Alan: You'll never get through to arci on special plays because he is incapable of thinking on a per-hand basis. Yes the optimal hold for a hand may be worth $2.38 and my hold may be worth $2.12, but all that means is while he's hoping to get a straight out of it, by holding a lone Ace I can get just about anything. To him and his ilk, that straight means 4 more hands to build up the points and therefore the part of the game that adds a tiny % to game EV that gets those people all giddy. To me, a straight is OK, but when there's the reasonable risk-analyzed possibility for a big session-ending winner along with any number of other of quads and smaller winners, it's easily worth the risk, because getting out of the casino is the most important part of my trip.

I think I told you of the hand I had at Bellagio, where I was dealt AQJQQ on $25BP including 3-to-the-royal, and I held the royal cards because of a special play (valid only on the $25 & $100 levels, which is another of the many parts of the strategy arci has no clue about and has no idea how to program it into a simulation) that says if the quad doesn't get me back at least one level to BP AND there are 3 royal cards in the deal, I go for the Royal. After I hit the RF and posted proof/wrote about it in my Gaming Today column, the famous names and AP's were calling into GT saying how I really didn't win anything on that hand, but in fact LOST money because if I were to repeat that play over & over again into the laughable "long-term" I'd be a loser for sure. And this nonsense, as I sit and count out my $94,000+ profit for the session in front of the GT staff! If you enjoy seeing a bunch of people laughing uncontollably at incloming phone calls (and Jeffrey Compton even came in jumping up and down like a punished little boy) you'd have REALLY enjoyed that--especially if you just hit the big royal!

You see, AP's can only think in distorted terms for each hand--that it's gonna appear many many times over & over again, so you MUST use only the optimal hold to realize it's optimal theoretical value. And that's where the disconnect is. I go for REAL value that's only calculated after the hand is played out, and it is good that one time only. Therein lies the reason arci can never scratch the itch on his butt that is RS. He has never found a way to ACTUALLY win (which is why he always tells of winning $1000 dollars today or yesterday or whatever when he gets frustrated like he has with Frank here) and he can't stand that someone like me wins doing something he can't figure out.

Now you see how much fun it is to keep poking the poor guy!