When to quit playing Video Poker
A principle of gambling that is wisdom to all concerned is "the first loss is the cheapest." If you start with your bankroll of 100 coins and lose it, quit. Something is wrong with your luck that day, and you don't want to take a big single beating that you will find hard to make up.
If you're winning, then you have to decide just when to quit. There are several factors that may play a role. First of all, you may be at a machine that is seducing you with fours to a Royal Flush coming up time and time again. If you have a feeling that it may come up, keep playing even though you're winning big. By big, we mean upwards of 150 credits. With the credit feature of the machine, you can easily see just how you're doing.
If you feel fresh, keep playing the machine. But if you find yourself making mistakes through fatigue, stop playing, no matter how much you're winning or losing. It's time to take a break or pack it in for the day. Don't fight fatigue.
To insure a winning session, when you hit the 150 credits mark, you may want to put away 50 of those coins, and play the remainder of the 100 left. Since the payout button doesn't work that way, but pays out all the credits, you simply make a mind decision to stop when the credits hit 100, then cash out.
If you hit the 200 mark after making this decision, you can up the win to 125. If the machine turns cold and gets down to 125, you cash out. If the machine, however, continues hot, with all kinds of big hands coming up one after the other, stick with the machine.
Maybe it will get up to 350. By then, you've decided to cash out when the machine falls to 275. By making these mind stops on the way up, you'll have the advantage of playing on with the "hot" machine, and being assured of leaving the machine a winner.
But again, do this only if you don't get fatigued and make mistakes.
If you never reach that 150 mark, but hover around the 60-100 mark in winnings, you may decide that, if the machine drops to 50, you're going to cash out the credits. Again, you'll assure yourself of a nice win.
If the machine never gets above 50 in credits you may decide to leave when the machine credits drop to 0, so as to limit your losses to the few coins you've played.
The figures mentioned are just "ball park" figures. You may want to set a goal of 120 credits, for example, and then quit if it goes down to 60 or 70. Fine. You might want to cash it all in if you ever reach 200 credits. Not so fine. I'd always give myself some leeway. I'd set the mind goal at 30-40 credits below that figure if you're conservative and leave then (if the credits now are 160-170).
This is known as "stop-loss" playing, and those of you who own stocks know about this concept. You won't hit the top in winnings, but you'll give yourself the chance to keep adding to the winnings.
I've seen players move up like that, till they were in the 400 credit range, when their initial goal had been 150 credits. The machine was hot and kept hitting big hands. You don't see those kind of machines every day of the week, so take advantage of them.
