The Lucky Donut

Just made my first score on the excellent summer promotion at Four Queens.

There are no good multi-line video poker machines left, so Claire and I played this through on (mostly) 50c Jacks or Better. It took a couple of sessions today and a bit of play last night, so it's still pretty quick to unlock the goodies.

Overall, and between the two of us playing on the same player card, we lost $160 to get there. (The expected loss on this game is $80, so it's a slight underachievement).

This offer does accumulate the free slot play awards, so you can earn up to $360 in total. I also had a coupon for another $10 free slot play and a point multiplier, which took the total haul to $370 slot play (which actually converted to $330 real money), $56 cash back and $50 in Shell gas cards. And a sun shield.

That's an overall $276 profit, plus a good chance that the concentrated action will trigger some room offers on my account.

The Palms was good to us again too. They had a swipe and win giveaway today and I picked up a free pair of movie tickets.

It's pretty clear that these draws are biased towards bigger players, so it stands to reason that the day after I cycled $20,000 on my card (to max out a point multiplier coupon) I would get a decent prize.

Claire's player card, which she hasn't played on since March, swiped and won 1,000 bonus points - worth $2.50.

Could have been worse. All the guy in front of us won was a plastic bungee cord.

I thought we might pick up the odd bit of free merchandise from casino promotions, but the Palms has already put me way ahead of expectation.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday you can collect prizes for player points - without redeeming the points!

I'd already been playing a multi-line video poker machine pretty hard to take advantage of a 3x point coupon (which makes the game a +EV proposition) to get me on the fast track to the next players club tier for even cheaper food.

I wasn't really sure what the selection was so I just went up and asked what I could get. Apparently the answer was one of everything, except I could only have one of the major prizes: a wheelie cool bag or a bath robe.

I chose the cool bag...

and also got a t-shirt...

a beach towel...

a duffel bag...

and some other random crap that isn't Palms branded but just happened to be there, like a CD wallet...

an LED flashlight...

and an ipod case...

I'll be out of town Wednesday and Friday but there's still two more days of this promotion next week. You can never have too many towels, right?

Never mind the huge lie-flat seat and free bar, the real perk of flying business class is being able to get off the plane first while the cabin crew restrain all the other passengers.

That meant we were at the front of the queue for immigration and with the luggage labelled as "priority" it was coming along the belt almost as soon as we got to the reclaim area.

All in all I don't think it took more than ten minutes to get from the plane to the rental car shuttle bus. Simply stunning.

Besides unpacking, driving around the neighbourhood and shopping to stock up the refrigerator, we didn't do a great deal before crashing out.

So here's some pictures of the goody bag I got on the plane.

Toothbrush - good.  Socks - yippee.  Mirror on a chain - err, ok.  Little leather photo frame - wtf?

What better way to begin a trip than to be greeted at the airport check-in by a disbelieving "you're in business?". Nice.

They still lost my seat reservations too (this happens every time without fail, although it's not really so important when the seats are like this).

They just announced a two hour delay to the flight too.

I'm passing the time by writing a stroppy letter (don't need much of an excuse to try to get some free flyer miles...) and attempting to download last night's Big Brother using my mobile phone's internet. At a fairly impressive 40k/sec the ETA is 1h49... might just make it!

EDIT: Speed boosted up to 80k/sec. I should just cancel Virgin Media at home...

Tickets, money, passport.

16 Hawaiian shirts, three pairs of shorts.

What more do I need?

Las Vegas here I come...

This just in on Messenger earlier today:

[20:43] Rich: hi chris!
[20:43] Rich: we are thinking of going to vegas next week
[20:43] Rich: - just wondered if you would have any hotel reccommendations etc?

I really hate the fact that anybody I've ever spoken to can see whether I'm actually available or not from my status on messenger.

Gone to make a coffee?  After a couple of minutes it automatically tells the world "brb", like it knows I haven't gone far.

Stay away from the keyboard for ten minutes or more though and it marks you up as a guilty "away".  In my case it may as well say "probably gone for a sneaky game of Rock Band".

How am I supposed to avoid people effectively if "online" actually means "he's definitely at his desk"!

So I've turned that feature off.  It looks like I'm online and active 24/7 and I do get quite a few messages while I'm nowhere nearby to reply to them as a result.

I missed this one while I was busy earning five gold stars playing Roxanne on expert level drums.

However, I caught up with Rich later this evening and got the full story.

