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Bigger prizes attract more players

The no-limit Texas Hold 'Em charity poker events at Great Lakes Downs can now live up to their no-limit name.

After the Michigan Lottery's Charitable Gaming Division removed the $500 cap on daily winnings for charitable gambling events, organizers of the popular local events at the Fruitport Township thoroughbred racetrack followed suit and increased the top prize money available. As a result, organizers said even more people are being dealt hands.

Shannon McDonough, co-owner of All-In Entertainment, a Spring Lake business that schedules and helps organize the Great Lakes Downs charity poker events, said the first Saturday Texas Hold 'Em tournament held after the $500 cap was lifted generated the largest number of players ever for a single tournament there. The 123 players played for a first-place prize that exceeded $1,400.

 

Casinos feed appetite for Texas Hold'em

Texas Hold'em keeps booming, and casinos keep looking for ways to feed players' appetites for the game. That includes casinos that don't even have poker rooms. We're starting to see games designed to feed that player appetite without casinos having to invest in outfitting card rooms, training dealers and providing a game that really isn't fast enough to provide the same kind of profit per square foot as a slot machine.One product designed to address both dealer training and speed of play issues is the PokerPro table, by PokerTek. Instead of using a trained poker dealer and decks of cards, PokerPro uses video screens and a random number generator. Currently available only for Texas Hold'em, plans are in the works to produce programming for other games, such as Omaha and seven-card stud.

PokerPro is just starting to find casino homes. Some smaller casinos that wouldn't otherwise offer poker are willing to give the video version a try, while the giant Hard Rock Seminole casinos in Florida use a couple of PokerPro tables to augment existing 50-table poker rooms. Either way, they offer some intriguing features both for operators and players. For one thing, they play faster than poker games with a human dealer --- nearly twice as fast. That gives them the potential for profitability that casinos need to see to justify turning floor space over to Hold'em. They can be configured to deal single-table tournaments, an attractive option to offer players. And there's no question of dealer error --- mistakes and disputes are minimized.

Future versions of PokerPro figure to take advantage of the potential of computerized gaming. Side bets on the next card, or virtual play vs. players at other tables for those who can handle two hands at a time are among the possibilities. PokerPro's not going to immediately revolutionize card rooms. The majority of players are going to choose live dealers where available. But look for PokerPro and its successors to grab an ever-growing niche.

Also growing is the niche for Hold'em-based games in the regular table games pits. The World Poker Tour All-In Hold'em game was approved for play in Nevada in November, with the initial launch at Bellagio, the Mirage and TI --- the casino formerly known as Treasure Island. Owned by Lakes Entertainment, the majority owner of the World Poker Tour, the game is designed to give players the excitement of declaring "all in" in an easy-to-learn game played player vs. dealer instead of player vs. players.

In this case, "all in" means 10 times your ante, the maximum bet after you've seen your cards. Along with the main game vs. the dealer, players also can make side bets on their hole cards or on the final value of their hands. All-In Hold'em has the advantage of the WPT name --- and that's a big advantage. But it's not the only Hold'em game on the market, nor is the WPT the only big name trying to leverage its brand into floor space and profits beyond the poker room. Progressive Gaming, which distributes the table game Texas Hold'em Bonus Poker, is introducing an enhanced version that carries a World Series of Poker license.

We have seen Texas Hold'em Bonus Poker in this region already at the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Ind., and it seems to be growing everywhere it's been introduced. The Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, which started with four tables, now has 10, and the customers keep coming. Play is against the dealer. You must ante, then after you've seen your two hold cards, either fold or bet two units to see the three card flop. After that, no more bets are mandatory --- you can check on the one-card turn and one-card river and still see the hand all the way to the end. You can bet on turn and river, too, if you like what you see.

There are bonus bets in Texas Hold'em Bonus Poker, and the new enhanced version will have a progressive jackpot. That's a natural for Progressive Gaming, which distributes Caribbean Stud Poker and other games with progressive jackpots. Shufflemaster is Progressive Gaming's main competitor as the distributor of new table games, and it has its own Hold'em game, Ultimate Texas Hold'em. As in the Lakes and Progressive games, play is against the dealer. After ante and blind bets, players can look at their first two cards, and decide whether to check or bet four times their ante. If they don't bet, they have the option of betting twice their ante before the one-card turn, and if they still don't bet, they must either bet equal to their ante or fold before the final-card river.

Also available is a Trips bonus bet, with players betting that their hand will include three of a kind or better. The Hold'em demand is just too big to ignore.

 

Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City has it all

When you walk in the front door at the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Ind., what do you see? Everything.

No longer do you have to walk through a narrow opening to get to the slots and tables. No longer is your first view just the restaurant doors and the big counter that used to be in front of the casino entrance. On Blue Chip's new boat with 65,000 square feet of gaming space on a single level, the entrance is wide, you get a full view of the casino floor and it feels as if you're walking into a casino building, not just heading toward the boarding ramp.

Oh, the casino is still on a boat, all right, but that's barely noticeable. "People ask, 'Where is the boat,' and I tell them, 'You're standing on it,' said Blue Chip community relations coordinator "D" Alexander Scott, who guided me through my initial tour of the facility.

