E-casinos
not only spend less to get a dollar, they get more
dollars from the player. In casino accounting, the
"hold" is what a player leaves behind at
the end of the day. The land betting hold is considered
to be 40 percent; that is, you walk in with $100,
bet it over and over, running up hundreds in action,
until you leave with $60 left. Statistics on Internet
gambling are scarce, but there is every reason to
believe that the cyber-hold is higher. Michael Flint
of I-national Gaming says most people who log on to
his cyber-dens lose their whole deposit. Flint guesses
that the occasional win brings the average hold down
to 60 percent. In Australia, the Lasseters company
has both land and Internet gambling. CEO Peter Bridge
says the average loss per session on land is $44.
On computer it's $200.2 Since expenses are low, the
extra hold goes right to the bottom line. Land casinos
do not have the luxury of connecting to gamblers by
phone from anywhere in the world; they have to get
them there, feed them, and then put them to bed in
a free room if they lose enough. The average Atlantic
City slot player loses $3 5 a session, but to get
that $35, the casinos subsidize the bus rides, provide
lunch, give ten dollars in quarters to get them going,
and a $ 5 cash rebate at the end of the day. In 1996,
casino profits dropped 32 percent during one quarter
of particularly aggressive comp marketing.3
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You
will occasionally win Stud pots with a high pair.
But when you do, it will almost always be because
of bluffing, not the statistical value of your hand.
If you call with a pair of aces and win, vcnr basically
beat a bluff. And if you bet a pair of aces on the
river. get called, and win, it is only because an
opponent thought you were bluffing and tried to catch
you with a lower pair.
As in most fixed-limit poker games, what starting
hands you choose to play and how you play them are
critical decisions. Nonetheless, the ability to limp
into a Stud hand by paying just the bring-in bet on
the first betting round can defer some of that decision
until later.
Categories of starting Stud hands are a bit more unveiled
than they are in Hold'em, and starting criteria do
not lend themselves to the same degree of quantification.
But we can still identify some features of a three-card
hand that would go into your decision on how to play
your starters.
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