He knows a man who knows a man who can get discounted flights with Virgin Atlantic, so if that comes off he and his better half are going to put the baby into kennels for a few days so they can take a very short trip to Sin City.

Hey, it's better than bringing the kid with you.  Don't get me started on that.

Rich didn't realise I'd be there at the same time.  Nor did he realise that he'd been checking out prices for a three nights hotel stay that was identical to a comp I'd already booked!

[22:01] Rich: one called flamingo looked ok, plus a big tower thingy was cheap

Well, forget about the Stratosphere.  I think Flamingo is a great location for a first trip though, it's right in the heart of the action, a classic hotel that's been kept up to date and it has awesome neon out front.

Summerfest (and Winterfest) should be the one comp that Harrah's won't take away from me - it's a listed perk for all players Platinum or higher.  You get 3 nights accomodation (their choice of dates, your choice of hotel) and entry into some kind of tournament.

In this case, my package is staying at Flamingo and playing a Blackjack tournament at Rio.  Beyond that I really don't know the details except it's costing me nothing and there are cash prizes.

Hence why I'd already booked a free room I didn't need, just so I could register for the tournament.

[22:03] Rich: what? you're joking? you already have a room booked there?!
[22:03] Rich: what did you pay?

He'll learn.

It's just a bizarre coincidence that these dates matched so perfectly.  I'd been half-jokingly toying with the idea of trying to sell some room comps on ebay (last count: 19 nights during my trip), but I don't particularly like the idea of having to trust a complete stranger to not trash the room.

For Rich, I'll check in and leave my credit card on file, then just go up to the room and chain the minibar shut before handing over the keys...

In return, all I want is to be able to borrow some identities.  Not much to ask, is it?

New players get the easiest slot club offers, so it's going to be a case of picking out the best deals then having Claire and me pile through as much action as possible in order to have Rich and Sarah qualify for all that lovely free food and whatnot.

They can watch the pirate battle and dancing fountains while we play, then later we all share in the spoils.

I know for certain that the signup offer at Wynn will be a can't-miss deal.  It doesn't take long - and only a theoretical loss of $6.75 - to earn two buffet comps worth about $70.

There's also a rebate of your first $100 in losses for new Harrah's Total Rewards players, although I think it's a cheque in the mail that you can only redeem on your next trip to a casino, so that might not be quite as useful.

But sadly the superb sun shield, gas card and free play offer at Four Queens didn't last the distance.  The offer is still good until the end of August, but all the video poker machines that would have let you max out the offer in a couple of hours have been downgraded.  You can still get good value, but it will take some marathon sessions to get there and probably isn't the kind of thing we can burn through quickly enough during their three day trip.

Some recon work will definitely be required shortly after I land.

T-4 btw.

It's even worse than I first thought.  Harrah's really don't like me any more.

My latest batch of casino mail just arrived.  I get three weeks worth forwarded at a time and the only free room offer this time was for a mid-week stay.

As I've been on the mailing list for a weekend promotion of some sort for every single weekend for the last three months, this pretty much spells out how worthless I am to Harrah's as a player.

Which, of course, is completely true, I just didn't expect them to realise quite so quickly.

I'll paraphrase this excellently targetted mailer: "Dear mid-thirties male player, why not join us for a bingo tournament".

I did try playing bingo in Las Vegas once.  I wasn't welcome, on account of me having both a Y chromosome and my own teeth.

Then again, I probably shouldn't take too much offense at this.  At the poker tournament I played there last month about 95% of the field would never ordinarily play poker.  Unfortunately.

I also got a letter with another less-than-fabulous offer:

"Experience the jewel on the Colorado River in VIP style! August marks our 20th Anniversary and Harrah's Laughlin is inviting you to help us celebrate with a vacation for two, including a round-trip charter flight and deluxe accomodations"

Sounds OK so far, but ...

"Starting at just $149".

Right...

"Price based on double occupancy (additional $50 charge for single occupancy)"

and to top it all off...

"While you're here, be sure to check out legendary performer Earl Turner in the Fiesta Showroom August 16-28.  Tickets start at just $17.95 and are on sale now at our box office."

So, they're inviting me to fly, stay and see a show - and pay for it all myself.

The bloody cheek!

I've had flight offers in the past for charter jets departing various random locations from coast to coast.  Because they think I live in Southern California (my mailbox address is in Huntington Beach) the flight is from Long Beach only - hardly a cross-country trek.

