Dear Mark, Well, now that you've got me "Hooked on Winning" (I bought your tapes, good stuff), I have a follow-up observation and a question. I took a well-deserved day off from work yesterday and hit the two Indian casinos here in Connecticut (Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun). My goal was to restrict myself exclusively to video poker. First, you are right on the money in your observation that you have to LOOK for a 9/6 machine, at least in the 25¢ and 50¢ denominations. I found a 25¢ 9/6 machine "buried" in a bank of machines at the Mohegan Sun and had real good luck with it. I encountered my first 8/5 progressive machine at Foxwoods, but I was surprised to see it was NOT a jacks-or-better machine. Rather, it was a two pair or better machine. So instead of having a payoff with just a high pair, a player needed two pairs to get a return. Is this typical of an 8/5 progressive machine or would you say this is player adverse? Mike K.

Take copious notes here, Mike. Two words describe the above-mentioned machine at Foxwoods-RIP OFF. It is called an 8/5-video poker machine because of the 8-for-1 payoff for a full house and 5-for-1 payoff for a flush. Getting paid for a high pair (jacks-or-better) is an absolute necessity when playing video poker. On a traditional jacks-or-better machine you will hit a high pair, two pair and three of a kind at a rate of 41%. Expect no return 55% of the time. As for just the high pair, its relative frequency occurs every 4.75 hands, or 21.053% of the time. Why, Mike, give the casino an additional 21%? You need the jacks-or-better to keep you in the game. Needing two pair for a return is giving the casino a license to steal from the non-informed player.

Dear Mark, Does it make sense keeping a kicker in video poker? Martha M.

NEVER, repeat never, hold a kicker. Holding kickers (K, K, A) to any pair reduces your return by more than 5%.

Dear Mark, Do you, as an informed video poker player, ever ignore the strict rules of basic strategy? Jenny S.

The correct answer should be, NO, not me, NEVER. Basic strategy charts are derived not from some slick huckster selling his latest beat-the-casino system but by mathematicians and countless computer studies.

But, Jenny, I'll come clean here. There is one hand in which I completely disregard the correct betting approach. When dealt a high pair along with three cards to the royal, I say, the hell with basic strategy. The research conducted by high-priced computer scientists tells you to keep the high pair. I go for the royal flush every time. The additional strength (expected value) of a high pair hand versus three cards to a royal is so negligible, I always jump on the chance, as remote as it might be, of hitting the elusive royal flush.