Will Rob Singer adjust his strategy for the 30-hour challenge?

[Alan Mendelson]

As many of you know, I have spent a considerable amount of time interviewing Rob Singer about his unique and controversial strategy for playing video poker.

Two rules appear to dominate his strategy:

1. He has a strict win goal of $2,500 per casino visit and then he leaves the casino or simply stops playing and just enjoys the rest of his trip or vacation.

2. He starts playing at low denominations and then moves up to higher denominations as needed to make up for losses and to lock in a win.

Now, I wonder if this strategy will "work" in a challenge that requires that he plays for 30 hours? The requirement for 30 hours of play with 500 hands played per hour means Rob Singer cannot use his "hit and run" strategy -- he has to keep playing. To conserve his money, he will probably play at lower denominations once he scores a big win. But if his "big win" (a royal flush, for example) comes at the $1 denomination he might find that a $4,000 payoff on a royal will not survive additional hours of play.

And if the royal flush is hit at a higher level, it probably means that Rob lost a lot of hands at a lower denomination and was forced to move up to a higher denomination to cover his losses with a big win at the higher bet level.

So the question becomes-- can Rob Singer's "hit and run" strategy in which he tries to score a big win and forsakes "hands that grind" cut the mustard when he has to keep playing for 30 hours at 500 hands per hour?

Or will Rob have to readjust his strategy for this challenge? Will he, for example, start playing at a higher denomination than usual knowing that his bankroll will have to survive 30 hours of play?

Singer is asking that he and his challenger each put $300,000 into a "prize escrow account." It seems to me that if Singer is asking for his challenger to put up $300,000 in escrow that Singer is not intending to play the low denomination games as he normally would, and he certainly does not have a win goal of $2,500 in mind either.

[Vegas Vic]

Clarify for me, Alan, if you could. I am trying to follow Rob's "teachings", beginning with viewing some of the videos until the lessons in each became so convoluted, I couldn't continue. Now, I have read the handful of threads related to the CHALLENGE. Am I to gather that he will only play 8/5BP and SDBP in the CHALLENGE because these games "fit" his style and no other games do? If so, that doesn't say much about his system if it is only applicable to these games whereas AP players can be very successful on many more than just those two.

[Alan Mendelson]

Vegas Vic, I cannot answer your question. On our website you will see that Rob demonstrated various strategies for games such as 8/5 Bonus, 9/7 Triple Double Bonus, 9/5 Super Double Bonus, 9/5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus, 8/5 Super Aces Bonus, and 10/6 Double Double Bonus. You will note that in each case he is offering his strategies for the "full pay" versions of these games. I suspect he would prefer to play full pay tables vs. short pay tables. You can see all of his "special plays" starting on this page of our site: http://alanbestbuys.com/id194.html I am going to suspect that he wants to play the full pay schedules and what sets him apart is that he will sometimes give up the small win or break even hands to try for what I would describe as the monster wins. But where Singer is misunderstood is that he does not ignore the math of the game-- he does utilize the math. However, he sometimes will take the chance when it presents itself where luck could give him a big win. Sometimes this means, for example, going for a royal instead of holding trip-queens. As I pointed out in the articles, it's a move I wouldn't make.

[Vegas Vic]

Alan, I get all that, but he is adamant about playing only those particular games in the Challenge and not any other full pay games with the added statement that those games are not negotiable. If his system is as good as he says, he should be able to take on any opponent in any full pay game and not restrict the Challenge like that.

[Alan Mendelson]

I can't comment any further except that all VP pros have their games of choice. I remember going to one of Bob Dancer's lectures and he said his favorite game was some version of deuces wild (don't ask me the specific version because I don't remember). I know of several "advantage players" who have their preferences whether its double-bonus or jacks-or-better. Of course there are many APs who seek out various Deuces Wild games.

[Rob.Singer]

Alan, I get all that, but he is adamant about playing only those particular games in the Challenge and not any other full pay games with the added statement that those games are not negotiable. If his system is as good as he says, he should be able to take on any opponent in any full pay game and not restrict the Challenge like that.

Vic/Alan: Aloha! I found that on this new phone it's very difficult to navigate thru a forum, so I'm sending this via e-mail back to my house/dog sitter whom I'm giving step-by-step instructions via telecon on how to put in the reply. So if it doesn't show up you'll know why. I'm also responding to several posts or threads in this one reply to keep it simple for me.

BP is played on each denomination I play. SDBP is my most lucrative of 5 advanced BP games that I play within my strategy. In a challenge scenario I of course want to best opportunity. Simple, right? And the paytables, while I always look for the best one, are not as important as they are to an AP. I can and consistently have beaten any paytable offerred for any of the games I play. Theoretical percentages mean nothing in my strategy.

Alan, I have never done anything but left the casino, got in my car, and driven directly home after attaining the $2500 or greater win goal.

Fedo challenged me to play my single-play strategy, and that strategy has only one procedure: $1/$2/$5/$10/$25/$100 machines with 100 credits on BP and 300 credits on SDBP (or any of the four other advanced BP games that I can play math-perfectly) with some to many cashouts along the way and a win goal of $2500 minimum. He didn't understand anything about this and as such, he had absolutely no idea what he was getting into, which is why you see arci & him and his 2 or 3 other sympathizers scrambling around trying to help him save face on LVA of course, where they know I won't cut in and correct their lies.

If anyone remembers correctly, Fedo's challenge only said I am to play 30 hours at a minimum of 500hph and he would match in cash what I win from the machines--essentially doubling my profit. That was a very incomplete set of terms so I straightened it out for him. At any time while playing any denomination, I could hit a royal or other big winner or even multiple smaller winners along the way. He said he would match my win, and I could win anywhere up to or above $400,000. That brought up areas he failed to address, and after I corrected that with a properly funded escrow amount, he balked, and now he wants a lower escrow that is ridiculously low to anyone who understands what my strategy is capable of--which so far really is NO ONE.

You'll notice how the anti-RS frenzy started by Fedo and continued by arci is solely there to keep Dan from explaining exactly why he won't put up the proper escrow....or at least come out and admit he had no idea the limits my strategy entails. You'll also notice that while these people make a big case out of my escrow term as being some type of "way out of the bet" and arci finds solace in lying about how I "don't have that much" not one person has interjected anything about the verified/published $640,000 cash escrow I put up 5 years ago when it was I who challenged Fezzik. Nope, it's easier to just say I'm using an amount I don't have as a way to get out of the bet--one which Fedo proposed without doing his homework.

But I'm gonna do something I've never done before and let a confused set of critics off the hook. If $300k is too much heat for Fedo and he can't back up his phony story about how he knows all these supposed winning AP's lurking the streets of LV that can back him, I'll lower the escrow to $75k, and I have the right to quit if I hit that win amount. I will play a maximum of 10 single-play strategy sessions, location still TBD only if $1 thru $25 SDBP games can be found in LV. Otherwise it's Aquarius and Bellagio. (To the person who said how stupid it sounds for me to be going between LV & Laughlin multiple times, if that's needed I assure you I have a car that's not like anyone else's who posts on LVA. It would be a pleasure.). Since my sessions over the years averaged out to 3 hours each, that should satisfy the 30 hours but probably not the 500hph part since I'm not really sure if I can play this complex strategy that fast.

I hope we're at noise level now.

Alan, please call me to let me know if my sitter got this reply up. Thanks!