VIDEO POKER AT ROME CASINO
I introduced a friend to video poker at Rome Casino the other night. Not only had he never played at Rome, he had never played video poker at all, though he’s a regular player of live games. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to turn him loose on the video version, give him no instructions, and see how quickly he adapted to the online version of the game.
Rome Casino offers four versions of poker to choose from: Deuces and Joker, Deuces Wild, Jacks or Better, and Joker Poker. Being something of a poker purist, my friend opted for Jacks or Better.
On his first hand, he was dealt a pair of Kings and was declared a winner. He grinned as he watched his winnings added to his bankroll on the screen. “But where is my opponent’s hand?” he asked. He was expecting to see at least one other player at the table, if not a whole slew of them, and he was discomforted by the unfamiliar setup.
On his next hand he was dealt a pair of 3s, a King, an 8, and a 9. He discarded the low pair and the middle cards, holding only the King, and pushed the Draw button. On this second deal he drew a pair of deuces and nothing else of worth. “How do I fold?” he asked, intently scanning the buttons on the screen but failing to find one that read FOLD.
In accordance with the agreement we had made prior to starting this experiment, I didn’t answer him. “I have a pair of deuces. The game is Jacks or Better. If my opponent opened, he must have a better hand,” my friend said.
Biting my tongue to keep from saying, “That’s not how it works in video poker,” I confined my advice to “Use the chat support.”
The chat support area of the screen sits prominently to the right of the play area on Rome Casino games. My friend summoned a member of Chat Support, and after only half a minute or so was dialoguing with a fellow who informed him there was no Fold option in the game. He referred him to a URL at which he could read or download the rules for video poker. My friend shot several other questions to the Chat Support personnel in the course of his 20 minutes of play, all answered promptly and satisfactorily.
I had misplaced my glasses, which gave me the occasion to notice for the first time that the card values at Rome Casino are printed large enough to be read even without one’s eyeglasses, a nice little touch that I had never been aware of before.
Just for the hell of it, my friend played a few rounds of Joker Poker too, and when he left, he left with the URL of Rome Casino on a slip of paper tucked in his pocket… so that he can visit the casino from his home computer from now on.
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