Joining us was slot director Don Juzwiak, to explain the whys behind the way the casino floor was designed. His pride in the Blue Chip creation showed through, and that's only natural. It's casino experience unlike any of his Indiana and Illinois neighbors. In Illinois, operators are limited by the state's maximum of 1,200 gaming position per license. Blue Chip's closest Indiana neighbors in Gary, East Chicago and Hammond operate on boats that can't come close to putting enough gaming space on one level, leaving customers to climb stairs or ride escalators from deck to deck.

That space left Blue Chip free to design a floor that would draw the player's eye around the casino, giving clear options as to what direction to go to find the games of choice. Right from entry to the casino floor, there is purpose to the design. "We knew we would have this barrel vault," Juzwiak said, nodding toward a ceiling from 14 to 20 feet high. "We put slant top slots and video poker across the front because we didn't want to impede the view of the whole floor, and to give players something familiar that they'd recognize from before."

Just past the low-sitting reel-spinners and video poker games are one bank of tall machines, Pinball slots by Barcrest, to add a little excitement. To either side at the entry, players can see banks of progressive slots, each number on the progressive meter a different color --- an eye-catching touch.

There are almost mirror image touches as you proceed deeper into the casino. All the way to the far wall on one side are IGT Fort Knox multilevel progressive games. All the way to the far wall on the other side are Aristocrat Cash Express multilevel progresses. Pitting the popular Aristocrat product against IGT's new hit games is by design, too. "We told Aristocrat and IGT that's what we were doing," said Juzwiak, whose floor has games by WMS, Bally and Atronic along with Aristocrat and IGT.

Closer to the center of the casino, a look left finds a bank of $1 Win and Ride progressives, where the top jackpot brings a choice of $50,000 in cash or a $60,000 RV along with a year's worth of gas and training to drive and use the vehicle. To the right is the quarter version, Win and Drive, where the top prize could change with the seasons --- truck, boat, snowmobile. There's a dedicated video poker room, along with video poker scattered throughout the casino. The video poker itself needs some work --- pay tables are a couple of notches down from Majestic Star, Trump and Resorts, with games such as 6-5 Bonus Poker Deluxe and 8-5-4 Double Bonus Poker. That is something Juzwiak seemed interested in addressing, so be patient.

As for tables, for the first time Blue Chip has a craps pit, with five tables offering 20x odds. There's plenty of blackjack (six decks, stand on all 17s, double after split), with minimum bets starting at $5. Many of the blackjack tables offer the 21 + 3 side bet. Other games include roulette, mini-baccarat, Caribbean Stud, Three Card Poker, Four Card Poker, Let It Ride Bonus, Deuces Wild Hold'em Fold'em and Texas Hold'em Bonus.

A state of the art air filtration system can refresh air in the casino 15 times an hour. A plus for table games dealers: Mini-vents on the table tops directly in front of the dealer can blow gusts of air up, helping clear smoke. Scattered throughout the casino are 16 banking centers with kiosks that are more than ATMs --- you can break bills into smaller currency, or redeem cashout tickets from the slots without having to go to the cashier. Plasma screens throughout the floor play casino promotions, spotlight winners or just tune into TV --- on my day at Blue Chip, screens in the table pit were tuned to CNN and ESPN.

If space permitted, I could fill an entire column on dining options. The Options buffet is a big step forward, with six actions stations. I built my lunch around a tasty piece of rotisserie chicken that had been turning on the spit moments before I picked up my plate. Beyond Options are the Fixations coffee kiosk, Nelson's Deli and William B's Steak House --- I want to return and try the seafood stuffed lobster.

The new Blue Chip was two years in the making, but along with all the other sights, one thing was easy to see. It was worth the wait.

 

Q&A: Casino Surrender; Triple Play Poker vs. Five Play Poker

Question. I've heard that surrender is a good thing for blackjack players, even though you don't see it that often. Does the same thing go for Casino Surrender? I've seen it at three or four different casinos now, and I'm wondering if it's something I should be doing.

Answer. Despite its name, Casino Surrender seems more akin to the "even money" form of insurance than to surrender. In casinos that offer surrender, you are allowed to give up half your bet in exchange for not playing out a bad hand. You have what figures to be a losing hand more often than not, so you cut your losses.

With the even money form of insurance, a player who has a blackjack when the dealer shows an Ace decides to forgo the possible 3-2 payoff and accept even money instead of facing the possibility that the dealer also has blackjack. In that situation, you have what figures to be a winning hand more often than not, but fear the dealer and settle for cutting your win.

That's similar to the situation in Casino Surrender. The option kicks in when the player has a two-card 20 and the dealer has a 10-value card face up, but does not have an Ace down for a blackjack. When those conditions are met, you have the option of taking Casino Surrender, and get a payoff of half your bet instead of playing out the hand. If you've wagered $10, you keep your original bet and get paid $5.

Now, that may sound like a good deal to some, and I can just hear dealers around the country revamping the "It's the only sure win you'll ever get in the casino" speech that so many give players who are trying to decide whether to take even money on their blackjacks. But that 20 is a good hand, and even against a 10 it's a favorite to win more often than it loses.

On the average, you'll make a little more than $5.50 for every $10 you wager when you have a 20 and the dealer has 10 up without having a blackjack. The amounts vary a bit according to the number of decks in play and the composition of your 20. At www.wizardofodds.com, Mike Shackelford calculates that in a common six-deck game, your expected profit per $10 wager is $5.59 if you have two 10-value cards, and $5.55 if you have Ace-9. If you're playing a single-deck game, your expected profit rises a bit, to $5.85 with two 10-values, while staying at about $5.55 with Ace-9.

