Rob Singer: Please clear up a few points.

In advance of Frank Kneeland's evaluation of your system, I think you should make some definitive statements here about your system.

Please be succinct, to the point, and don't mince words. And please, no secondary thoughts referring to other posters on various websites.

Here are the questions that have come up:

1. Do you prefer to play on short pay tables or full pay tables?

2. What are your win goals, and what is your bankroll for your win goal?

3. What is the goal of your system?

4. What is the purpose or goals of your "special plays"?

5. Is the return/paytable of the machine important or unimportant for your system? Please explain.

6. Can your system make a player a "long term winner"? If so, how?

I ask these pointed questions because Frank has commented that part of the problem that has led to various conflicts and misunderstandings is that the definitions used to explain your system have become muddled.

I am going to offer, what I think, will be your responses, based on our conversations and interviews. If I am wrong, please tell me. If you have a different answer, please give it and explain.

My answers:

1. You prefer full pay tables but you will adapt/use your system on short pay tables.

2. Your win goal is $2,500 and I'm not sure what your starting bankroll is, but I think it is something like $73,000.

3. The goal of your system is to hit your win goal and leave the casino, perhaps to go home for another visit or to enjoy the rest of your trip outside of the casino, savoring your $2,500 profit.

4. The purpose or goals of your special plays is to hit a big winner or have a better chance to hit a winner than to go through the "grind" that you say other players go through.

5. The paytable is important, because 95% of the time you play the traditional or "optimal" holds. If you are winning playing the traditional way, there is no need for you to make your "special plays."

6. Yes, your system can make someone a long term winner because they will pocket their win goals and avoid putting back their profits into the machine.

I'm curious as to the responses. Number six, outside of Rob being on a "random walk," should not be the case. I think the Singer style can help someone lose less than they would otherwise lose, but it's not going to make everyone a winner. Since 99% of people lose, the Singer style may benefit a huge chunk of people, and it may benefit them in an overall gambling way that supersedes just video poker play, and possibly in an overall behavioral manner. By emphasizing internal locus of control, it steers people clear of impulse playing, just as it may help people control other forms of behavior.

I can see where Frank is going to be tortured trying to use precise language with this, because I am stymied. Basically, the Singer style may be mathematically sound only in a global sense (and I hate to use "only," because global/overall is what life's about), while it is indeed non-optimal in a limited this-stretch-of-vp sense. You just want to recognize that you haven't found something superior to "the math" just because you wind up behaving in a way that helps you lose less because you de-emphasize "the math."

Alan, I haven't been here or looked at LVA for a few days but Frank asked me to send these answers to you.

1. Do you prefer to play on short pay tables or full pay tables?

I know the lies & rumors are out there about how I only choose to play negative or lower paytables. But to those who've read my site, my Gaming Today column for nearly 8 years, or virtually any vp forum from the past, they'd know that I used to primarily play 10/7DB as my 300-credit game, wherever it was available, up to as high a denomination as possible--including the $100 game that used to be in the HL room at the Atlantis. But since the demise of that game I switched to DDB and ultimately SDBP & TBP+ as my main 300-credit games. Paytables vary on these games, and I've always chosen to play the best table available at the casinos I played at. I USUALLY DID NOT, however, choose my casinos based on what paytables they had, because my strategy can consistently beat any of these game's paytables out in Nv. today, and I DID NOT require any Royal Flushes to have a winning year.

2. What are your win goals, and what is your bankroll for your win goal?

The Singer Play Strategy (SPS) utilizes only one win goal: a minimum of $2500 with a session bankroll of $57,200. This is money won from the machines only and does not include any slot club fluff. Each Jan. I set a yearly overall win goal, and I always said I would quit playing professionally upon turning 60--which I did to the day--or as soon as I attained a cumulative $1,000,000 profit. I came up $16,000 short of that goal after about 12 years of play.


3. What is the goal of your system?

The goal is to hit my minimum win goal for the session and then go straight home.

