Royal Flushed
November 30, 2008
I have lived in Las Vegas for 4 years.
I visited Las Vegas almost monthly for several years prior to moving here.
During that time, I have played possibly every video poker machine in Las Vegas.
I use video poker to kill time. If I am waiting for a show to start, I play video poker. If I am waiting to meet someone, I sit down at the bar and play video poker. I play video poker in the pharmacy while I am waiting for my prescriptions to be filled. Hell, if I am waiting for someone to come out of the restroom, that person often comes out to find me sitting at a video poker machine.
In Las Vegas, video poker is the traditional time waster when you have nothing else to do at that particular moment in time.
We’ve got machines in convenience stores and K-marts, and when I am forced to go shopping, my ass heads straight for the VP machines at the front of the store.
Video Poker Machines in a Local Market
That being the case, it is well established that I have played an usually large amount of video poker over the years.
Yet … I have never hit a Royal Flush.
Never.
Ever.
Not once.
I don’t even want to consider the statistical improbability of this fact, because it would only depress me.
Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus … you name the game, I have played at least a million hands of each.
Oh sure, I’ve been close. I’ve been four to a Royal Flush more times than I could possibly count, but the magic card has never come.
I used to think the machines were rigged. It made me feel better to assume that the machines were manipulated like some kind of bad carnival game.
The problem with the “rigged” theory was … everyone else around me was hitting Royals left and right.
Hell, one guy even hit one in the grocery store in front of my face.
At some point, I had to accept reality. The games were not rigged.
The other possibility was … perhaps I just hopelessly sucked at the game. Maybe I was just a tremendously bad player.
I suppose this is possible, but I have video poker software on my home computer. The software is a “video poker trainer”, and as you play, it evaluates your strategy, and points out your errors.
I have trained on this software quite a bit.
As a matter of fact, I once played 10,000 hands in a row on the video poker trainer without making one single error.
Over the long run, the statistics in the program show that I have played 99.97% correctly.
Perhaps that .03% error rate is what has killed me, but I doubt it. I am sure that I am not the best player, but I also don’t think I am so wretched a player as to have the jackpot elude me for 10 years.
Frankly, I don’t know what to make of it other than just plain bad luck. If a Royal is dealt ever 40,000 hands, then I should have hit many Royals by now.
At this point, I have gracefully accepted the fact that I will never hit the big one. It’s just not meant to be, and I never expect to hit one for the rest of my life.
You would think that a horribly unlucky player like myself would be taking an absolute beating in the game … but that’s not true.
What I lack in Royals, I make up for in an uncanny number of big dollar four-of-a-kinds or other semi-high hands.
It’s actually quite common for me to walk away from a VP session up, rather than down. I never walk away rich, but about half the time, I still make some cash.
A straight here, a full house there … on a break-even basis, the machines are actually rather kind to me.
They very rarely suck my money right down the tubes. Huge losses are rare for me.
Once, at the Suncoast, I sat down with $10 at a .25 machine, and ended up playing for three hours. At the end of the session, I cashed out with … $10. I don’t think I ever got above $50, and I once got down to my final $1.25, but somehow, I always managed to catch a run just at the right time.
While I didn’t make a single penny in cash for my effort, the comps I made during that session allowed me to have lunch at the Suncoast buffet for free.
While one should never play solely for comps, the fact is that I have gotten many meals paid for on the back of break-even VP sessions.
Early this morning, I found myself wandering through the New York New York Casino. I hadn’t eaten since Saturday afternoon, so I thought I would try for a small hit on a VP machine near the upstairs bar. I whipped out my player’s card, fed a $20 bill into the machine, and went to work.
Video Poker Machine in NYNY
Video Poker Machine in NYNY
Max play at .25 is my usual endeavor, and I quickly got up to $27.50.
I figured that once I got to $30, I would quit. $10 is enough for a cheap breakfast in this town, and I wanted that breakfast to be on MGM/Mirage.
But things turned sour fast. I couldn’t even make a pair of face cards to save my life, I was going down, and going down fast. Every hand was a loser until once again, I got down to my final coins.
I figured I would go ahead and play out the remaining change, then luck turned again. I won a series of small hands that brought me back into the game, but I hit a brick wall at about $10. Up, down, up, down … it continued like this for some time.
Imagine my surprised when I checked the time to realize that I had been playing this $20 bill for a solid hour. Time flies when you are getting two pair, straights, and flushes.
I feel like I could have repeated the Suncoast session. I could probably still be at that NYNY machine right now playing the same twenty bucks.
I’m the greatest break-even video poker player on planet Earth. Give me a quarter, I’ll play it for a year.
Hunger got the best of me, though … so I took the loss, took the points on my player’s card, cashed out with the ten bucks and walked.
Does this story have a moral?
Yes. Yes it does.
The moral is:
WHERE IS MY DAMN ROYAL FLUSH??!!
I guess I have not accepted it gracefully after all.
Written by donnymac on December 1, 2008 at 12:04 am
I feel your pain. The first time I played Video poker was 1988 at the El Rancho. I visit Vegas 4 or 5 times a year and have never hit a Royal. 2 weeks ago at the Breeze Bar at TI i saw a woman get 2 royals on the same machine within 16 hours of each other. And I still don’t have one. Maybe in January.
Written by Buttnugget on December 1, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Steve Wynn says that your video poker accuracy is only 30%, Jamie. Oh, well… If at first you don’t succeed keep on suckin’ til you do suck seed.
Written by Pigbob on December 1, 2008 at 7:57 pm
The first time I hit a royal was on a .25 progressive at SanRemo. This was also on my first night there and my first trip to Vegas. Go figure. Beginners luck sucked me in. Now I go at least twice a year and throw 20 after 20 into these machines to no avail.
My only other Royal came a couple years ago at the airport waiting to go home. I wanted to play .25 but they were all full so i sat at a dollar machine. Within minutes that familiar song started playing. But I was only playing 2 credits. Dammit!!. Instead of 4 G’s I got 5 Benjamins. It was better than nothin and I knew I was leaving with it.
Keep trying because you never know when that music will play for you.