Video poker triumph

1 January 2015

By John Grochowski

I get a lot of e-mail from video poker players, but it mostly has to do with strategy fine points. Slot players share stories of big jackpots and table games players tell of unusual streaks or strange interactions, but video poker players stick to whether you should hold a 3 along with three Aces in Double Double Bonus Poker.

Nonetheless, I’ve collected a few tales of video poker triumph. After all, the thrill of victory is more fun to share than the agony of defeat:

Marcia: I’d never hit a royal flush before, not even for free play. My husband has had lots of them. He plays more than I do, but still, after more than 20 years of playing, you’d think I’d have one royal.

We were on a plane for Las Vegas, and he was napping. I was playing Jacks-or-Better on my iPad, and I drew a royal in diamonds. It wasn’t for money, but I was so excited. I gave a little scream, woke up my husband, had other passenger looking over to see what was what, and the flight attendant came to see if anything was wrong. I said, “I got a royal!” A couple of men across the aisle were making fun of me for getting so excited with no money involved. But Chris, my husband, said now maybe I’d get one in Vegas.

You know what? I did! That same night. We were at Paris, and I got royal, again in diamonds. This time it was $1,000, and printing that cashout ticket was sweet. But I think I was even more excited for the one on the plane!

Steve: This was at the Stardust in Las Vegas, just a few years before it closed. They had a pretty good quarter Double Bonus Poker game, and a lot of people used to walk past it on their way to the showroom. I’d had a royal flush, and then my friend Pete called out, “Hi Steve!” I didn’t even know Pete was in Las Vegas, but he said he and another friend were on their way to the showroom to see Gene Pitney. He asked if I was doing any good, and told him about the royal. And then another one came up! I held King-Queen of clubs, and draw Ace-Jack-10 while Pete and I were talking. We both had a good story to tell when we got home!

Will: Here’s one for the combining business with pleasure department. A trade group having a conference at a casino near my home hired me to be their before-dinner speaker. I’m not big-time on the speaker circuit or anything, I just have a little local notoriety and am able to pick up a few extra dollars here and there.

I was a little early, and the casino had dollar 9-7 Double Bonus Poker, so I decided to play a little. It wasn’t very long before I was dealt four 2s. That was $400, and I thought that would augment my fee nicely, and I cashed out.

The speech went well – at least a few people were interested enough to ask questions – and I was feeling pretty good. So I decided to take $100 back into the casino, and found 8-5 Bonus Poker on a Triple Play machine. I was dealt the Ace, King, Jack and 10 of clubs, and when I hit draw, I got the Queen not once, but twice! That was a $2,000 jackpot, more than my earlier win and the fee combined! I took all that home, too. I do know when to quit.

Noreen: My husband Irv and I were on a three-night trip to Biloxi, the first time we’d ever gone on an overnight casino trip, and we didn’t really know how to budget it. We figured we’d charge meals to our room and use credit cards when we went anywhere, and we brought $800 for gambling and incidentals. It went fast! Neither one of us did any winning, and at the beginning of the last day I decided to take a chance.

I took the last $100 — or close to it, we still had a couple of $20 bills for walking around if worst came to worst — and I put it in a dollar Bonus Poker machine.

It wasn’t going any better there. With the last $5, I turned to Irv and said, “Honey this is it. After this we’re sight-seers for the day.” Believe it or not, that’s when I drew four Aces! Suddenly, we had $400 to play with. We got pretty conservative after that. We just walked around and tried penny slots we’d never played before, had a good time and brought more than $300 home. I’d call that a moral victory.

Look for John Grochowski at www.casinoanswerman.com, on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/7lzdt44) and Twitter (@GrochowskiJ).