Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 773

The Best Deals in Chicago-Area Blackjack

The columns for the past couple of weeks have been devoted to slot players and the best casinos to play their favorite games. Today and for the next several weeks let's focus our attention on blackjack, the ONLY casino table game (not including poker) where playing strategy has a direct impact on whether you win or lose. The mathematical odds fluctuate continually during a game of blackjack...read more

Better Buffet and Sandwiches to Savor

Food service at the Buffington Harbor casinos - Trump and Majestic Star - has taken a giant leap forward with the opening of the Passports World Class Buffet, managed by the Compass Group. On the first floor of the Buffington Harbor pavilion, it's in the same location as the old buffet - a dreary cafeteria-style line that satisfied neither Trump, Majestic Star nor the customers...read more

Try Hedging Craps Bets Sequentially rather than Concurrently

Some solid citizens garner great gratification from opportunities craps affords to hedge their bets. Qualitatively, hedging appeals to them as what seems like cheap insurance against costly losses. Quantitatively, well... folks who think hedging is a cute way to beat the bosses don't usually sweat the arithmetic too profusely. Hedges may be simple...read more

Designing a Robot to Beat Blackjack

If there is one thing online casinos fear more than any other it is a blackjack robot player, a computer program designed to play blackjack perfectly and tirelessly. Simply mirroring a robot's tireless playing patterns is enough to get your account frozen and your winnings confiscated from some casinos who offer blackjack games that can theoretically be beaten by card counting...read more

Those happy Caribs and the voiceless standees

Dear Mark, I have two questions regarding Caribbean Stud poker. First, is there any basic strategy for the game, and, do you recommend betting the progressive side bet? Miguel H. It's only fair, Miguel, before answering your questions to offer up a primer for those with little-to-zip knowledge of Caribbean Stud poker...read more

Life Among the Slots: Slot Luck

With trolls and angels, blue dots and crystals, slot players seek that winning edge. "You know what luck is? Luck is believing you're lucky…to hold front position in this rat-race you've got to believe you're lucky." Stanley Kowalski, A Streetcar Named Desire Slot-machine players are generally reasonable people...read more

Those Frustrating Low Pairs

I don't know about you but whenever I play a version of Jacks or Better Video Poker it seems like those low pair hands show up with an uncanny frequency and with the same uncanny frequency seem to seldom lead to anything fruitful. Yet, when I look at strategy tables they seem to rank right up there with four card straights and three card straight flushes...read more

Pay Tables Do Not Reflect True Odds

The payout table on a Jacks or Better machine makes one wonder what kind of abacus was used during the invention of the game. Now, mind you, I'm not complaining about the 99.6 percent payback it offers the expert players. I'm simply puzzled that the pay table does not reflect the true odds for each of the winning hands. Why should a full house pay 8- or 9-for-1 while the straight pays 4-1 and the flush 5-for-1, when we'll make more full houses (1 in 87 hands) then either straights or flushes? We'll make about the same number of straights as flushes, so why the premium on those flushes, when they both come up about once every 90 hands? At the upper end of the pay table, things are even more confused...read more

Ask Frank: Taking Down a Don't Pass Bet

Dear Frank, I have been playing craps for some time and saw something I've never seen before. The man next to me had a bet on the don't pass line. The point thrown was a 6. He removed his bet off the don't pass and moved it to don't come...read more

Hustler Days -- Fats, Lassiter, Red and America's Great Age of Pool

R.A. Dyer, a regular contributor to Billiards Digest, spent four years researching his book, Hustler Days (274 pages, hardbound, $22.95). He conducted more than 100 interviews. And i n a dozen chunky, detailed chapters, he has written one of the best, if not the best book I've ever read on the people, the history and what went on in the minds of the world's greatest pool players...read more