker (99.17%)

-Hi-Lo Royal or Two Ways Royal (99.80%)

-Double Double Bonus Poker (98.98%)

-6-5 Jacks or Better (95.00%)

-Double (Bonus) Jackpot Poker (99.32%)

- Aces & Eights (99.5%)

- All American (100.7%)

ONLINE CASINOS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

"Unexpected fortune should be held in reverence." –King Agathocles

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I must especially thank my friends and family, without their encouragement, there might be little accomplishment. Also, I must thank those who have always been critical of me and doubting my abilities to succeed, for proving you wrong is what gives me the most motivation: And without motivation there is no success.

My thanks also go especially to Amazon and to a lesser extent to Smashwords for giving the little guy a chance at being successful too. Without you I’d probably never be publishing and certainly not with the success I have now. It is my desire to see those who seek to regulate and fix the e-book market and the prices of books fail, for it will do grave injury should they be allowed to drive the cost of a book above the reach of the every-man just for the sake of gaining higher royalties for a few elite authors whose books no one wants to buy anyways.

I call upon my readers to oppose any measures taken against Amazon by any organization. As Amazon goes, so goes a lot of people’s livelihood and future prosperity.

PECULIARITIES UNIQUE TO THIS SECOND EDITION

It is still not the prettiest format available. The paperback and Kindle editions will be more acceptable in their appearance. The Smashwords edition you now hold in your hand, is formatted as simplistically as possible to ensure the highest level of compatibility with all other platforms, including plain text if needed. It is formatted with text capable of being free-flowing so that it will conform to any device you are comfortable reading with to give you the best reading experience possible.

The paperback and Kindle editions have nicely formatted and presented tables, and I couldn’t use them in this edition for the above reasons. However, I did simplify these elements and they work rather well, all things considered. If you want a flashier edition, you know what to do, if you just want to read the book and you don’t care about bells and whistles, this is the copy for you.

NEW IN THE SECOND EDITION

-Major revisions and corrections to all chapters and appendices, most notably a completely rewritten introduction.

-New information added including a section on difficult poker hands and how to properly play them and why they are the proper plays.

-New strategy tables added: ACES & EIGHTS and ALL AMERICAN

-All material has been streamlined for easier reading and understandability. Grammar, punctuation, and other errors greatly eliminated. You should have a problem free reading experience!

-Formatting of strategy tables improved for this edition.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the second edition of this book. It has now come time to revise, rewrite, and expand several chapters of this guide in order to give my readers every benefit that this author can provide. I can’t stress how much work has gone into putting this together, and books are kind of like everything else in the world: If you don’t maintain them, improve them, or upgrade them they eventually disappear into oblivion.

You might be asking yourself, Who does this book benefit and how will it possibly help me? Since this is likely the first part of the book you will skim through when making up your mind, I thought it best to put the answer out front for you. This book is intended for everyone who enjoys video poker but wants better returns, as in smaller losses and more wins. It is written with those who do not understand much about the game in mind, with the aim at teaching you how the game works and why strategy works. You will learn how simple video poker really is, and be able to play with confidence. Anyone who enjoys gambling will benefit from this book. It doesn’t matter if you gamble on the internet or in Las Vegas; this book will benefit you, and it should easily pay for itself in no time at all. You will notice you have far more sessions breaking even, a few more that end up profitable, and considerably fewer that will empty your wallet. The average person loses up to nine in ten sessions of video poker simply by not understanding the odds at work in the game. For this author, over the years, video poker machines have been every bit as good as ATM machines.

Oh, there are many books written and published about poker, and even video poker has a few books out there. They can be expensive and hard to find. Some are well written, but I feel no single book has done an adequate job of painting the whole picture. No expert will reveal his trade secrets entirely. There will always be some information they keep to themselves. I on the other hand, have no such desire to retain any information. All that I know, my reader will know. It is this gap in information which exists that keeps the average person from becoming a genuine expert. My feeling is, whatever you enjoy and are good at, do whatever is necessary to become the expert, for they are just as you and I: They are people too.

Video poker is nothing like a standard game at the table with other people. There are no faces to read, no bluffs to call and no raises to make. Texas Hold’em has gained in popularity to the point it’s made appearances in every corner of society, after having been banned in several states for years. Some people like it, because it is a test of nerve and courage, but ultimately skill has no bearing on the outcome. Once the flow of cards hits the table after the shuffle, nothing you do will change what cards come up. The only thing you control is how much you bet, raise, or call and whether or not you are able to read the other people’s faces and call their bluffs. This is not for me.

Five card draw is the basis upon which video poker is adapted from. In draw poker, skill was heavily involved, which society tends towards being dumbed down and simplified, no offense to anyone, but I have to wonder if this doesn’t account for the popularity of Hold’em. The cards you held or threw away could have made or broke you in a draw poker game. It is a more genuine form of poker in my opinion. However, video poker in kind of like a solitaire version of five card draw. You are competing against the house. The house’s take is regulated by the pay table posted on the machine. There are only so many combinations of each hand possible, and the frequency of them is also relatively fixed over the long term. Sure, the frequency of a royal flush on average is around one in forty-thousand hands; this doesn’t mean you won’t get two in a row any more than it guarantees you will get one in a few million hands. It is a high variance game and every wager that you are able to get back or win, is another wager you won’t have to pay for out of your pocket and helps get you along until you hit the royal flush. The specifics will be laid out in the coming chapters; mainly I just wanted to illustrate some of the differences.

Some of us are people persons, others aren’t. Some live for the thrill of sitting at the table and bluffing their opponents out of their fortunes, but I am not one such person. I prefer putting my money against the machine. I don’t like taking money from people, but a casino, it doesn’t hurt my feelings to lighten the burden of money carried by a casino. I am aware it comes from other people, but I am not directly responsible for having made those other people wager and lose their money, as I would be in a person versus person card game. Every hand on a video poker machine is dealt independently of the hand previously played. It doesn’t matter if the player before me lost $5 or $5,000, it has no bearing on my outcomes, unless it is a progressive machine in which case their playing would have given me a larger jackpot to aim for but this is only incidental to their having played. I still would have had no hand in having them lose.

A casino has no conscience, no soul. I do, and I will only be responsible for my own wagering. Times are too hard for too many people without me adding to their hardships. I am not trying to encourage anyone to gamble that isn’t already gambling, rather, I find it hard to believe someone who isn’t already gambling or doesn’t already want to gamble would buy this book; therefore I have no problem with teaching everyone how to do better at the casino. If you are going to gamble, you might as well do it right! Certainly I can do no harm by making someone’s bankroll last longer and perhaps help them carve out their own share of profits.

No, I do not believe gambling is bad. If two people willingly enter into a wager, it becomes a verbal contract, unless it is put into writing. Contracts are the basis of society, and we should be free to enter into them as we please as long as both sides are willing and able. I just personally don’t like taking money from another person when there are massive entities out there whose sole purpose is to suck up every dime that isn’t nailed down. They aren’t going to stop taking money in, people will always be losing plenty to them. This doesn’t make casinos bad though. But an army of video poker players won’t put them out of business, it will simply lower their operating profit margins, but if you understand the math you will realize that is a lot of potential profit for a lot of people!

But aren’t all machines negative expectation games? you ask. Generally they are, but not always. And if you find the best pay tables it is easy for a video poker game to turn positive. You will not have a big up or a big down streak. Rather, you will have a rollercoaster of ups and downs forming a random walk of results. If you quit when you are far enough up to be satisfied, you will have a profit to take home or put towards your next session. I have never had a