Actually, there aren’t many tough hands in Jacks or Better, except in Shirley’s case. Where I saw a few problem hands, she saw an overwhelming number. She held a responsible position at work, but here she just couldn’t remember all the nuances. You can bet I helped her as patiently as I could. I liked having a girl friend and I had no intention of chasing her away for not learning fast enough. But it was frustrating for both of us.
Part of the problem was coming to grips with our personality differences. I’m very left-brained; word and number puzzles come easily to me. Shirley is a scrapper and makes up for the lack of raw talent with gritty determination. She believes there’s nothing she can’t do as long as she keeps at it long and hard enough. The result is she’s reasonably accomplished at many things. And I’m extremely good at a few.
Game Players
We practiced for an hour or so every visit and we always played side by side. I checked her on every hand, which she didn’t enjoy. She played at least 95% of the hands perfectly, but the edge that the best players enjoy is so small, you need to play very close to 100% of the hands perfectly in order to have a chance. This wasn’t the way Shirley thought. She was like the cook who made the spaghetti sauce a little differently every time and I was forcing her to make it the same way. My way. There’s only one correct play for every hand. Players who accept that truth and learn to play that way are regularly called winners. Players who don’t are regularly called by casino hosts.
We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves in the story, but it wasn’t until halfway through our million-dollar six months that Shirley first played unsupervised. And that was four years after our first Treasure Island weekend. Four years of frequent playing and me supervise every hand. As I write this, another year has passed. And periodically, I still need to review hands with Shirley. But now Jacks or Better isn’t the only game she plays. We go back and forth between Jacks or Better and Double Bonus and she gets confused. Hands involving inside straights and 3-card straight flush are handled differently between the two games. Many of these hands occur infrequently and she doesn’t always remember the differences.
Casino Strategy Card
One thing Shirley’s very good at is remembering to actively use a strategy card. I play on my own online casino machine without paying much attention to what she’s doing, but if I sense her slow down to think about a hand or see her glance at the card, I look over and supervise. She has a pretty high batting average now and knows it, but it took years of practice to get there.
A lot of things had to click for Shirley to become proficient at video poker. Most gambler wouldn’t put up with having someone monitor their every play for four years. It helped that when she met me; I was already proficient and knew I wanted to play the game professionally for as long as possible. She knew this going in, so it was no surprise down the road. If she wanted to fit into my life, she needed to come to grips with video poker. And during the inevitable losing streaks, I was always around to tell her that they would end and that we were doing everything right and that a winning streak was right around the corner.
Actually, there aren’t many tough hands in Jacks or Better, except in Shirley’s case. Where I saw a few problem hands, she saw an overwhelming number. She held a responsible position at work, but here she just couldn’t remember all the nuances. You can bet I helped her as patiently as I could. I liked having a girl friend and I had no intention of chasing her away for not learning fast enough. But it was frustrating for both of us.