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John Grochowski Gaming Guru - Page 40  Where's my royal?17 January 2019
QUESTION: I play video poker once a week, a couple of hours at a time. I can be that specific because my wife and I go with friends every Thursday morning. It’s the eight of us, and we never miss a week. We have breakfast, go play, have lunch and come home. Last year was the first in a long time that I didn’t get a single royal flush. ... (read more)
Betting styles13 January 2019
Readers’ tales of big wins almost always come from slot players, with video poker players making up a substantial minority. Rarely do they come from table players. That’s normal given the nature of the games. A huge win on the slots can strike in a single spin. When table players have winning sessions, it usually means grinding out more wins than losses over extended play. ... (read more)
A rule for 6:5 blackjack games10 January 2019
QUESTION: Knowing that we must avoid 6:5 blackjack payoffs should be rule No. 1 for players, but let's assume we have a need to play (whatever the reason) and that's the only game in town, there is really no such thing as "even money" anymore, is there? As an example, we bet $10, have a blackjack and the dealer shows an ace. ... (read more)
Happy New Year!6 January 2019
As 2018 morphs into 2019, I begin my 26th consecutive year of writing casinos columns on a weekly — and sometimes twice weekly — basis. It’s been a long, strange trip filled with change in games and technology. But there have been constants. For me, one is my annual tradition of New Year’s resolutions for gamblers. ... (read more)
Doubling soft 17 hands3 January 2019
QQUESTION: I read something you wrote about doubling down on soft 17 vs. the dealer’s 3, 4, 5 or 6, and something about it just seems off kilter to me. In every case, you said the average profit per dollar of your original wager when you double was very nearly twice the profit when you hit. For A-6 vs. ... (read more)
Those other machines30 December 2018
Most of the slot machines I write about come from a few large companies – International Game Technology, Aristocrat Technologies and Scientific Games (which now holds both Bally and WMS) command the most attention, with Incredible Technologies, Konami Gaming, Everi and international giant Novomatic claiming pieces of the pie. ... (read more)
Drawing to a flush at video poker27 December 2018
QUESTION: I had a night where the straights and flushes just weren’t coming in 9/6 Double Double Bonus Poker. I know sometimes they do. A few times ago, I made the flush the first five times I had one-card draws. This last time got me thinking, though. How bad is it to hold a high card instead of four parts of a flush. ... (read more)
Doubles and soft hands at blackjack23 December 2018
I’ve often mentioned Bob, my blackjack-playing friend and a retired high school math teacher. A little over a year ago, I also wrote about Mike, Bob’s son, a middle-school science teacher who was drilling himself on strategy for soft doubling. Mike got in touch with me recently to say he’d mastered soft doubling, but was having a run of bad luck on the hands when playing for money. ... (read more)
More decks means more edge20 December 2018
QUESTION: Please explain to me why the house edge is higher when there are more decks in blackjack. The proportion of the cards is exactly the same. How does just adding more cards in the same proportions help the dealer? ANSWER: This is a question I used to get a lot more often, but there are many fewer one-deck games than there used to be. ... (read more)
Super Double Poker16 December 2018
Video poker is always high on my list of games when I hit the casinos, but on some variations, years can pass between sessions. So on a November outing, when I touched the icon to launch Super Double Bonus Poker, I had to think a little and play a little slower than usual. Complicating matters was that this ... (read more)
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