Educated Player
by Bill
Burton
This is my story of becoming an
Educated Player.
I grew up in a card playing family. I recall
many Sunday
afternoons when the adults would clear away the dinner dishes and break
out the
poker chips for an afternoon game. As a kid I was fascinated with the
game and
would pull up a chair to watch the action.
As I got older, I
would sit in on a
hand when someone took a break. It was a rite of passage when I was
finally
allowed to pony up my fifty cents for chips and take a seat at the
table. We
played draw, stud and all wild games such as baseball and deuces wild
that you
find in your typical “kitchen table” games.
After I learned to play casino games
properly, home poker
games lost their glamour. They could not compete with the excitement of
the
casino and games like blackjack, craps and video poker.
I
never gave much
thought to playing casino poker.
I made my first trip to Atlantic
City
in the early 80’s that consisted of playing the slots. After several
trips, I
started to notice that the table game players were having a lot of fun
and
getting quite a bit of attention from the casino personnel. I wanted to try some of
the games but was not
sure how to go about it. Around that time my friend Rich started to
tell me
stories of his friend Andy.
Andy was a big gambler who was a
Rated Player in Atlantic City.
He had a system for roulette and always came
back with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.
Since Andy had his rating card, and
it was his system, it
was only logical that he would place the bets and work his magic. My
friends
and I all agreed to put up $20 a piece. This $80 bankroll was surely
enough to
get us started.
After about twenty minutes of making bets,
Andy turned to us
and said we had hit a bad streak and were broke. Finally, after going
broke the
third time I was asked to put up some more money to keep the
partnership going.
This was a turning point for me. I told the guys to count me
out.
I told them that I had just lost $60
on a game I knew
nothing about without making a single bet. I was foolish to waste money
on a
game I knew nothing about. I vowed that I would become an educated
player and I
promised myself that from that day forward I would never gamble a penny
on any
game or event unless I had researched it and I was in control of my own
money.
That was the day I started to become an educated player.
I spent years studying how to play
the casino games and how
the casinos operated. I learned that blackjack, certain video poker
games, and
live poker are three games where a player can gain an edge.
When
Foxwoods opened a short distance from my home in 1992,
I was able to make more frequent trips to the casinos. I spent my time
there
playing blackjack.
In 1994 I made my first visit to Las
Vegas and immediately became a
frequent visitor. It
was in Las Vegas
that I discovered
the "full pay" video poker machines that offered over 100 percent
payback when played using proper strategy. These games kept me occupied
and I
never gave any thought to playing casino poker.
The opportunities for skillful
players are slowly dying
out.
The
casinos do not like the players
to have an edge in any game.
For example, casinos are doing
everything in their
power to stop card counters. In Las
Vegas
they can bar players. In Atlantic City
and other places where they can't bar players they have taken different
measures. They have multiple-deck games with lousy penetration, or they
will
choose to shuffle up on a player, or both. They can also restrict a
player to
flat betting a specified amount.
Profitable video poker
games are also starting
to disappear.
Many of the dollar games that offered over 100
percent payback
are now being offered only on the quarter machines.
Apparently more players are coming to
the same conclusion
about the loss of the profitable games because I started to receive
numerous
requests for information about live poker.
In order to
answer their questions
accurately, I decided it was time to learn how to play casino poker as
an educated player.
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