Chicago Sun-Times: Book signing visits draw questions from players

A new book always means chances to meet and greet readers as I make my way around area casinos, doing signings at their gift shops. With the release of my Video Poker Answer Book, I was meeting and greeting at the Empresses in Hammond on July 17 and Joliet on July 18. I hit the trail again Sunday afternoon in a signing hosted by Majestic Star in Gary from 4 to 7 p.m. Always, readers stop by with questions. Here's some of what was on players' minds during stops in Hammond and Joliet: Which video poker game is best? Double Bonus Poker? That depends on the pay table. There are good, so-so and terrible versions of just about every video poker game on the market. The full-pay version of Double Bonus Poker that pays 10- for-1 on full houses, 7-for-1 on flushes and 5-for-1 on straights in the long run returns 100.17 percent with expert play. Expert play is difficult on Double Bonus, and players who really attain that percentage are rare, but even average players will do better on this pay table than on most games. However, when the full house payoff drops to 9-for-1, the return with expert play drops to 99.1 percent, and when the flush payoff also is lowered to 6-for-1, it drops to 97.8 percent. The worst version of the game in this area pays 8-for- 1 on full houses, 5-for-1 on flushes and 4-for-1 on straights. It pays only 94.2 percent-and that's with expert play. Yuck. So it goes on any video poker game. In one casino, you might find the Deuces Wild is better than the Double Bonus, and in another the Jacks or Better might be stronger than either. The player who wants the best deal has to learn to compare pay tables. Do hand-held video poker games deal serially, or do they deal a shadow hand? Hand- held games for entertainment purposes only aren't regulated in the same way casino games are, and there's no way to tell how they're programmed. Casino video poker machines deal your five-card hand, then deal replacement cards off the top of the remaining 47 cards in the electronic deck. That's a change from when the games first hit the market in the late 1970s. Then, a "shadow hand" was dealt behind the first five cards. It was as if the cards were dealt in five two- card stacks. If you discarded the card in position No. 1, it was replaced by the card behind it in the same position. That's no longer the case. By the way, hand-held games are fun, but if you're going to learn strategy while you play, I'd suggest a good computer program. The software I use is Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker, by Zamzone. Do you gamble? What game do you play? I do gamble, although it seems I play less and less as life gets busier. I play everything from craps to slots, although most games I just sample from time to time to stay current for the sake of this column and other projects. When I'm playing for fun rather than business, the games I enjoy most are blackjack and video poker. In blackjack, you recommend hitting soft 17 when the dealer shows a 7, but standing on soft 18? Why? Aren't those almost the same hand? Soft 18 vs. a 7 is a very different situation from soft 17 vs. a 7. For the benefit of blackjack novices, let's slow down for a minute and explain "soft" hands. A hand is soft when an Ace is being counted as 11. Ace-6 is soft 17. So is Ace-3-3 or Ace-2-4. Soft hands can't be busted with a one-card hit because the player can always count the Ace as 1 instead. If you have Ace-6, then draw a 9, you don't bust with 26, you have a hard 16 and keep playing. Now then, we hit soft 17 when the dealer shows a 7 because that 17 is a loser in the long run. Seventeen wins only if the dealer busts, and a dealer who starts with 7 busts only 26 percent of the time. Of the 13 denominations of playing cards, eight either improve soft 17 or leave it no worse. (We improve the hand if we draw Ace, 2, 3 or 4, and stay at 17 with 10, Jack, Queen or King.) If we draw a 5 through 9, we can always hit again. With soft 18, we can win without the dealer busting. Our 18 beats a dealer's 17, and the dealer will turn up a 10 to make 17 nearly 31 percent of the time. Add that to the 26 percent of the time that the dealer busts, and we win considerably more than half of the time without even taking into account the times the dealer draws other combinations that total 17. Why would we want to break up a winning hand? When are you going to write a craps book? That's next. I'm expecting a contract from Bonus Books soon for the next in the Answer Book series. The Craps Answer Book should be ready for release in the fall of 2001.