In every case, your expected profit is more than 10 percent higher if you play out the hand rather than taking the Casino Surrender option and settled for a $5 payoff. Like taking even money on blackjacks, Casino Surrender smooths out the volatility of the game a bit. You won't feel the lows of the times the dealer beats or ties your 20. But you also give up the highs of winning the full $10 on your $10 wager, and they outweigh the lows.

Is there ever a situation where it's the best play to take Casino Surrender. Sure, if you're a card counter. If the concentration of high cards remaining to be played outweighs the low cards by enough --- a true count of plus-4 for the Hi-Lo counters out there --- then it becomes worthwhile to take Casino Surrender.

But for the average, non-counter, basic strategy for Casino Surrender is that you should never take it.

Q. Does it make any difference whether I play Triple Play Poker or Five Play Poker? I don't really like the games with more hands, like Fifty Play or Hundred Play, but it's exciting to have more than one chance to draw a winner from the same start. One time, I held four parts of a royal flush, and missed it on the first hand, but got it on both the second and third! That made my day! In fact, it made my month!

That was on Triple Play. Are the odds any different on Five Play?

A. The odds on video poker games are determined by the pay tables, not by the number of hands you play. If you're playing 9-6 Jacks or Better, where full houses pay 9-for-1 and flushes 6-for-1, at expert level, in the long run you'll get back 99.5 percent of everything you wager whether you're playing one hand, three, five, 50, 100 or 1 million.

Where the number of hands you're playing makes a difference is in your bankroll. If you're playing for quarters, a single-hand maximum-coins bet is $1.25, while it costs $3.75 for Triple Play and $6.25 for Five Play. If your bankroll is tight, you're better off to play fewer hands.

As a personal preference, I like Triple Play because one three of a kind will get me my 15-coin bet back. On Five Play, one three of a kind plus four losers means I lose 10 coins overall. But that's just a personal quirk. In the long run there'll be more multiple winners on Five Play, and the payback percentages will come out the same.

 

Tower Poker -- video game with a difference

Among game manufacturers, International Game Technology has been the king of video poker from the very beginning. So naturally enough, it was IGT who had the biggest display of new video poker games at the gaming industry’s big fall trade show, the Global Gaming Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Opponents Poker. Big Times Draw. Ace Invaders. And the WPT Hold’em game I mentioned last week. But WMS Gaming wants a piece of the video poker action, too. And at the expo, WMS showcased a BIG video poker game --- Tower Poker.

This is a game with a difference. In Jacks or Better-based games, including Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker --- in fact, the whole Bonus family --- Tower Poker is a four-hand game. In Deuces Wild, it’s a five-hand game. Just as in most multiple-hand games, play starts with one hand. After the initial deal, you decide which cards to hold and which to discard, just as on any regular video poker game.

But here’s where Tower Poker departs from the usual. Any card you hold on the bottom hand goes up one denomination in the next hand up, and up again on the second hand, and once more on the fourth. Hold a Jack of hearts on the first hand, and it becomes a Queen of hearts on the second, a King of hearts on the third, and an Ace of hearts on the fourth. An Ace held closer to the bottom, though, rolls to a 2 on the next step up.

In Deuces Wild, a deuce held on the first hand becomes a 3 on the second, 4 on the third, 5 on the fourth and 6 on the fifth. Sound bad for the player, like you’re losing a wild card as you move up the tower? Never fear. On the second hand, 3s become your wild card, and wild cards become 4s on the third hand, 5s on the fourth and 6s on the fifth.

Jacks or Better-based games present some interesting strategy problems. What if you’re dealt 2-4-5-8-10 of mixed suits? In most video poker games, we’ll throw them all. In Tower Poker, that 10 becomes a Jack on the second hand, Queen on the third and King on the fourth. So we’ll keep a lone 10, accepting a weak bottom hand in order to start the other three hands with high cards. Sometimes the Tower feature will help, sometimes it won’t, but it’s always interesting.

Over at the IGT booth, Opponents Poker put an extra element of competition into video poker. You can win on in the usual video poker way against a pay table, but also have the chance to compete for a pot against two video opponents. You can bet up to five coins on your own hand, and also five coins on a pot against the two opponents. They start with the same cards you do --- it’s a matter of who outdraws whom. If you beat your opponents, you not only win the pot, you win any coins their hand would win against the game’s pay table. Tie, and the pot carries over until the next hand.

In intriguing game with a difference is Big Times Draw Poker. This one comes with a multiplier based on the highest card in your hand. If your high card is a Queen or King, you just get your winnings straight up. But if the high card is a Jack, winnings are doubled. They’re tripled with a high card of 9 or 10, multiplied by four with a high card of 6, 7 or 8, multiplied by 6 with a 4 or 5 high, by 9 with a 3 high or by 10 with a 2 high.

How do you get a 2 high? For purposes of the multiplier, Aces are low, just as they are in a Ace-2-3-4-5 straight. A hand consisting entirely of Aces and deuces would not only be either a full house or four of a kind, it would be a 2-high hand with a 10-times multiplier.

