Video Poker Beginnings

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Video Poker Beginnings

            This past week, with my son in town, I found myself sitting at a blackjack table.  When I was in my 20's that is what I played when I went in to the casino.  It had a good payback (99%+) and it required a fair amount of skill in the form of strategy to earn this payback.  When video poker came along, I slowly found myself playing more of that and less blackjack.  Nowadays, I almost never sit at the blackjack table except when my son is in town and drags me over.  My experience this past week only reinforced why this is so. 

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Misconceptions

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Misconceptions

           I've been writing for Gaming Today for about 12 years now.  I'm not sure of the total number of articles I've written, but it's been about 550 of them.  The majority of them have been about video poker.  It is almost hard to believe that I have been able to come up with 350 or 400 different topics.  Then again, I really haven't.  I do repeat topics from time to time.  This is for two reasons.  The first is that there's a good chance that the people who read a column in 2008 are not necessarily the same readers in 2014.  The second is that some topics need to be repeated over and over and over again because it is very obvious that the vast number of Players haven't gotten the message, even when they are regular Players.

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Training Day

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Training Day

           I write about a variety of different games in my weekly column.  When I first started writing it was almost exclusively about video poker.  I followed in my father's footsteps and essentially continued his column from a new vantage point.  As my work in the industry took me more into table games, I've devoted a larger percent of my columns to those very same games.  It is an interesting mix.  I realize, however, that a relatively small number of Players out there have a tendency to cross over with their play.  Generally speaking, there are Slot Players, Video Poker players and Table Game Players.  Then there are those just starting out who probably haven't decided yet which one they are.

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