Review of The Best of Video Poker Times
- Title:
- The Best of Video Poker Times
- Author:
- Dan Paymar
- Publisher:
- Dan Paymar
- Date:
- 1996
- ISBN:
- -
- Pages:
- 76
- Price:
- $24.95
August 19, 1998
The Best of Video Poker Times is a collection of some
of the better articles from the bi-monthly Video Poker Times
magazine published from 1993 to 1996. For those people seriously interested
in playing video poker to win, this periodical is an important source
of strategy, updated information, and bankroll advice to help the
VP professional stay on top of their game and the serious non-professional
get the best edge possible.
The book is divided into several sections. The first covers game
strategies. Many games are covered here with pay schedules both
above and below 100% payback. Some of these games are unavailable
at the present time, but if these pay tables ever show up again,
and every now and then they do,
the savvy player will be ready. The pay tables listed here do not
include the most popular games, like full pay Jacks or Better or
full pay Deuces Wild, because those strategies are listed in many
places. They are also not nearly as comprehensive as Frome's
Winning Strategies for Video Poker, but there are some
games listed here I have not seen elsewhere.
The second section covers bankroll considerations. This includes
articles on evaluating a game's volatility, risk of ruin, bankroll
requirements, etc.. These articles are pretty good, but a lot of
this information is discussed in other places. Some of this information
is fresh, but much of it isn't.
The third section is titled "Miscellaneous Articles" and include good
articles suggesting that VP professionals not act like jerks and bleed
good games dry. It's important that the casinos make money off the
machines that pay back better than 100% or they'll get pulled from the
floor. This also means encouraging non-professionals to play (and lose
money at) these games. Similarly,
there are other good articles on the cost of errors and the future
of video poker.
However, there are some other articles I don't think are very
good, like those suggesting that certain hands are more likely to
follow other hands than one would expect from random chance. The human
brain is exceptionally good at finding patterns in a data stream. In
fact, it is so good at this, that we often find patterns where there
are none. It is my firm belief that this is responsible for these
perceptions, and making these sort of assertions, even though they are
clearly marked as conjectural, based on anecdotal evidence is
irresponsible at best.
The last six sections are all brief, covering new casinos, tips and
tidbits, Q&A, and finally a section hawking various products, most
of which are quite good. Most of the news was out of date even when
the book originally came out, which was in 1996. Now this information
is of historical interest only.
Nonetheless, most of the information in this book is reasonably well
written and accurate. I believe that reading this book will improve
the play of many video poker players. However, it would be hard for
me to recommend a volume this slim at this price even if it were
packed to the gills with exciting new information, and the contents
just aren't that good. Therefore, if you're a serious VP
player and don't have VP times issues from 1993 to 1996 this is
probably worthwhile, but if not, one's money is probably more
efficiently spent in other areas.
Capsule:
If this collection of articles from Video Poker Times were
half this price, I could recommend it. However, I believe that there
is not enough new and interesting information within this volume to
make it worthwhile to any but the most serious video poker players,
and then only if they don't have any of the original issues from
which these articles have been gathered. Other books, like Dan Paymar's
Video Poker-Precision Play should definitely be read
first.
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