Several days ago I was in Las Vegas chatting with a video poker player at the Palms. It was somewhat odd because he was playing and I was watching the game at the bar, yet he wanted to talk with me because he knew who I was and has always wanted to ask me some questions about both our styles of play. He had a little knowledge of my strategies, but the only way he had ever played was strictly according to the math.

The first question was simple. He asked how I had done this year, and I told him I was up $192,000. He then said: “Yeah right—but how much of that are comps, cash back, free-play, gifts and free stuff from the slot clubs?” I said zero. He looked back at me with a nervous smirk at first, and when he saw that I was serious he started to warm up with the conversation. I think what got him was when I said “You think I’m one of those gurus who needs to add in smiles from hosts and sunny days just to create a winning year out of a loser?” We both laughed, and the irony of it all was that this was the casino where the famous names usually play at in order to develop their amazing CYA stories.

When we got back to the issue of what he was currently playing, he was a little shy about explaining that he was involved in a play that was “worth” $24/hour because of the theoretically positive value he concocted out of the game, the points, and some silly promotion he added in - even though there was no guarantee he’d get any money at all directly from the machine. He had opened up the doorway to common sense, and I was more than ready to help him see several of the obvious administrative mistakes he was making as he played.

To get his attention focused, I dropped in a hundred and began playing a Bonus Poker game that was not close to being at 100%. And to make my negative EV play even worse, I told him I wasn’t using a slot card and I was not playing for any promotion. It was sacrilege to him and I could almost hear the moans. I was getting quite a kick out of the whole thing, because I hadn’t hit him with the heavy stuff just yet.

He came right out and called me foolish for playing a game where the casino has the clear advantage. I said “HUH?!---If you think you EVER have the advantage over any casino when you play video poker, you’re living in more of a fantasy world than even Madonna does at her own concerts.” He didn’t get that – as most advantage players wouldn’t at first. But when I asked him how many of the advantage players he knows or the gurus he reads about - who all say they wins tons of money all the time - have ever been given the boot because they are known to win and "play with an edge” he started to understand a little bit more of what’s meant by The Undeniable Truth About Video Poker.

Still, he clinged to his belief that he was playing at an hourly rate….one that had value to him. When I asked him how he was doing for the night, he actually had no problem telling me he was behind more than $700. That’s when he said it didn’t bother him, because at $24/hour he was really ahead about $72 in value. HUH? Of course, he’s using the old phantom bucks method of reporting results – as all advantage players do. At the same time, sort of as a mock, I got ahead by $5 and cashed out, saying “I just made $5 in 3 minutes, and guess how much value that is to me?” You know what he said? “You’re playing a negative expectation game so you’re experiencing negative value, and you did not win a thing”. Hmmm.....

So I cashed out, jumped over to the redemption machine, came back and showed him what $5 looks like. He was still adamant however, that his $72 in phantom bucks value was worth more than my actual $5 bill. I began wondering just how misled about serious video poker play this guy really was!

It really wasn’t all that confusing though. This fellow had been thoroughly brainwashed by the famous names and their marketing methods concerning optimal play and playing for promotions rather than playing to win money. And he was absolutely convinced that the more he played the better off he would be. When I asked him why, he just said that 1.4% of $4.5million is better than 1.4% of $2.2million. Just as when talking to the math geeks, he spewed out the same nonsense about video poker theory that’s helped multiple past gurus leave town in shame, or have to work their tails off at real jobs just to stick around and keep gambling money in their pockets in order to feed their daily habits.

When talking about my approach to playing he wasn’t much more intelligent. He claimed that my many smaller wins would never overcome the big losses inherent with playing progressively higher denominations. I couldn’t have agreed more...with the slight exception of one tiny but undeniably real fact: The large wins that come along the way which FAR more than make up for the few large losses.

Certainly, no advantage player wants to talk about my play strategy without leaving that important factor out. The best reason for this that I can figure is that it gives them stomach ulcers to admit it. Regardless, my new friend told me I could never be successful playing the way I did because it was just plain wrong to do so. Really? Here he was with a handful of phantom bucks and in a greater than $700 hole...while I was basking in my $5 profit!

Tell me – who would you rather be? The guy who’s supposedly “doing things right” as he plays exactly in the manner the casino brought him into play….or the guy that plays opposite how the casino expects him to – and takes a profit because he knew how to quit when ahead? It’s not that hard folks, and it’s not too late to eliminate all the misleading/misrepresented BS the gurus have bestowed on you with their “brilliance” throughout the years. I’ll bet you paid for it too, adding insult to that slap in the face! Talk to me and everything’s FREE, and as a bonus you will no longer be a slave to any slot club.