4. What is the purpose or goals of your "special plays"?

The special plays that deviate from optimal strategy have the single very important goal of allowing as many opportunities as possible, based on simple hold-by-hold risk analyses, to hit that session-ending or near session-ending jackpot hand. For instance, if I'm allowed a theoretical 200 hands on SDBP and maybe 15 of those hands give me a session-winning opportunity based solely on an optimal hold, my special plays will allow possibly 10 or more ADDITIONAL opportunities--and not always on less overall hands since there are many small to medium other winners that are realized using the special plays. But even with a small reduction in overall hands played because of the use of the special plays, it's the overall NUMBER of session-ending opportunities from both optimal as well as special play holds, that's most important.

5. Is the return/paytable of the machine important or unimportant for
your system? Please explain.

A machine's paytable is really not of ultimate importance in SPS. As stated above, I will always look for and play the bast paytables for the games SPS uses in the casino I choose to play at, but it is the casino that is more important than the paytable. By this I mean what the offer includes, how comfortable I am playing there, how they operate their high limit slot room, etc.


6. Can your system make a player a "long term winner"? If so, how?

If "long term winner" means havin a winning record after 10 or 12 years, I can attest to that. If I had started this a dozen years earlier then you could double that. In short, it is an extremely reliable strategy for those with the right stuff (aka, as fully prepared as I was in every way) but it in no way is meant for someone coming to LV with 6 grand in their pocket or someone starting from scratch. That's the stuff of fantasy for the purpose of continued & shameless self-advertisement, and has proven to require those who say they do that to work normal jobs & have an income well past retirement age. You either face that curse and control it--or become a victim of it.

Rob called me earlier this evening to say that he will be posting some additional information about his progressive betting strategy and when he takes some of his wins "off the table," or in the case of video poker, "out of the machine." Rob went into detail with me over the phone and rather than try to summarize it myself, I asked that he take some so that I don't leave anything to chance or misinterpretation. It may be available later tonight or tomorrow, Monday.

I'll answer both this issue and the one about LVA questions here.

Snidely/Lloyd: I retired my website when I retired from professional gambling upon reaching 60. I do not keep a site like AC's because I don't need the money. AC, however was/is an AP, and just like Dancer, AP's will work on and on as long as an income will keep gambling money in their pockets. Either that, or they will play 25c and sometimes dollars to get their fix like arci finds himself doing alone at ridiculous Indian casinos these days.

Special Plays: Alan's on the right track in that they are not used all the time. For instance, In any-paytable DDBP when dealt 2266X, I will hold just the 2's but only within my last 100 out of 300 credits. There are other variations and even some that are denomination-dependent based on where I am in my yearly win goal attainment, so it is not as clear cut as asserted by the critics who have little overall knowledge of how I do what I do.

Alan: My largest session loss was about $34,000, and my single largest session win was around $94,000 thanks to a $25 RF.

Someone who wondered why use such a large bankroll to win "so little" : It has to do with odds. My study came up with a 5%-of-session-bankroll win goal as being very attainable, and my overall gambling bankroll was 3X that, or $171.200. This is not a rich man using spare change to gamble with. It's what a normal video poker player who wants to win consistently would be smart to save up prior to becoming a professional gambler.

Blind, anonymous Critics: For the 100th time, yes the losses can be big and some were, but there were far more large winners and of course, many many smaller winners in the $2500 - $5000 range. And this was exactly as the strategy was developed to perform.

Arci: I've never won 247 out of 250 nor have I ever reported such a thing in my Gaming Today column or in my site statistics. Overall, this strategy has a better than 85% win rate, and for the crackpot critics once again, the large infrequent losers are way overcome by the far more frequent very large winners. And arci, please go to bed and get some rest. You need it at your age and with what's happenning up there. No need to keep lying about me or my strategy because if you can't tell yet, no one really reads the same baloney you write anymore. OMG! So what's a lonely old man to do if not this!?