I've been able to book up to 5 consecutive comped nights at the hotel through the harrahs.com web site, in addition to all those mailers with three-night stays included.  If this deal requires a surcharge for single occupancy then I'd certainly be paying something towads the room, wouldn't I?

Some of those room offers included show tickets too.

This is definitely not a good sign.

This, however, is what a great room comp should look like:

3 nights at the Edgewater or Colorado Belle, twice a month, every month.  And $15 for showing up.  It didn't take that much play to get on this list.

Claire also got one from River Palms for two 2-night comps with and $10 slot play and all she ever played there was enough to get a free chicken sandwich, which was ridiculously easy to earn on a positive expectation machine.

Even without any love from Harrah's, it would actually be pretty easy to live in Laughlin completely free by hotel-hopping.  If you wanted to.

Shakin' Stevens and Neil Diamond at Glastonbury was just the start of it.  This is the summer of old rockers, and naturally the line up of pensionable acts playing in Las Vegas during my upcoming trip is pretty impressive:

Ringo Starr, Motley Crue, Pat Benetar and Rod Stewart.

Then there's Steely Dan, Hall and Oates, Kenny G and Liza Minelli.

OK, so that's possibly stretching the definition of "rockers" a bit too far, but you get the point.

There's also the Regeneration Tour, including such 80s awesomeness as ABC, Belinda Carlisle and the Human League.

And, of course, Elton John and Cher are in town too.

This is just during the four weeks I'm going to be there.  Looking ahead to the end of August, it just keeps getting better and better with Poison, Extreme, KISS, Black Crowes, Foreigner, Judas Priest and Berlin all playing Vegas before the summer is out.

Seriously, Berlin are still together?  And they have more than one song?

If only I was heading out there a few days earlier, the choice would be even more fabulous:

Boy George, Kenny Loggins and De La Soul.  Plus there's a whopper night of 80s soft rock at Mandalay Bay with Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick all on the same bill.

Who knew that any of the above were still getting work?

The four month slog to become World Series of Poker champion began earlier today.

Which means that about six thousand lucky Poker Stars qualifiers will have taken the special VIP shuttle they've put on to get you from Palms to Rio.

Seriously?  You're about to spend (potentialy) fourteen hours sitting at a poker table and you don't want to walk a couple of hundred yards across the street to get there?

I expect it's a little quicker than walking if the bus takes you directly to the Rio Pavillion entrance so you don't have to walk right through the casino to get there, but there's probably not much in it.

[Rio's hotel towers are the two red and blue buildings. Palms says "Palms" on it like twice]

This is the first time I've played with Google Earth with the 3D buildings turned on.  Give it a go, it's pretty cool when you have this many massive buildings so close together and can zoom and spin around them in great detail.

Zip code 89109 gets you pretty close to the Strip, or fly direct to "36° 6'52.99"N 115°10'49.83"W" to get to the intersection with Flamingo Road.

However it would be even better if all the building models were on the right z-plane.

The view doesn't quite look like this at the start of CSI...

Neteller just got really greedy, and not at all in a smart way.

Their promotion during April and May was awesome.  I ended up churning about $36,000 through various poker sites and had a $507.90 adjustment credited to my account as promised.  By my reckoning, it should have been $516.15, but I'm not going to argue over that.  Besides, hard as it is to believe, I do sometimes get things wrong.

The same kind of deal is back this month.  Here's a snippet from the email I got:

Twenty two thousand, three hundred and twenty dollars.  That's my target.  The amount I need to transfer to merchants in a four week period in order to get any cashback this time. 

Then if I do manage to reach the target, the cashback rate is only 0.5%.  It was 1.5% last time.

And just in case I manage to get really busy, there's a $500 limit on the bonus.  Although, with these rules I would need to transfer $100,000 in total to max it out - that's more than three grand a day.

I can appreciate the idea of wanting a promotion that gets customers to use Neteller more than they usually would, but this one just wreaks of greed and comtempt for their customers, as well as their merchants.

I have two major problems with this.

Firstly, the drop in cash back rate by two thirds is taking the piss.  If they could do 1.5% last time, they can do it this time.  We all know that this money doesn't come out of Neteller's pocket - they charge a fee to the gaming sites they're encouraging us to abuse.  This is simply an exercise in seeing what they can get away with; seeing just how little of that extra revenue they need to pay out to keep it coming.

Last time they gave back about 25% of the fees they collected.  Now it's about 8%.