That opens some intriguing possibilities for hands with big bonus payoffs on four Aces. In Double Double Bonus Poker, for example, where four Aces plus a 2 usually brings 2,000 coins for a five-coin bet, Big Times Draw would make that a 20,000-coin bonanza.

Speaking of Ace bonanzas, check out IGT’s Ace Invaders. This is a Triple Play variation with three hands. Aces in the top hand will “invade” the middle hand, and Ace in the middle will “invade the bottom.” If you have three Aces up top and there are fewer than three Aces in the middle, the Aces will cascade down the screen, giving you at least three Aces in the middle. And if you have fewer than three on the bottom, those middle-hand Aces in turn will cascade down a level, bringing winners all the way around. However, if you already have as many or more Aces on a lower level as in the hand above it, the Aces will not fall from above. Still, draw four Aces on top, and that means Aces all around.

 

Hold 'Em migrates over to the slots

What's the hottest thing in gambling?

Texas Hold'em, of course, with televised events including the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour making the game a pop culture phenomenon that reaches far beyond casinos and card rooms. So it's only natural that casinos would want to tap into the Hold'em buzz and bring variations on the game to their slot floors.

Major slot manufacturers IGT and WMS Gaming have gone right to the source for their piece of the action, IGT with a license from the World Poker Tour and WMS with a license from the World Series of Poker. At the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, both were ready to shuffle up and deal out new games.

For its spin on Hold'em, IGT turned to Northbrook, Ill.-based Leading Edge, the designers of Multi-Strike Poker. Steven Demar, director of business development for Leading Edge, showed his enthusiasm as he led me over to try out the game at the IGT booth. "Hold'em is not an easy game to translate to a video game," he said. "The things that are exciting about video poker aren't part of Hold'em, and the things that are exciting about Hold'em aren't usually part of video poker. I think Larry did a really nice job in cracking this one."

Larry is Steven's brother, Leading Edge president Larry Demar. He took the Multi Strike concept in which players win their way up the ladder to hands that are worth two, four and eight times the original, and brought it to Hold'em. With no draw built into table Hold'em, the video game starts by offering the player a choice of two-card hands to start things off. And WPT Hold'em incorporates a "bad beat" jackpot --- any time the player starts with a pair of Jacks or better, and doesn't finish with a winning hand of two pair or better, he wins the bad beat pot and advances to the next higher-level hand.

In addition to the bad beat, a nice bonus feature is built into the game. If your initial two-card hand is good enough, it acts as a multiplier. A suited Queen-Jack doubles your winnings, and the multiplier ranges up to 10 times for a pair of red Aces. Payoffs are made on any hand of two pair or better, and the pay table looks strangely familiar to video poker players --- 10 coins for two pair, 15 for three of a kind, 20 for a straight, 30 for a flush, 45 for a full house. To make that work, all bets have to be made in two-coin increments --- they can't very well have you bet a single coin and pay you 7 and a half coins for three of a kind.

And any time the player is one card from a big-paying hand, the game drives home the World Poker Tour tie-in. Then, the voices of WPT television announcers Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten set the scene and heighten the excitement. When the big hand hits, Mike and Vince take center screen in video for celebration and analysis. WMS stayed closer to familiar video poker with its World Series of Poker license. In fact, the first WSOP game standard five-card draw video poker games --- the World Series connection is in name and graphics.

But in the second game, World Series of Poker Final Table, the WSOP connection heats up. It too uses standard five-card draw games such as Jacks or Better or Double Double Bonus Poker, but there's a built in bonus. In addition to your regular video poker hand, you see a two-card hand at the top center of your screen. Any time those two cards are a pair of Jacks or Better, you move on to the Final Table.

At the final table, you start off in 10th place and work your way up by winning hands of Hold'em. You're first given a choice of two-card hands. On your first hand at the final table, one of your choices will be the two-card hand that got you there. Since that's always at least a pair of Jacks, you'll usually choose to start with that. Then the rest of the hand is dealt. If your hand beats an onscreen opponent, you move up to ninth place, and get to play another hand, start with a choice of two fresh two-card hands.

Once you lose, the bonus round is over. The more hands you win, the higher you move up in the standings, and the bigger your bonus. Win nine hands in a row, and you're the World Series champion, earning the biggest bonus. When I tested the game at the expo, I went to the bonus round twice. The first time, I won two hands and lost the third, for eighth place, while the second time I won four hands before losing, earning the larger sixth-place bonus.

How often will you qualify for the bonus round? There are 1,326 possible two-card combinations in a single deck. Twenty-four combinations will take you to the bonus round. You'll get to the final table about once per 55 hands.

 

Coalition Forms to Protect Poker Playing

The United States Department of Justice has taken a clear stance asserting that on-line gambling violates the federal Wire Act, a 1961 statute which was passed long before the concept of the Internet was developed.

However, a careful review of the statute suggests that there are very strong arguments that the Act only applies to "bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest." A few years ago, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling which dismissed an action against a credit card company involved in on-line wagers because the government had failed to allege that the wagering involved was sports wagering. Each year ever since, Congress has considered a variety of legislative proposals to outlaw Internet gambling. To date, none have passed.

In the meantime, there has been an explosion in the growth of on-line gaming, with an unbelievable growth in the availability of on-line poker. Some of these sites offer wagering. Others are free play sites. Yet, others are structured as tournament sites where, for a minimal entry fee, a participant can compete for a large tournament winners prize.