Here's a description of my play strategy--one which Fedomalley, aka "Dan" would have done himself and his fans a favor reading up on when he made his ill-advised challenge for low stakes--then ran for the hills when I fixed it for him.


Bankroll = $57,200. Denominations & #of credits used: $1/$2/$5/$10/$25/$100, with 100 credits played on BP & 300 credits played on preferably SDBP at each denomination. Goals: $2500 minimum win goal; cashing out on each game whenever ahead by a minimum of 40 credits within that denomination. Next session played when? Anytime I chose, however, I only played once a week because I had to drive from Phoenix. I never played more than one of these on a single trip, because it made no sense to try and be greedy when a goal was already attained.


You begin playing 100 credits on $1BP. Get ahead by minimum 40 credits and you cash out the 40(+) credits, put it into soft profit which will never be risked, then start again. Lose the 100 credits then play 300 credits of SDBP. In order to cashout 40+ credits here you must get ahead by that many (be at minimum 340), put that 40 into soft profit, then start on SDBP with 300 credits again. Your first (mini) goal is to get back to $1BP, but you can only do that if and when you recover the 100 credits ($100) you lost on $1BP PLUS attain a minimum 40 credit profit while playing within your 300 SDBP credits (which always goes into the soft profit pool, and it does not turn into true profit until it reaches at least $2500).

If you lose the 300 credits on $1SDBP you play 100 credits on $2BP. Here, regardless of how much soft profit you've accumulated, you need to cash out each time you get at least 40 credits ahead (i.e., have at least 140) and again, your first goal is to get back to BP on the level immediately preceeding the denomination you're now playing. Just as in any denomination of BP, you can cash out as many 40+ soft profits as possible, always remembering that you can only go back to $1BP if and when you recover the 400 credits ($400) lost on dollars PLUS attain at least a 40 credit profit (which is a minimum $80 here). If you lose the 100 credits at $2BP, you play 300 credits on $2SDBP, and you follow the exact same rules as you did on $1SDBP.

Lose your 300 $2SDBP credits then you play 100 credits on $5BP, using the same 40+ credit cashout rules as earlier. Here, your #1 mini goal is to get back to $2BP, so you must recover all 400 credits lost on $2 ($800--or 160 credits on $5) PLUS attain at least a 40 credit soft profit for the soft profit pool.

Play continues on in the same exact manner throughout the denominations until either the soft profit pool totals $2500 or greater - or you get a jackpot hit that surpasses the session win goal so you can go home until you return to the casinos to re-start the strategy all over again.

This is a strategy that does not require a RF in order to have a winning year. I've had as few as 2 and as many as 8 each year in everything (combined) but the $100 denomination, and I've won every year I played.

For clarification in the 2nd to last paragraph and because it doesn't allow me to edit, when the soft profit pool reaches at least $2500 you do stop, but only if you have also recovered all of your losses. And, once you reach the $100 machines and you do not achieve your minimum $2500 win goal, you stop and go home. Your loss will be the $57,200 minus the soft profit pool--which can be 5 figures at times.

One additional point: My strategy also has a stop-limit at the $25 machines only if your YTD winnings are ahead of your monthly pace. This is common.

It's a crisp morning here in Pahrump, but not altogether too uncomfortable to have already gone out for a 3 mile walk to shed some of the Thanksgiving Day calories. I was even able to sneak out past our visiting grandkids (I put my daughter and her husband in a nearby hotel). My wife did another magnificent job and I have to really hand it to her: her fabulous cooking has not changed one bit after having moved into this RV kitchen loaded with technology--but much smaller in size than any of the houses we've lived in.

