Tribute to the original founder of vid-poker.com – Skip Hughes
While it is true that winning lots of money is a huge part of the casino experience and a main goal of virtually all serious real-money games players, there’s another, much more pleasing and involving side to gambling – sharing your successes with your friends and peers. This is where having a great and active community of fellow players comes in and what better example can you give in this regard than the group of players that were closed to, connected with or simply following the work of Skip Hughes.
Being one of the most well-known video poker experts, Skip showed many players, including me, the right way to go if they wanted to win while playing this famous casino game. His numerous publications, newsletters and the forums he had started played a big role in my training in video poker, as well as in the training of hundreds of others players. As far as his personality goes, both his real-life and online friends describe him as a warm, generous and funny guy who had great passion for video poker and his community. I didn’t know him personally, but I could definitely feel his wit shine through in his work. I still crack up when I read his fantastic article on the classification of video poker players in Las Vegas. This was his interpretation of the reactions that the different players have when they hit a royal:
- High-rolling visitor: “You want furs or jewelry, hunnybunch?”
- High-rolling local: “You playing that machine?”
- Mid-rolling visitor: “Wohooo! Do we get a t-shirt, too?”
- Mid-rolling local: “Figures. As soon as I move down to quarters…”
- Low-rolling visitor: “What’s that noise?”
- Low-rolling local: “Don’t tell my wife!”
I definitely admired that sense of humor and I’m still to this day amazed how he managed to meaningfully cite people from completely different fields such as Bill Buckley, Louie Anderson, Sheryl Crow and Cyndi Lauper for a splash of (true) color in the same article, that article being about video poker. But the most important part was that behind the wit there was some very solid knowledge. Skip Hughes taught us about advantage video poker, showed us how to pick the right casino and the machines to play on, introduced us to the mathematics behind the game and busted some myths that were circling around the VP community. This witty, entertaining but still extremely informative style of writing was a huge inspiration for me and a model as to how to write great gambling articles and casino reviews.
The legacy of Skip Hughes
Skip Hughes had been a strong voice in the video poker community and in the gambling industry in general even since before the Internet. In the 80’s he produced and distributed in various Las Vegas casinos laminated video poker strategy cards that made it much easier on the new players to understand the specific rules of the different video poker machines. Since then he had been involved in numerous other projects:
- Skip had regular columns in renowned gambling magazines such as Strictly Slots, Double Down and Casino Play;
- He was the creator and editor of Video Poker Player Magazine;
- He launched and maintained the VP Player website and edited the VPP Newsletter;
- In 1997 he founded the first video poker discussion forum – Skip Hughes Group Video Poker Forum;
- He was the founder and editor of the VP Insider website and the VP Insider Newsletter;
- During his years of activity he created several other websites and discussion forums that helped many more video poker players play better and win more.
The work of Skip Hughes was recognized and cited by many other famous gambling experts such as Henry Tamburin, Bob Dancer and Jean Scott, with whom he actually had close friendship. Unfortunately after his passing the domain of the VP Player website expired and was bought by spammers who use it to promote a cohesive collection of useful products such as poker bots, Viagra, herbal medicine for weight loss, as well as discount eyeglasses. His VP Insider website is still online, though unfortunately not for much longer – the current owners of the site intent to take it down after the end of the year 2014, as there hasn’t been huge interest from players for the articles and newsletters that it has been offering after Skip’s passing.
But even though most of his online work is slowly going extinct, his strategy cards and the few articles of his that still can be found throughout the Internet are to this day helping many new video poker players discover the right way to play. Undoubtedly, he will be forever remembered by his community and as long as there are players using his strategy cards and turning to his articles for advice on playing video poker, his legacy will live on.