Well, there’s no truly getting away from it all, but I always do have the last word…

Critic. Hmm. That sounds like the definition of me when I came onto the video poker writer’s scene in late 1999. I not only had developed the only true winning Play Strategy I’ve ever heard of – I was on a mission to expose all the misleading information being dished out daily by every other video poker writer around. At that time I did so via chat forums – one of which was through my own site. That has changed.

About a year later my book was out to allow everyone the opportunity to see what I had uncovered. Then in Dec. 2000 the Publisher of Gaming Today in Las Vegas, after an unsuccessful string of boring long-term strategy style writers who wrote the same mathematically laced articles over and over again, asked me to be their video poker columnist after reading and agreeing with most of the concepts brought forward in my book. I am now well into my 7th year, and my column The Undeniable Truth continues to be their most popular weekly read.

Along the way I’ve made nearly three-quarters-of-a-million dollars in profits from the game (FROM THE MACHINES ALONE, and NOT by including inflated values of comps, gifts, or any other BS as the gurus who claim they always win do in order to push all their vp paraphernalia) -- actually starting with my revised play (from long-term strategist loser to short-term/goal-oriented strategist winner) in Jan. of 1997. It also has brought a line-up of critics my way. Skip Hughes – who operates a fee-based video poker information group I believe is called ‘vp-mail’, was so infuriated by the fact that I reported how the “famous names” only sold continuous misleading computer-perfect play information so as to make as much as they could from an unsuspecting public via video poker product sales, that he was first to give my book a scathing review. These mathematical models, probability theories, nonsensical risk-of-ruin calculation charts, and of-no-added-value bankroll requirement spreadsheets all LOOKED good to people because of their irrefutable basis in math, but have no validity to players wanting to gamble TODAY to win money. It’s always been a game of common sense, and has never been an exam of any kind. Skip just didn’t want players to see the truth.

Bob Dancer, who after backing away from a bet he offered me that I accepted while upping the stakes, called his review “Undeniable Truth Is Undeniably Wrong”. (See www.casinogaming.com Nov. 07, 2000). But I hold no grudges. To prove that I only write what I believe to be true, when his book “Million Dollar Video Poker” came out in the latter part of 2002, I enjoyed it so much that I wrote a very complimentary review for my paper (see www.vptruth.com go to ARTICLES, see Jan. 4, 2003 Million Dollar Video Poker Is Undeniably Good).

Dan Paymar is Dan Paymar. If you can’t explain it with a slide rule presentation, he can’t follow you at all. So he wrote his own difficult-to-follow review of my book that wasn’t flattering to say the least. As in all his reviews, Dan ultimately reverts back to self-praise, and tries unsuccessfully to tie his ‘subject’ in knots with mathematical risk of ruin babble that makes no sense whatsoever. He’d be better off sticking to peddling his ‘Cue Cards’ and several books of repetition - and keep his argument regimen for year-end sales contest results between his and Hughes & Dancer’s Strategy Cards. It’s no mystery why he ran away from Las Vegas to hide away from the machines.

No discussion of Rob Singer critics is complete without bringing up Jean Scott. This attention-seeking, marketing-dynamo-to-the-unprepared for the sake of her own image has complained to the Travel Channel as well as a Las Vegas radio station about my appearances. Much of her wrath is due to my disbelief in her show – which portrays to her followers that she always wins BIGTIME, while being constantly showered with more casino gifts, praise, and comps than anyone alive. All this while NEVER causing a casino manager to even blink an eye at her appearance in their casinos, where she not only takes them for their profits all the time...she gets all the freebies to go with it! This is one INVISIBLE Advantage Player!

Naturally there are some wannabe critics who’ve never made it, but use forums as a means to protest their jealousy of others. I used to write on several video poker forums, but will no longer do so. For one thing I’ve gotten my message out, and since my weekly Gaming Today articles go up on my site, the truth is always available to everyone. I also see no sense in wasting time battling with critics any longer – most of whom cannot win at the game with their supposed mathematical approach, and as a result reduce themselves to their insignificant inner-person when talking about me. One such blinded critic—and totally embarrassed gambler—is Steve Fezzik from the LVA’s Fezziksplace.com. He enjoys calling me names and delivering unsupportable assertions about my strategies and my overall record, yet when faced with THREE challenges from me about his vitriol, he scampers away with no backbone. When I left his forum I even challenged him to a football betting contest—something he brags about NEVER turning down with anyone anywhere—yet when faced with the prospect of going up against me he wimped away like a scared naked child. It’s like he’d rather live in his make-believe world about me being a phony just so he can be at peace with his failure at being professional gambler. I do not accept ANYONE who runs a network of money people to make his bets as being a “professional gambler”. Anyone who uses backers, teams, or credit lines to bet is a true losing gambler. Fezzik proved to me and everyone on his forum what a disgrace he truly is.

Critics…Where would we be without them? Like the role the laughable Fezzik plays, successful people use them for the notoriety. All of the above have said years ago that I’d be gone soon enough, so not to worry. But now that I’m the most successful player ever – and the most popular video poker columnist that’s ever written for a major gaming publication – I’ll be glad to supply the beer so they can cry their tears in it.

Rob