And what got me thinking of how thankful I am that I have it so good with such a wonderful family is a quick read over on LVA. There was lonely ol' arci once again, making up all kinds of irrational scenarios and claims about my strategy and results that I've never made, yet he wants it to be that way for his own....SANITY perhaps? All of a sudden after doing a mea culpa on his nonsensical 99% claim, he's tossing out a plethora of numbers coming from the confused innerds of a troubled mind while begging from support from the one other person there who tries so hard to believe what he writes out of hatred for Singer. You get the feeling he's desparate for the same recognition Frank seems to have garnered in so short a time....and that he's maybe a little bit jealous of him too?? Anyway, what's really funny is how he posts over there where he knows I won't reply, yet he can't take the heat over here and ran for LVA-cover the last time his BS was seen right through. Good luck during the holidays arci. I know you're going thru a tough time. Next time THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES first.

Now onto my friend who brings the house down with how he spills his guts in such honest fashion on LVA: BAGIANT. I'm not picking on the guy--just making a point out of what he did yesterday and comparing it to that which has defined my life once I discovered what a powerful message it sends.

I think everyone knows Bagiant is in LV again for another of his epic visits. Well, aside from all the drama with the women in his life, one of them has a daughter here in Pahrump, and he called me to say he was having Thanksgiving Dinner with that family and he would like to meet me for a holiday drink at Terribles between 11 & 12 if I could get away for an hour or so, which I agreed to. For me to do this meant us having to schedule our big meal with everyone later in the afternoon, which we did no problem.

But here it was, 1pm and no Bagiant/no call, so I decided that IF he were to call then I'd have to decline the meeting since I couldn't shuffle our meal plans around any more. He called around 3 saying he didn't come to Pahrump and apologized. I of course accepted it because I KNOW GAMBLERS. We'd meet again in the future anyways.

The point to all this--which I know few people can live up to--is that, since maybe 1975 I've lived my life by ALWAYS doing what I say I am going to do, and if for some reason I find I cannot, I ALWAYS inform the other affected party/parties BEFORE I'm expected to be there or do something so they are not left in the black hole. This is not something I take lightly, say in passing, or try my best to accomplish. I DO it because it is as an important part of me as my beating heart. It is, without any doubt, the definition of TRUST. I attribute this one special trait I have as being the main reason I've succeeded in everything meaningful I have attempted throughout my life. For instance, looking at it's appropriatness here in the gambling world: Had I ever wavered from doing what I said I would do inside the casinos when playing my strategy, most of the time I would have just sat there after attaining my win goal and given it all back and more, by wandering from my set of very strict rules. You can either do what you say or you cannot.

A great holiday weekend to everyone!

Thanks Rob for posting and a happy Thanksgiving weekend to you and your family too!

I can't make heads or tails of Arcimedes' statement on the LVA because I am unfamiliar with all of those statistics that he mentioned. Have you ever written any statistics such as those he cited in that post?

The only part of his post that sticks out as "easy" to answer is this line:

"You can't play 30 times at any level while only losing 22 times at the previous level."

On its own, I think this is a good starting point. So based on this single quote, can you answer this question:

Wouldn't you only move to a higher denomination only if you lost at the previous denomination? So in order to play 30 levels at any denomination, wouldn't you also have had to lose 30 times at the next lower denomination?

Also, Arcimedes is purportedly quoting something you said 5 years ago. Can you shed some light on that? I knew nothing about this controversy 5 years ago so all of this escapes me.

It's too bad that Arcimedes no longer wants to discuss this directly here.

You know arci--he ran from here as soon as the heat got turned up. Par for the course for him, but you can be sure he and his one or two LVA supporters plus numerous others are reading every written word here. And if you didn't know then you'll soon find that he's taking whatever I said wherever, and interpreting it with his own twist just so he can criticize it....as silly as that sounds. He likes to pretend how he only deals "in facts" yet I SO get under his skin that he'll drop his guard in record feel-good time just to make up something obtuse about whatever I've posted in the past.