Secondly, it absolutely penalises loyalty.  By loyalty, of course, I actually mean willingness to assist Neteller in fucking over their merchants for a kickback.  But let's be honest, that's a cause I'm prepared to be extremely loyal to.

I made Neteller a lot of money in the last promotion - a lot for one customer, anyway, and more in one six week period than they've made from my account in the previous six years.  How do they thank me?  By imposing an all-or-nothing condition on the next promotion that makes sure I have to work at least as hard as last time, otherwise I lose everything.  No slacking now.

It's pretty clear that my target is the amount I transferred during the last promo, scaled down to the slightly shorter timeframe.  I don't get any cashback until I exceed $22,300 in transfers which means Neteller can make up to $860 without giving me a penny if I fall short.  If I do make the target, I get $5 per $1000 transferred while they get the other $34.

This makes no sense.  If they offered me a good deal, I'd be making them money every day!  It's a win-win situation!

Dozens of online poker sites which are prohibited from offering rakeback find ways around this by calling it another name and then inviting their high volume players to join the scheme and saying "Ssshhhh".  They go to whatever lengths they have to to offer the cash incentive because they know that 70% of all that player's revenue is better than 100% of none of it.

It's a bit different with Neteller, because there's no game that you can play more frequently or at higher stakes.  They essentially want you to conjure transactions out of thin area to generate these bonus payments.  Day-to-day you would usually have no reason to move money from one place to another, so you have to look for excuses to make deposits.    It's not like you can Neteller for your everyday shopping instead of cash or a credit card.

So surely 75% of a transaction that just wouldn't otherwise exist any more is better than nothing?

I have obviously let my feelings be known to the Neteller VIP Club, of which I am a member despite not actually having the first idea what its benefits are.

This is a ridiculous target.

I did fairly well from the last promotion and Neteller must have made a bunch of money from me.  My payout was over $500, so Neteller must have made about $1500 that they wouldn't otherwise have had because of my increased activity!

I'd find ways to inflate my usage every month if you always ran this offer, and we'd both be happy.

So why punish me now for having made you money in the past?  It's dumb and insulting.

Sure, it's a bit on the stroppy side, but if they want me to keep generating free money for them, I've let it be known that I'm open for business.

You can expect an update if/when they reply.

EDIT - the response:

I hope you know that the email that was sent wasn't our intention to insult you. I sincerely apologize if it made you feel that way though. The reason why this offer has a lower cashback value is because this offer is for all of our NETELLER members. The cashback value was higher before since the last offer was exclusively only for our VIP members.

Again, I apologize for the way this offer was rolled out to you in the email. It is not necessary to participate in this offer if you feel against it.

Indeed everyone is invited.  Claire's target is an easily achievable $1840 and my mum's is the minimum $1000.

Glad it's not necessary to participate though.  I would hate to have to accept some free money if I didn't agree with it.

It's never too early to start scoping out the best deals in Vegas, and I do only have 19 to go now, after all.

The following promotion, which starts today at Four Queens, is well worth a mention.

"Top it Off" promotion July 1 – August 31.

Royal Players Club members who earn their first 40 points will receive a
Four Queens Sun Shield.

Members who reach 400 points will receive a $10.00 gas card and $10.00
in Free Slot Play.

Members who reach 800 points will receive an additional $10.00 gas card
and $25.00 in Free Slot Play.

Members who reach 1200 points will receive an additional $10.00 gas card and
$50.00 in Free Slot Play.

Members who reach 1600 points will receive an additional $10.00 gas card
and $75.00 in Free Slot Play.

Members who reach 2000 points will receive an additional $10.00 gas card
and $200.00 Free Slot Play

It's not quite clear whether the word "additional" applies to both the gas card and the slot play, but even if not this is a tremendous promotion.

Worst case: with 2,000 points earned you'll get $50 in gas, $200 free slot play and a sun shield.  If the slot play does accumulate, it's $360 slot play in total.

I won't attempt to put a value on the sun shield.  I'm sure it's a high quality item, but this promotion is already good enough that we don't have to add it into the EV calculation to make the difference between it being a winning or losing proposition.

The best video poker games at Four Queens are 10/7 Double Bonus (100.2% payback) and 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.5%) and I think I'm actually going to play this one on JOB.

With $8 coin in required for 1 point, the highest award in the promo takes $16,000 of total action which, at 99.5% payback, is an expected loss of $80.

