What is it with these people who don’t want to believe how large a role luck plays in determining if you win or lose playing video poker? Sure, they want to believe all that time they put into practicing hands on their home computers and understanding pay tables, promotions and slot card use is what shaped their session. But with very little contribution from or a complete absence of luck? Please.

These misled math people are the same ones who are afraid of reality itself, so they spend long hours on their computers living in a virtual world of fantasy. To them, everything is a problem to be solved and every answer is attained through the mere application and calculation of numbers. They tend to reside in a universe where a particular RANGE of answers is good enough for them, because nailing down an absolute is – and can we say this without scaring them to death? – the result of actually DOING something instead of theorizing about it!

Video poker is a game where one must know what they’re doing in order to compete. But isn’t that something we all learned in Jr. High School? I mean, who sits at a machine and doesn’t know what the game of poker is all about? In machine form, all you’re doing is playing against it instead of other players, and since every card has a number assigned to it, such a math-driven game gives more pleasure to geeks than them being the focus of a roomful of naked divas.

But is the game really devoid of any luck? Hardly, and as you’ll come to realize by the end of this article, you will see that 95% of the game of video poker is determined by luck, and a player’s overall results depend on how he/she continuously reacts to it. There is no reason to be disingenuous when it comes to the role of luck, and those who try to diss it are the ones who struggle with being able to beat the game.

Years ago I too was fascinated with the thought that very little luck was involved with winning, advantage play video poker. But as time moved on, it was all so easy to see right through. People weren’t TALKING about this type of strategy – they were SELLING it! They were trying to brainwash players – and some still do, although to a lesser extent since I came along – into believing luck had very little if anything to do with their play results. After all, as they said “it’s all just simple math, where probability dictates what should happen over time”. And who in their right mind would be able to argue classroom mathematics?

Well, I did, and the spinsters have had acid churning in their stomachs ever since. You see, those who play long-term strategy would never accept that a dealt quad is the result of machine luck. They want it to be related somehow to what the math says should occur over an indefinite amount of time. But if that truly were the case, how do they explain this event? When I go out to my garage I expect my car to start. If it doesn’t, is it because of the math or because I was just unlucky on that day? Similarly, if I find a $20 bill on my daily walk tomorrow, would it be because I had a moment of luck...or because 2+2=4? You figure it out.

Traditionally and practically, math is involved in all aspects of our everyday lives. However, putting too much emphasis on it turns most scenarios into theoretical events, and the world just does not revolve around theory. My approach to video poker clearly states that my considerably successful results are due to 95% luck and maybe 5% skill – the only skill being the ability to understand the game of poker and being able to push the proper buttons. But there is also some – and maybe a LOT of – skill involved in learning how to treat the good fortune that comes along. I’ve mastered that better I think than anyone else who plays the game, and as a result I have profited beyond the comprehension levels of most players.

The way some of the math people would have it, we would all be playing the game according to some great, overriding pre-determined design – developed by science and driven by impeccable logic. In short, their theory says that we are all robots all the time, so whatever happens to us at the machines has been pre-determined by some higher authority that is incapable of erring on the side of luck.

That’s where I come in...that’s where good old common sense needs to make an appearance. You want to know why there are so many advantage player scalps scattered all over the streets of Las Vegas when they thought they were always and only playing with some sort of perceived edge? Just take a look at the previous paragraph. Then say your prayers so that it never happens to you!