Mickey,
This is a truly outstanding suggestion for new players and the open minded to experience randomness with a simple test that is under their own control. Unfortunately many people are not able to put their irrational beliefs to a test or even acknowledge any evidence that disagrees with their beliefs. The hard part for many is your advice, "Be honest with yourself."
Chris
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Mickey" <mickeycrimm@...> wrote:
>
> Heres a great game to play. Grab a deck of cards and sit down at the kitchen table. This is gonna take a while so quit your job.
>
> You're gonna shuffle up and deal out five cards then replace up to five cards just like on a machine. No Cheating (no peeking, no base dealin', no dealin' seconds, I don't want to see a mechanics grip). And you're gonna use computer perfect strategy for 9/6 Jacks.
>
> You're gonna play a few thousand hands. While you're playing along look for the patterns. You know, hot streaks, cold streaks. Be honest with yourself. You notice you go thru spurts where you seem to be hitting the pay hands at about the frequency it calls for. But then you also go through periods where the deck is colder than a well diggers ankle in Idaho, you can't seem to hit a pay hand. You also experience spurts where the deck is hotter than a pistol, you seem to hit a pay on almost every hand. Hot Streak, cold streak, medium streak, cold streak, medium streak, cold streak, hot streat, medium streak, hot streak, etc.
>
> Also notice theres some other weird stuff going on. You hit a couple of full houses within a few hands of each other. But then you go 250 hands without seeing one. Same thing with the straights and flushes but sometimes they come at about the right speed they should be.
>
> What you wanna do is play at least a few thousand hands so you can get all these patterns ingrained in your head. Then set the deck down on the table and stare at it saying to yourself "Yep, just what I thought. That deck of cards is pre-programmed with hot streaks and cold streaks! I wonder how they do that."
>
> The great benefit of doing all that is so when you are out playing video poker and see similar patterns you can say to yourself "This machine is rigged just as bad as that deck of cards I got back home."
>