Add on the $50 in gas cards (which are as good as real money) and a further $50 in cashback (you get $1 back for every 40 points normally from the slot club) and we're already in profit regardless of whether the free slot play (which is almost as good as real money) adds up to $200 or $360.  It's all gravy.

Of course I'd do a little better playing the positive Double Bonus game.  A perfect strategy would turn the $80 expected loss into a $32 theoretical win.  That strategy is relatively complex, but even playing Jacks or Better strategy on the Double Bonus machine increases the payback to 99.8% (overall $32 loss) - although it also increases the variance significantly.

However the biggest attraction of this promotion is just how quickly it should be possible to rattle through $16,000 in play on a multi-line machine JOB at the Four Queens.

They have the same 50-play machine that I used to get Total Rewards Diamond fairly painlessly, and that I hit the $10,000 jackpot on last month.  Although that will never, ever happen again.

It's $12.50 per spin, but much lower variance than playing a single line for the same stake (if, indeed, a $2.50 coin x 5 coins per hand machine existed).  You'll always get something back on every spin, usually a little less or a little more than the stake, with significant wins mostly coming before the draw - so you can hold the winning hand 50 times.

On past form, I've been able to play about 500 games per hour on this type of machine (it's slower than a regular game because it has to draw 50 hands every time).  That's over $6000/hour cycled which means I should be able to rack up enough slot points for the maximum bonus in about two and a half hours!

Compare that to playing on a single line quarter machine at 1000 hands per hour ($1.25 per spin) - it would take more like 12 hours of play to get there.  Even so, this would be a fairly respectable hourly rate (as much as $30/hr if the free play does accumulate, or $18/hr if not).

However being able to play at turbo speed should give a theoretical hourly rate in the region of $90-$150, depending on the actual conditions of the promotion!

Now, to be able to quit the day job all I need to do is find a couple of deals like this every day...

This summer will be our fourth spending a month in Las Vegas in a rented house.

We've stayed in the West, East and South sides of the Valley so I was really dreading this year's inevitable trip to the North.

North Las Vegas scares the bejeezus out of me.  I can't explain why, and I don't even have any photos to try and illustrate this, but it's like a whole other world. And it happens suddenly too. Drive just a little too far along Main Street and it's like you stepped back 40 years - and not in a good way, like Downtown Las Vegas is meant to me.

Anyway, we're in the East again, which worked out superbly for us last year being pretty close to the Orleans (where I spent a week playing in the Orleans Open poker tournaments) and the Palms (which is an excellent casino for video poker, albeit just about the only one that doesn't think we're worthy of any room offers in the mail).

This year's home base is actually a little closer to the action too.  Streets and Trips finds 55 casinos within a 5 mile radius.  Orleans is still closest (2.0 miles away, but a 3.3 mile drive), then Palms (2.7 miles).

The quickest route to the strip is to the intersection with Tropicana Avenue (5 miles by road) which is where MGM Grand, Excalibur, New York New York and Tropicana all sit.

When traffic is good and the lights are with me, it's going to be 10 minutes to get the car into the Tropicana valet parking, just leaving me with a choice of which footbridge to take over the road to get to the next casino.

This is what it looks like from the sky, thanks to Google Earth.

It's second from left.  The one with the pool.

"This three bedroom and two and a half bath home sits in the beautiful and well kept grounds of the Cottages. Secured in a gated community you'll enjoy very serene, peaceful surroundings.

Private back yard allows you to enjoy sunbathing poolside. The pool is just off the kitchen door with table and chairs for morning breakfast, lunch or diner...moonlight diners etc

The furniture, beddings and everything else are new, clean and comfortable. It's a paradise! Bring your clothes, put your feet up and enjoy all the comforts of home."

More pics:

 

Chat from a Poker Stars sit-and-go tournament:

I am going to be looking out for the perfect opportunity to say "I think you've got tampons" in a live game.  I can't wait.

It looks like my honeymoon with Harrah's is over.  Things are starting to fall back to how they were.

I just logged in to my Total Rewards account and I can hardly get a room comp at all any more.  Even at the Imperial Palace.

I shouldn't really be too bothered about that, because the IP was a bit shit.  And I'm not usually that fussy - I've stayed at some the really, really cheap hotels in Las Vegas.