Recently, a new non-profit organization was formed in Nevada named the Poker Player Alliance. This group intends to monitor ongoing legislative efforts in Washington, D.C., and to advocate on its members' behalf. Sam Gorewitz, the chairman of the board of the new alliance, summed up the group's mission to the Las Vegas Review Journal as follows: "The game is entrenched in American history. You can go back and find presidents, judges and Americans from all walks of life who play poker. All we're trying to do is to preserve that right."

Although the new alliance's focus is on federal legislation, a key question with regard to the legality of poker has to involve an examination of state law as well. The Poker Player Alliance has stated its intention to compile materials on the various potentially applicable state laws and post them on its website, www.pokerplayersalliance.org. In many states, including Michigan, state officials view poker as a form of illegal gambling, with certain limited exceptions (e.g., casinos and charitable gaming events). Thus, there may be significant implications to those who participate.

Poker is viewed by many to be a game of skill and luck. As a general matter in many states, most games of skill are not viewed to be forms of gambling because they lack the requisite element of "chance." One of the Poker Player Alliance's stated goals is to have poker be classified as a game of "skill" rather than of chance.

As poker continues to grow in popularity, it will be interesting to watch the political winds shift toward greater tolerance. To assure honesty, integrity and legitimacy within this growing industry, the best approach would be for clear legislative guidance on the issue. If the practice is to be allowed, proper licensing systems should be required.

 

Remembering a 'bad beat' that just wasn't bad enough

If you've been going to casinos as long as I have, you remember when poker didn't exactly have star quality. At more than one Las Vegas casino, I saw card rooms shrink to make way for more slot machines, move to a small room off the main casino floor, and eventually disappear entirely.

That's all changed, of course, and I wouldn't trade the new era of expanding poker rooms for any return to the old days. The era of televised poker has led to bigger, more comfortable card rooms, smoke-free rooms and operators who take care of poker players, just as they take care of their slot players and table games players. Still, I can't help but look back with a large degree of fondness at the late 1980s and my first time playing in a casino poker room, small and cramped as it was.

I'd played poker before, of course. Quite a lot of it. In college, two-cent ante games in the dorm paid for a lot of nights out back when draft beer was 35 cents a glass. When I worked at a newspaper in Colorado Springs, Colo., we used to have nickel-quarter games --- a lot of goofy wild-card stuff. My regular Chicago game was quite the contrary --- dealer's choice, but nobody ever called for a wild card. Nearly every hand was seven-card stud, high and low hands split the pot. Playing in a casino card room was different. There was no question of wild cards. Games offered were seven-card stud and Texas Hold'em. Period. I settled into a seven-card stud table along with six other players.

There was a "bad beat" jackpot, the first time I'd seen or heard of such a thing. A progressive meter was on the wall, just as on a bank of progressive slot machines, and the numbers mounted hand by hand. The bad beat was to be paid any time a player with a full house or better lost the hand. As I sat down the meter was just over $20,000. This was a low-limit, $2-$4 game, so the idea of winning $20,000 was the stuff of dreams, if not realistic ones. After a few hands, I was running low on chips, and drew a warning from the dealer. "You don't want to be caught short in this game," he told me. "If you go all in and others are still betting, you can still win part of the pot, but you can't win the bad beat."

I didn't want that to happen. I reached into my pocket for another $80. Then came the big hand. A pair of Queens face down, and another Queen face up. I bet, and but was raised by a fellow with a 6 and 8 of diamonds, and he was raised by another fellow with a Jack and 10 of mixed suits. At the next card, I struggled mightily to keep my face straight. It was the fourth Queen. I looked across the table, and saw a 9 of diamonds to go with the 6 and the 8, and looked a couple of spots to my left and saw an 8 to go with the Jack and 10. I was still betting, and they were still raising. By the time all the face up cards had been dealt, there was an obvious straight to my left. Him, I had beat.

Across the table, I saw 6-8-9-Ace --- all diamonds. He probably just had a flush. But what if that flush was straight? I'd have the bad beat --- a loser four of a kind worth 80 percent of that $20,000 jackpot, with 20 percent to Mr. Straight Flush. The last card was dealt face down, I bet, was raised, re-raised and I took the final raise. Time to show the cards. I turned mine up and said, "Four Queens." In a shocked voice, the fellow with the straight said, "What???" He never saw it coming. The dealer just grinned.

Finally, it was the moment of truth. The diamond man paused, smiled and turned up one club and two more diamonds --- a 2 and a King. It was "just" an Ace-high flush. The dealer announced to the room, "Four Queens. No jackpot." He was as disappointed as anyone. There went the big tip --- although he did get a little something from me. What did I get? A little over $100, a "one that got away" memory ... and this column.

Click Here for a $500.00 Bonus on your 1st Deposit at Absolute Poker.

 

This trillion-to-one shot probably didn't happen

Improbable things happen in casinos every day, just because there are so many trials.

Being dealt blackjacks on consecutive hands is a 440-1 shot, but it’ll happen pretty often in a casino that deals tens of thousands of hands a day. Drawing a royal flush in video poker is about a 40,000-1 shot. But casinos pay off several royals a day, because customers pay hundreds of thousands, even millions of hands per day. Still, there’s improbable, and then there’s improbable. And from an Indiana reader comes a tale that seems nearly impossible. It happened on April 1, but the reader says it’s no April Fool’s joke.

