During the calendar year of 2000, I played All American Video Poker for 398 hours or about 10 weeks' worth of full-time work. (Hey, it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.) I play at a rate of approximately 700 hands per hour, so this translates into roughly 278,600 hands and, since I play 5 coins each time, my total bets amounted to about $348,250. Properly played (and I like to think that I play the game properly), All American has a long-term return of 100.7% on all the $$$ bet. That would amount to a profit of $2437.75 had I realized expectation, but that's not what happened. Since the "long-term" is in the neighborhood of 4,000,000 hands of play, I'm not anywhere near that yet, so I'm not at all surprised that my play for the year resulted in a loss. From play alone, I netted a loss of $1460 for the year. That is nearly $4000 below expectation, but if you look at it from a percentage point of view, I received back 99.58% of all my bets.

Such a return is caused by either playing-strategy mistakes on my part or normal "variance" (what most people call "luck") or a combination of the two. There is no doubt that I make mistakes when I play but through my training, practice and periodic self-tests, I'm certain that my mistakes cost me no more than 0.05% or about $175 in all this play. So, the answer has to be variance and that's not surprising when you consider that the "big banana" in Video Poker is the Royal Flush that pays $1000 but happens, on average, only once every 43,450 hands. For the number of hands I played, I "expected" six, almost seven, Royals but got only five. Had the Royals shown up on schedule, I would have made a small profit but that's not how this game works. If I play 4,345,000 hands, I might receive 100 Royals and that would work out to an average of one every 43,350 hands. But in such a small sample like the 278,600 hands I played this year, almost anything can happen so I'm not distressed nor confused. So long as I keep playing, the $$$ will come. In fact, this report covers only the year 2000 and I've already hit a Royal in 2001, but I'm still on the minus side of the ledger in so far as play alone is concerned.

However, through a combination of cash rebates and bonuses, I actually showed a profit for the year. A whopping $53 was my net! Like I always say, it beats losing $53 but that obviously won't even cover my mileage costs, let alone my time. I did get a lot of free meals, hotel comps, concert tickets, etc. from the casino and those dull the pain, however. But I also know that the $$$ are sitting there, waiting for me to collect them. I will do that and I'll report it to you first when it happens.

Here are my total stats for the year:

My high point came back in March after session # 27 when I was up by $2085. The low point after that was # 95 when I was down by $1500. This clearly illustrates why I set $4000 aside for this adventure. Some of that loss was cushioned by about $1200 in cash rebates and other cash bonuses earned during that time, so you can see why it's important to take advantage of these offers whenever you can. Of my 99 playing sessions, only 34 ended with a profit, which shows that this is not a game for those who are under-financed or easily discouraged. My biggest winning streak was four sessions in a row and the biggest losing streak was six. I'll keep plugging away and report again in a few months.

Next time, we'll resume the "Sim Series" with a look at full-pay Deuces Wild.

See you then.