Rob, I've known you now for more than a year, and I have spent a lot of time making a good, honest effort to know and understand your video poker system and why and how it works and how you became successful with it.
There are dozens of videos I made with you here on this website where you explain some basics of your system. The videos and explanation are not complete.
Anyone unfamiliar with these basics should look here:
http://alanbestbuys.com/id132.html for an overview interview I did with Rob.
And here: http://alanbestbuys.com/id194.html which is the first of several pages where you give examples of your "special plays." But again, these special plays do not represent your entire system and no one should think they do.
It has been an ongoing work-- a work in progress-- because until recently I didn't have all the pieces. I probably don't have all the pieces, but I have enough of them now to realize that your critics aren't even close to understanding what you do, how you do it, and when you do it.
The Singer system is not a simple system that can be written down into a handy book or put on strategy cards that can be sold in a casino gift shop for $4.99 -- because the Singer system involves thinking. It is not the automatic play that drones can use playing hundreds of hands per hour.
Your critics have only been able to grasp your "special plays" and use your "special plays" as their #1 weapon to criticize you. Yet, even after being told over and over again, your special plays represent 5% or even less of what your system is. that's all they continue to talk about -- and that how your "special plays" are at a mathematical disadvantage.
Ironically, you've told me and it is on our presentations here on our website that your special plays are at a mathematical disadvantage -- but while they are at a mathematical disadvantage they open the door to bigger wins. And your system is all about getting a big win (mostly quads) that allow you to reach a win goal.
Even your concept of a win goal is criticized. It's almost as if the "math guys" are saying a win goal is not logical. But wait-- that's exactly what they say! They say a win goal is not logical if you are not stopping forever after reaching that win session goal. They say if you leave the casino with a profit but return to play later it makes no sense. Huh? What are they talking about? If you ask me anytime you leave with a profit it's good.
What your critics seem to gloss over or totally disregard is that you always try to play the best pay tables available. But the reality is since you are trying for "quads" it makes no difference if you are playing a 7/5 Bonus game or an 8/5 Bonus game because the quad aces and quad deuces on both paytables pay the same! Even so, given a choice between 7/5 and 8/5 Bonus, you will play the 8/5 machine. And so would they.
What is still not defined for me-- and I'm sure is still a foreign concept to your critics-- is when exactly you make a special play. When do you divert from the same accepted video poker strategy your critics use? There are so many variables which can include your wins and losses, bankroll, win goal, loss limit, session goal, yearly goal -- and I don't recall any discussion of this by your "math critics."
You have also been criticized because your system has not been clearly defined into a book that can be sold in a gift shop or by mail order, and you can't compress your system so that you can publish strategy cards with your system that can be sold in a casino gift shop for $4.99. Yes, it is true -- your system is more complex than what will fit on a strategy card.
You cannot play your system as a drone would. You have to think about where you are with your play on each hand, and how you play each hand could be affected by many different variables such as win goal and loss limit. You can play this system quickly because you know it-- because this system involves one main objective-- reaching a win goal and leaving.
Everyone else has another objective: winning as much as they can. They overlook that it is unlikely that they can keep on winning. They reject the idea of banking wins and putting money away for a rainy day.
I use two analogies to describe your play.
Analogy #1: get rich slowly. People who put away $1 a week in a saving account will have $52 after a year. Keep putting money away every week, and after many years you will have more and more money. You do this with your "win goal" concept. Sure you can have losing sessions, but you can fall back on the wins you had before to help you over those valleys of losses.
Analogy #2: you are a technical analyst. Now, what do I mean by that? This will take more explanation.
On Wall Street, there are two types of stock market analysis. There is fundamental analysis which looks at a company's management, sales, profits, losses, products, marketing, competition, investment, cash on hand, dividend, and many factors such as those. A fundamental analyst will weigh those factors to decide if a stock should be bought or sold, and at what price.
The other type of Wall Street analyst is a technical analyst who is concerned with only one thing-- the company's stock market price and how the price has performed. The technical analyst argues that all of the news and factors and developments about a company are already filtered through into the price of the stock-- and the stock price or "the tape" tells all.
In the world of video poker, the math guys are like the fundamentalists on Wall Street. You are like the technical analyst on Wall Street.
In the world of video poker, the math guys (fundamentalists) look at such factors as long term theory, pay tables, chances of draws. You, the technician, look at one thing -- is more money going into my pocket and staying in my pocket.
On Wall Street the fundamentalists and the technicians often do battle and come to different conclusions. And so it is in the world of video poker.
On Wall Street, both fundamental and technical analysts can make money. And I would think that both your system and the system played by the math guys can make money. But your system is their system -- with just a few improvements such as win goals, and making the few diversions that allow you to reach a win goal.
Honestly, I don't know what the uproar has been about. I think it has been about your critics concentrating on your special plays and disregarding the other vital basics of your play which is much like -- or even exactly like -- their play.
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