“I went to the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Ind., on April 1,” he said in an e-mail. “I was playing Three Card Poker and was dealt four consecutive straight flushes. Tthe first two were identical, 3, 4, 5 of hearts. I would like to know what the mathematical odds of this happening. How do you calculate this sequence of events? “Needless to say I was just overwhelmed, and floating in the clouds. I was surprised the casino didn't really acknowledge that it was a big deal. I wasn't looking for anything, but I thought it would be good advertisement for them. Guess I was wrong.”

How big a deal was it? Let’s put it this way. Nothing so improbable has ever happened at Blue Chip before, nor is it likely to happen again. It reminded me of the first big record-setting Caribbean Stud Poker jackpots at Empress Joliet. A man hit one for more than a record $400,000 when Caribbean Stud was new to the Midwest in 1995, then came back in 1996 and hit another for more than $660,000, another record-breaker. Caribbean Stud is five-card stud poker, meaning a royal is a 1 in 649,740 shot. When the second record-setter happened, I phone Las Vegas Advisor publisher Anthony Curtis, who couldn’t believe it. He in turn phoned mathematician and blackjack expert Stanford Wong, then phoned me back. “Wong says it didn’t happen,” Curtis said. It was just too improbable.

Three Card Poker is a different animal. A three-card straight flush happens A LOT more often than a five-card royal. Dealing three-card hands from a standard 52-card deck, there are 22,100 possible combinations. Of those, 48 are straight flushes --- we see a straight flush about once per 460.417 hands. To get the chances of two consecutive straight flushes, multiply 460.417 by 460.417. We’ll see back-to-back straight flushes about once per 211,984 trials. A third straight flush? Multiply by 460.417 again, and up to once per 97.6 million trials. A fourth? How about a 1 in 44.9 BILLION shot.

But the Blue Chip streak was even more improbable than that astronomical long shot. Remember, the first two straight flushes were identical. After any hand, your chances of receiving identical cards on the next hand are not 1 in 460.417, they’re 1 in 22,100.

Chances of being dealt a straight flush followed by an identical straight flush are 1 in 460.417 times 1 in 22,100 --- we’re already at more than 10 million to 1. Follow that up with two more straight flushes and we’re even out of the billions. Try 1 in 2.16 TRILLION. I can hear the wheels turning. OK, you might ask, how often would a casino deal such a streak? It’s a long, long, shot for an individual player, but don’t casinos deal enough hands that it’s inevitable that some player, some time, will hit a streak like that? Let’s put it this way. Royal flush jackpots at Caribbean Stud don’t hit every day, do they? Those progressive pots are usually months in the making. This Blue Chip player’s Three Card Poker streak was more than 3 million times less likely than landing a royal flush at Caribbean Stud.

If a casino has two Three Card Poker tables, always full with seven players at each table playing 50 hands an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the casino will deal 876,000 hands of Three Card Poker a year. And they’ll deal a straight flush, followed by an identical straight flush, followed by two more straight flushes, about once every two-and-a-half million years. Now, I don’t know how much the player was wagering, but I’m sure it all made for a nice payday. On the Pair Plus portion of Three Card Poker, straight flushes pay 40-1, the biggest payoff at the table. If the player was betting $10 a hand, he’d have won $400, then $400 again, and again, and again, for a total of $1,600. Nice, even if it doesn’t come close to measuring up to the odds against the streak.

What if he parlayed it all, betting his winnings on the next hand each time? Table limits on maximum bets would have made that impossible, but leaving that issue aside, he’d have won $400 on his initial wager, then he’d have won $16,000 on his $400 wager, followed by $640,000 on the $1,600 bet and $25.6 million on the last go-around. Even the biggest Caribbean Stud jackpots couldn’t match that. But then again, compared with this streak, Stud royals are almost a common occurrence.

 

Betting the progressive in Caribbean Stud

"Well, should I or shouldn't I?"

The voice belong to Mark, who had attended a couple of seminars I'd given. I'd seen him in casinos a couple of times before. This time, he was sitting at a Caribbean Stud table as I was passing, checking out available games and table limits. I stopped and asked what it was he should or shouldn't do. "Make the progressive bet. It's terrible odds, isn't it? Should I just skip it?" I didn't want to hold up the game. I told him the bet was a long-shot, but it was his decision. He could find me later if he really wanted a lengthy discussion.

"What the heck," he said. "I came to gamble." He plunked in his dollar on the progressive bet, and was dealt a pair of 8s. The progressive bet was a loser, but he won on his ante and got his bet back --- the dealer didn't have a qualifying hand. Mark grinned. "Won enough for a few more bets on the jackpot, anyway." I moved on, but Mark found me later while I was playing a little video poker. "Did I catch you at a bad time?" No, I told him, I was ready for a break.

"So tell me what you really think of that progressive bet? Is it something I should just skip?" That depends on why you're playing Caribbean Stud, I told him. Are you just relaxing a bit over a game that's easy to play, or are you jackpot hunting? "A little of both, really. Mostly I play blackjack. Basic strategy stuff --- I never really got into counting cards. Still, you have to pay attention, and when my concentration starts to go, I do something else for a while. Maybe I'll fool around with 20 bucks on the nickel slots, or sometimes I'll play a little Caribbean Stud." I nodded. Basic strategy for Caribbean Stud is much easier than that for blackjack. The cost is high, though. A blackjack basic strategy player can get the house edge down to about a half percent on a six-deck game, a few tenths more or less depending on house rules. At Caribbean Stud, even if you play well, the house edge is 5.2 percent of the ante or 2.6 percent of total action.