Casino Royale, for instance, is a complete anomoly in the middle of the Strip and I'm sure it's tiny hotel (which is outside the back of the casino and across the parking lot) would technically be a motel if it wasn't for one set of outer doors, but the room was comfortable enough.  There's no bellman or room service, but there's a coffee machine and a fridge in the room and that goes a very long way.

When I stayed at the El Cortez a few years ago, before that scary part of Downtown was lit up and filled with bars, the room felt old but in an "it's got a certain charm" kind of way - not a "why haven't they knocked it down yet" way.  In fact, the thought of staying in a room that needed an extra coat of paint because a previous resident had bought a bullet and rented a gun just added to the character.

On the other hand, all I can say about Imperial Palace is that it was just kind of white.  I think they were going for a sterile, institutional sort of feel - which to be fair would suit the Asian theme of the property about as well as their weekly Hawaiian Luau, the Classic American Car exhibition or having a blackjack dealer that impersonates Stevie Wonder.

The pictures on their web site are somewhat flattering, suggesting that there is actually a subtle tone of colour in the bed linen and curtains.

I don't remember that at all - unless I really wasn't looking hard enough, everything was just plain white.  Which, I guess, at least usually goes some way to prove that the room was clean.

As well as the plain white bedside units you can see in thie picture, my room also had a white pedestal table with white wood frame chairs and a large white entertainment unit with the TV inside.

One perk was the patio door with its own private balcony area, much better than the barred window I expected to find before I pulled back the white curtain for the first time.  From my 11th floor cell I had direct access to a 3ft x 1ft exercise yard as well as an amazing view of... other cells.  Hundreds of them.  In every direction

Even so, I'm still quite disappointed that I can't go back again for free.

As so often happens at the Palms, I'd ended up sitting next to a professional video poker player.  You can always spot them by that slapping action on the buttons, which is something that only comes with hours of training.

I've tried it, and it makes me look great for a few minutes but my arms get tired really quickly.  I'm such a noob.

Thanks to the slot card reader, I knew this particular chap was called Rick and that he had over 100,000 points on his card.  I've seen many players with more than that, but even so he has probably achieved the the lofty status of never having to pay to eat again.

Once you achieve the "MVP" tier of the Palms' slot club (50,000 points earned in 90 days) you get half off at the buffet when you redeem points to eat, and if you make the "Hall of Famer" level (200,000 points in 90 days) you get a 75% discount.  So not only do you have gazillions of points to redeem, you just can't spend them fast enough.

You can only eat so many $4.25 champagne brunches.

You apparently get other shit like movie passes and free car washes at those levels too.  Obviously, it's part of my summer plan to achieve this status.  Who doesn't love a free car wash?

Anyway, Rick was having a bad day on Deuces Wild.  He told anyone who cared to listen that he needed to take a break as he just made three mistakes in a row.

As he got up and wandered off, I glanced across at his screen and saw: 8h 7h 4h 5c 4s.  He'd held the first four cards, with the last 4 making a worthless low pair after the draw.

I know this one now without looking it up.  When you have a four card straight draw with a gap but three of those cards are the same suit, you should always hold for the long shot straight flush above the gutshot straight.  This holds true even if there are two gaps in the straight flush draw (as in this case: 8 7 4).

He'd done it wrong, but at least he'd realised and taking a break was a smart move.

Perhaps he could have taken a longer break than four minutes, but I guess it doesn't take long to go to the ATM and fetch a coffee, and any break much longer than that is really going to eat into your hourly rate.

He sat back at the same machine and the woman next to him asked if he liked that one in particular.  He explained, "I usually play on the other side, but it's not been hitting so I came this side today".

Well, game selection is important.

He continued, "This week it's been full of tourists so it's hard for the regulars to get a read on it".

"Tourists" are clearly the "internet players" of the professional video poker circuit.

He went on to boast how he can usually tell when - as well as at which machine - the jackpot is going to pay out.  "It should go early today, not like $1300 or $1400" (in reference to the progressive jackpot, which resets to $1000 when a royal flush is hit, then increases with each game played until the next one).

I'm quite surprised he wasn't wearing shades so the machines couldn't soulscan him right back.

It wasn't long before I was dealt a hand I needed to think about: three aces with a three card royal flush draw and no wild cards.  With a pair and a three-to-the-royal option, you always go for glory (in deuces wild, any pair has to improve to three-of-a-kind or better for a payout).  With trips already on screen, I wasn't quite so sure what to do.