"You can't play 30 times at any level while only losing 22 times at the previous level."
What's this about? I have no idea, except that he's again displaying his lack of knowledge of SPS. If you understood that he tries to pretend he's back in his high school debating class on forums all the time trying to make up for having his lunch handed to him by the other class nerds, you'd understand why he puts his personal spin in all his posts about me. I've always had the best of him on these forums, and it's, as he says, absolutely HILARIOUS watching that advantage continually elude him even when I can't reply to his posts on a particular forum! It's like you can almost feel his pain while he tries to make it up as he goes!

Here's the part of his post that he couldn't get right this time:

"In addition, you claimed your record at the $25 level was 22-8.
In addition, you claimed you only lost at the $10 level 22 times."

He says this is from freevpfree 5 years ago. We'll assume that's correct, even though he often edits out what he doesn't want in print. Who else would follow me so closely? Nice to know I'm so in-his-head :) that he knows where to find my posts and when! Can you just IMAGINE what it must be like for someone to have to hold onto the words of someone else for so many years while making up his own meaning about them?? Too bad Frank isn't here to explain how sick and/or obsessed he must be.....And somewhere he also claims how the ratio of $25 play to $100 play doesn't jive. Sorry Charlie.

However, now it's once again time to shred him, and you can bet he's hoping and praying no one will post more of his lies from here to LVA.

1. See my post on my strategy above--a strategy in which arci claims to know but has never read much of it at all. Notice how I do not go to the $100 machines if my monthly win goals/yearly win goals are running ahead of the plan. So playing 30 times on $25 and just a few on $100 is very easy to understand.

2. If I said I lost 22 times at the $10 level, then winning more than 22 times in the combined $25 & $100 level is entirely possible. Why? Are you ready arci? BECAUSE IT'S MY STRATEGY AND NOT YOURS, BECAUSE I ENJOY TO MAKING YOU LOOK STUPID, and because whenever a loss is realized on for instance the $10 level AFTER realizing a full recovery on the $10 level back to the $5 BP level plus attaining at least a 40-credit profit on that first $10 level play and the overall session win goal is reached on the $25 level, it is not considered a loss at the $10 level simply because the overall $10 play (win + loss) achieved a 40+ credit soft profit.

To all those who thought arci was a balls-on accurate type of "mathematician" with that "I'm so logical because I am" BS mentality, well.......

Now you all know why he sleeps with me in his mind every night! If it were you, could YOU handle getting buried by me so often?

So Rob, what you are saying, and is probably missed by everyone else, including me, is that your "soft profits" do add up and are counted as part of your win goal. "soft profits" is your term for when you cash out, for example, $140 after a $100 buy-in.

Actually, without seeing a ledger of each play, each "buy in" and each cash out, it would be impossible to challenge your system. Also, the entire basis of your system is that you bank or leave after reaching a win goal of $2500 or more, and the progression and/or soft profits and/or a big hit makes that very possible.

The more I read about your system, the more I realize it is one about money management, and less about special plays. And even you agree that for the most part the "special plays" are only needed in certain cases, otherwise you are playing by the same "book" that the APs play by.

What makes you different is the discipline to walk away and not to keep playing. Is that right?

Soft profits are indeed that which is cashed out every time you get 40 or more credits ahead in any and all denominations.

The special plays are as much an important part of my strategy as having the proper bankroll, knowing how to play the game I'm playing optimally, and the discipline to walk when the win goal is hit. I would say money management is as good a phrase as anything else, and yes, I play more by-the-book than the critics realize. But in order to create an edge over the casino you can't do it mathematically, simply because it is they who perpetually hold it. You have to start by doing the exact opposite of what they expect you to do, then use your ingenuity which is what and how my strategy was developed. The AP's who claim a 103.6% play today is to their advantage never understand that they will lose more hands than they will play regardless of what specials are on for the comparatively very short time they are playing that machine/promo. And especially in someone like Frank's case, chasing a royal that absolutely needs to be hit - and hit in a financially timely manner - in order for his team to claim to be a winner, is the ONLY way that theoretical 10(4%) "edge" will ever be realized. And how often do you think THAT happens?