"I know that, and it's a break-time game for me. But I also like the idea that I can win pretty big, pretty fast when the cards run good. You don't have to have great cards, full houses or flushes or anything, but get some two pairs and some three of a kinds and it's really sweet. When you're being paid 2-1 or 3-1 on hands like that instead of just even money like in blackjack, that stack of chips can grow in a hurry."

It can shrink in a hurry, too, I reminded him. Winning hands are much less frequent in Caribbean Stud than in blackjack, and most of the winners are pair or lower hands, or hands in which the dealer doesn't qualify. On those, you'll still get only even money.

"Right, but there's always the chance at a big one, and some real money. I'm not greedy. I know the royal flush is pretty unlikely, but give me 7-1 on a full house and I'm a happy man. Give me 20-1 on four of a kind, and it makes my day. If I throw in the extra dollar and get back another $75 on the full house or $100 on four of a kind --- it's pretty exciting." I told him the question is whether the excitement is worth it on a bet you win so rarely.

"But if you watch the jackpot level, you can get a pretty decent house edge, right? It's not always an awful bet." On the standard pay table --- $50 on a flush, $75 on a full house, $100 on four of a kind, either $5,000 or 10 percent of the jackpot on a straight flush or the full jackpot on a royal flush --- the break-even point is about $263,000.

But the house edge isn't the entire issue. Even if the jackpot is very large and the house edge is very low, or players have the edge, the likelihood of winning is very low. In five-card stud poker, there are 2,598,960 possible hands. Only four of those are royal flushes --- one royal per 649,740 hands. The most frequent winners on the progressive bet are flushes --- about one per 509 hands. Add up all the winners, and you'll still average a winner only once per 273 hands. "And that doesn't change with the bigger jackpot?" That doesn't change. Frequency of winning hands remains the same, it's only the size of potential rewards that changes.

"But do you know how horrible I'd feel if I got dealt the royal and didn't bet the progressive? I think I'd rather lose the dollars than to risk that." Then that's your answer, I told him. "Still, one winner per 273 hands? That's tough," he said, smiling as he left. "I think I'll keep a countdown."

 

How to Win No Limit Hold'em Tournaments

Don Vines and Tom McEvoy have written a timely, cut-to-the-chase work titled How to Win No Limit Hold'em Tournaments (367 pages, paperbound $29.95). Vines, a relative newcomer to writing about the game but a veteran of no hold'em in medium buy-in events, has won more than three dozen titles including the World Poker Open and Orleans Open. McEvoy, 1983 World Series of Poker winner at Binion's, has written many books, including Championship No-Limit Hold 'em.

This collaborative effort contains 15 chapters beginning with the key concepts of no-limit hold'em (including the importance of position, good starting hands in middle and late position), the basics of tournament play (including freezeout and rebuy tournaments), skill versus luck, the different stages of tournaments, making a double bet, underbetting the pot and building your stack. The sections on when to play aggressive, when to bluff and when not to bluff are some of the most important in the book--which does a nice job of assisting beginners on their understanding of tournament structure and tactics.

For those interested in winning strategies for low stakes, or medium and high stakes tourneys, the material is written in a relaxed, yet structured format. The book moves into high gear from pages 213 on when offering advice on no-limit hold'em play (including check-raising and slow-playing); then discussing specific tournament situations; adjusting your tournament play (based on fast (20 minutes); medium or slow-action (60 to 90 minutes) tourney formats. A section is also devoted to adjusting based on the size of the field (fewer than 100 entries to more than 1,000 players).

For those who plan to enter online tournaments the book has some material to prepare the novice. The final three sections examine fatal flaws and how to fix them (including betting the wrong amount; playing too many hands; playing marginal hands out of position; misreading opponents; not raising when you should); and how to manage your tournament bankroll; with the final area probing successful playing styles (aggressive; super-aggressive; unpredictable; conservative, etc.)

 

Casinos rake in deserted jackpots

Detroit's gaming halls keep $650,000 since '03 from unredeemed receipts that expire after 180 days.

Two Detroit casinos have pocketed about $650,000 since 2003 in winnings that forgetful gamblers neglected to claim before they expired. The winnings, issued on paper tickets that expire after 180 days, were among $12.6 million in uncashed prizes and chips at all three casinos over the last 30 months. Unlike abandoned awards from the state lottery and racetracks, most of which are returned for public use, casinos keep the unclaimed cash.

"It's just pure gravy for them," said Anthony Curtis, editor of Las Vegas Advisor, a consumer newsletter that tracks casinos. "A lot of those tickets simply walk out the door and never return." Unlike chips, newfangled paper tickets that many MGM Grand Detroit and Greektown slot machines emit in place of coins expire. After that, the cash boosts their bottom line. "The winner is the loser, and that's not right," said casino regular Leonard Wesley, 31, of Detroit. Cashless slot machines became the rage industrywide about three years ago as a way to replace heavy tubs of metal tokens.