My strategy card said to hold the aces, but I still hesitated because of the progressive jackpot.  At that time it was set to pay $1122 for a royal flush instead of the usual $1000.  I just couldn't work out if it was enough to make a difference.

Rick saw me scrunching my face up at the screen, then my cheat sheets, then starting to type the hand into my phone so I could check it later after I finally made a decision, and he jumped to my rescue.

"You have to go for it", he offered.  "Three to the royal beats pretty much everything".

Well, he's not far off.  The only hands you would normally hold over a three card royal are a made straight, a made flush or an open-ended four card straight flush draw.  Oh yes, and three of a kind.

But after he said that, how could I not draw to the royal flush?  You just know that it's going to draw the two cards you'd have needed (or at the very least one of them and a wild card) if you hold the aces and nothing would have put me on tilt for the rest of the trip more than seeing his "I told you so face".

I was never so glad to see rags: a meaningless 7 and 3 was about as emphatically not a jackpot as you can get, nor would it have improved my three aces to a bigger win.

This hand was actually not as close as I thought it would be.  I plugged the numbers into some video poker software and it calculated the ER of the three aces as 10.09 (that's an expected return of just over ten coins for a five coin bet) and the royal flush draw came in at 6.54, if you disregard the progressive.  So, in normal circumstances, holding the three of a kind is worth over 50% more!

Pumping the jackpot up to $1122 in the simulation didn't make any difference to the strategy.  The value of trips doesn't change (because there's no way to redraw to a royal flush) but the three card royal draw's ER rose to 7.05.  It's extra free money when you hit it, but it's still nowhere near enough to throw away trips for.

In fact, the jackpot has to reach a massive $2000 before you would consider breaking the three aces (ER=10.09) for a three-card royal flush draw that contains an ace (ER=10.11), and even then it would be an extremely volatile play for a tiny edge.

With the jackpot that high the overall return of the machine becomes a whopping 102.70% (compared to 100.76% with no progressive) although I'm sure there must be other strategy adjustments you need to make to take full advantage of the monster jackpot.

In fact, Rick did tell me that when the meter gets to $1350, that's when you throw away the wild card if you're dealt a royal flush with one wild deuce.  That's correct, although he's probably not accounting for the fact that any jackpot of $1200 or more will trigger tax paperwork.

A $2000 progressive would happen only very rarely the Palms because the meter rises very slowly.  When it does, you can be sure that the bank of machines will be perma-occupied by pros until it hits, and then they'll all go home.

And it was thinking about that kind of mass exodus - which you really do see after a brief moment of fake, bitter congratulations when a substantial progressive is hit - that got me thinking.  Rick's bad advice not only cost me a little EV, but it also cost himself - and every other player sitting at that bank of machines!

When I make the correct play and hold the three aces, I will hit a royal flush on the draw exactly 0% of the time.  However, when I hold the three card royal draw, it is a possibility.  It's a very slim possibility (the odds are 1080-1 against) but nevertheless it still happens more often than never.

The key thing is that when I do get lucky, not only do I win the jackpot but the progressive meter resets to $1000.

Let's pretend I did hit it.  A few seconds ago, Rick was playing a game with a $1122 jackpot which had an expected return of 100.97%.  Now it suddenly became a standard 100.76% game.

A couple of tenths of one percent doesn't sound like much, but even with that modest progressive his hourly win rate (before comps) was 28% bigger before the jackpot got hit.

If the progressive had crept up to about $1400, that would have been a 101.5% game until my jackpot just went and ruined it by cutting the player's edge in half!

It's easy to think that it's completely irrelevant how well or how poorly the guy next to you plays at video poker because it's a solo game.  In fact, when a progressive jackpot is involved, your edge can be affected directly by the decisions that those around you make.

Therefore a sharp video poker player would have absolutely encouraged me to hold the three-of-a-kind.  It makes no difference to him whether I'm making the optimal play on this hand, but it would make a difference if I made a donkey play that reset a jackpot which he still had a shot at winning.

And so, in anticipation of my inevitable 2+2 book deal, I proudly present the Fundamental Theorem of Video Poker.  You may call it the FTOVP if you wish.

"Whenever a player incorrectly holds a royal flush draw, they lose and everyone else playing that game also loses.  However, whenever a player incorrectly fails to hold a royal flush draw, they lose but everybody else gains".

OK, I admit it should really be called "an occasionally relevant theorem of multi-player progressive jackpot video poker", but it's not quite as catchy is it?