Royal Aces Bonus video poker is a wild, wild, wild game. Four aces without a kicker pays the same as a royal flush.

I've only played it a few times in my life -- honestly, fewer than ten times -- and with a limited amount of money because it will suck you dry unless you do hit four aces.

The pay table starts with a pair of aces. A pair of jacks or queens or kings pays zip. Two pair only gets you even money -- your original bet returned.

There isn't much written about this game, so I was very interested in the few pages that were in Frank Scoblete's new book "Everything Casino Poker" about it.

In Frank's book there is a chart that shows that in Royal Aces Bonus a royal flush occurs once in a bout 46,000 hands but quad aces occurs about once in 4,059 hands.

This is a game for holding aces -- but correct strategy says if you are dealt, for example As, 5c, 5d, Jh, 2d then you hold the pair of fives.

That's how I played the game. But three times now (out of the fewer than ten times that I've played Royal Aces Bonus) I've dropped a single ace to hold a pair and each time I would have been better off holding the ace.

Two out of the three times the pair I held did not improve, but one or two aces showed up in the draw, and then once three aces showed up in the draw which would have been the equivalent of a Royal Flush.

It makes me think that I should always hold even a single ace over a non-paying pair.

Help me to understand why the "correct strategy" is correct and my thinking about holding an ace over a non-paying pair is wrong?

Thanks.