Known as "ticket-in, ticket-out," the technology lets players insert bills or coins into a slot machine and get their prizes or unwagered money back in the form of a bar-coded paper ticket. Patrons can take the voucher to another machine to continue gambling or insert it into an ATM-like device to claim their cash. MGM Grand Detroit installed the cashless gaming machines in late 2002 and 2003; Greektown followed suit in 2004. Thanks to forgetful patrons, MGM Detroit has snapped up $331,335 in unclaimed tickets since 2002, while Greektown has reaped $318,370 since 2004.

"The vast majority of these uncashed tickets are very, very tiny, like under a dollar in value," said Bob Berg, spokesman for MGM Detroit Grand.MotorCity Casino is running a trial program with coinless technology, but it does not use paper tickets for payouts. Winnings with the Club Metro Card program are logged into the gamblers electronic account, but the casino does not claim the balance as revenue, according to Rhonda Cohen, chief financial operator at MotorCity.

Uncashed table-game chips account for the majority of the unclaimed prizes in Detroit casinos, about $3.3 million in Metro Detroit last year. Casinos expect a certain number of chips to be in circulation at any given time. But chips and tokens don't expire, so many gamblers, such as Doug MacPherson, 25, of Sterling Heights, can return them. "I always have a couple of low-value chips in my pocket when I get home, and I just throw them in a junk drawer," he said. "I'll get them out when I go to that casino again."

Michigan allows the casinos to record the value of unredeemed tickets and chips as income because it is standard industry practice, according to Dan Gustafson, executive director of the Michigan Gaming Control Board. Michigan emulated Nevada in allowing expiration dates on ticket-in, ticket-out slips because that's the jurisdiction in which the technology was first developed, according to Gustafson. Louisiana regulations also permit the slips to expire, but New Jersey casino regulators specified that the slips may not expire when they ruled to permit coinless technology.

Michigan legislators approved the technology that allows casinos to have ticket-in, ticket-out machines. Gaming regulators in Michigan, except for special requests, don't know how much cash the casinos reap when gamblers walk off with uncashed tickets. That differs from the policies in place for other forms of gambling, such as the Michigan Lottery and unclaimed horse racetrack winnings.

Unclaimed Michigan Lottery cash funnels into the state's School Aid Fund, a restricted fund that can only be used for education, according to lottery spokeswoman Andi Brancato. Michigan Lottery players missed out on $31 million worth of lottery winnings in 2004, including Michigan's portion of two Mega Millions jackpots totaling $5.9 million.

Meanwhile, people who bet on the ponies at Northville Downs and Hazel Park Harness Raceway walked away without cashing more than $1 million in 2004, the bulk of the $1.4 million that racetrack bettors left behind statewide last year. Track patrons have 60 days to collect their winnings before betting slips expire. Michigan's seven racetracks keep half of the value of uncashed wagering slips, called "outs" in track lingo. The other half goes to the Michigan Agricultural Equine Fund, which provides the purse money for horse-related competitions at county fairs, said Dominic Perrone, spokesman for the Office of the Racing Commissioner.

"It creates incentives to breed and race horses in Michigan," he said. Casinos could take a tip from the lottery and racetracks and funnel the unclaimed winnings toward the public good, said Mary Koczara, a small-business owner from Farmington. "It's really not their money because someone did win it," she said. "It should go to the school aid fund." Gustafson said a Michigan lawmaker about a year ago requested data on unclaimed winnings, but that no legislators have proposed diverting the unclaimed winnings into a state fund. Any money found on a businesses property -- whether it's a stray dollar bill or uncashed casino prizes -- is the property of the business, he said.

"If you find $20 lying on the floor in Wal-Mart, legally that $20 belongs to Wal-Mart," he said. "In this case, anything left or not collected at the casino is the property of the casino." Casinos also each year have patrons who neglect to claim a jackpot for reasons other than minor forgetfulness. Gamblers must give their names, addresses and Social Security number for tax purposes for jackpots of $1,200 or more, and those with felony arrest warrants might opt to duck out, Gustafson said.

"Slips are very convenient because you just stick in it the payout machine and you don't have to wait," Koczara said. "But cashing chips can take some time. If the line is long, you're going to say forget it, I'll get it next time." MGM spokesman Berg said like checks and coupons, expiration dates are needed to help keep accounting books accurate. "It has to be written off after a period of time. You just can't leave it on the books forever," he said, adding MGM will cash expired tickets, but that patrons rarely bring them in. Greektown will also honor an expired ticket.

The industry's love affair with the electronic ticket payment machines is mainly based on the cost-saving attributes of machines, said Curtis, the Las Vegas gaming expert. But the technology also capitalizes on human error. "Without question, they are absolutely making more money because of this," he said. "It's great for the consumer, but there is that problem that people forget or don't bother. It's an extra for the casino."

Tackling Texas Hold 'Em basics
 

Dear Mark, My elderly mother was the typical little old lady in tennis shoes who enjoyed going to a casino and playing video poker. However, because of health problems for the last few years, she is, for the most part, housebound and can't go. She has a little handheld poker game, but it isn't satisfying for her. However, she has recently discovered Texas Hold 'em poker shows on cable TV and really enjoys watching them. But there are some things she doesn't understand about the game, & they never seem to explain them. For instance: What is the "button" and why is it an advantage to be "on the button?" What are the blinds? Are they like an ante? Why do they keep raising in value?