Friday 03/05/99
Played the slot machines yesterday. Split $100 into 10 parts
and played that many sessions. I won one session and lost 9, with
a net result of -$3.00. Then I decided that once the winning
session ended, this is time to quit, because I am not likely
to win another session
in the same series. Testing that theory, I played
another 10 sessions and lost them all :)
Note: I play according to "John Patrick's Slots": leave the machine
after 8 'naked pulls'.
Thursday 03/04/99
I think split in
BlackJack
pretty much works now.
When playng 100 sessions, most are still lost -
I am reading a new book to see if there's more
intelligence I can add to the program. If I can't
win at the computer, there's no sense of doing this
with real money, is there ?
Wednesday 03/03/99
Struggling with 'split' code in BlackJack - it may be
a little unstable when splitting, so watch out :)
Wednesday 02/24/99
Writing a "Jacks or better" Video Poker program. No bells and
whistles, but
then that's the whole idea - I can play at work and nobody will
know what I'm doing :)
Should be pretty good practice before risking real money in
the casino. Note that this program plays fair - as if
with real deck. Anybody knows whether casino Video Poker machines
are the same way ?
Download it here.
*** Later that day *** Added batch mode capability, so
I could test which decision are best on a given hand.
Came to some interesting conclusions:
- When you have four cards of the straight, it's worth
to shoot for it, provided straight can be completed from both
sides (that is, there's no gaps in your 4 cards).
- It's always worth the while to try for royal flush when you have
three pictures of the same suit.
- It is good to keep a pair of cards, even if they are lower
than jacks. It's not good to keep a higher card in addition to
the low pair.
- Going for flush when you have 4 cards of the same suit pays
off in a big way!
- When you have 3 different high cards, it's about the same
to keep 1 or 2 of them - but chances get worse if you keep 3.
Monday 02/22/99
Wrote a program to simulate blackjack play. It knows how to
double down/surrender. Also it uses the probability table from the
book to decide what to do with hard holdings (12-16) - when to stand
(and hope that dealer busts) and when try to improve hand.
Session ends when 5 bets are lost. If 10 bets are won, main money is
put away and we just pay using the winnings.
Note - program is not meant for interactive play - rather it's
to test the suggestions offered in the book and see how good our
chances are against the dealer. So far it's not so hot -
we lose most of the time (in 100 sessions we win about 20).
However, I have not yet implemented splitting - perhaps it will
improve the odds.
You can
download the program here.
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Books

Video Poker Mania
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Useful book. At the heart of it is the
strategy table
, which shows you which cards to hold depending on the hand you have.
As of Mar 11, 1999, I haven't seriously played video poker in the casino yet -
instead I practice at home using
Casino Depot
software. Well, yesterday I actually won using the table from this book!
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Links
03/16/99 "Casino, Casino" song by Passenger (RA)
03/11/99 Slot Strategies
03/05/99 Good looking Shockwave Slot
03/05/99 Info about Slot Machines
03/04/99 Java Slot Machine
03/04/99 Java BlackJack
Good video poker program
by SAGE Software.
Great video poker page- tips and knowledge quiz
Casino Depot Online casino - can play for
fun or for real money. Blackjack, video poker, slots - the whole works.
Great looking client software.
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