Explain "Dreamcard Poker" to me?

[Alan Mendelson]

I've been playing DreamCard poker for free on videopoker.com and it's a quite a thrill when you get the "dream card bonus" and a dealt three of a kind turns into quads. And when I was playing Triple Double Bonus and was dealt quad aces, the "dream card" gave me the kicker. What a hoot!!

But that was playing for fun, and for free.

When you play this game in a real casino, all of your bets are doubled, which means when you play a 25-cent per coin game, you're actually playing $2.50 per hand, and not $1.25.

So how does the "doubled bet amount" figure into the payback of the game? Would, for example, an 8/5 Bonus game in Dream Card still pay back 99.2% and how do you figure the "value" of the "dream card bonus" because it's a random event?

[Spock]

This might answer at least some of your questions:

Wizard of Odds - Dream Card Poker

It isn't a game I'd probably play in the casino. It would seem to be too easy to have a bad run that sucked you dry in a flash.

[Alan Mendelson]

Spock, the link you gave returned to this page, so I went to Wizard of Odds and found this page:

http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-...es/dream-card/ Is this the page you had in mind?

Interesting write up. It seems that you get the Dream Card bonus about half of the hands you play. That's a lot better than Super Times Pay. I think you get the STP bonus about once in 15 hands... but I've played that game and it's always frustrated me to get the STP not as often as the players around me.

The Wizard also reports that payback is slightly higher on Dream Card and I am sure he takes into account that you are betting "double" on every hand you play. And yes, I can see how you can get wiped out if the "dream card hands" don't give you big winners to go through a dry spell. It appears that you could get a dream card when you have "nothing" and the dream card only gives you "more of nothing."

[arcimede$]

The variance is extremely high. You need to hit some of the big hands to keep afloat. The best game (in a casino) is deuces wild because you get the dreamcard 59% of the deals. That reduces the variance compared to the bonus games where the number of dreamcard hands are much fewer. The return is also much better.

I played about 20 sessions in the tournament myself. I had 8 RFs during those rounds. None were dealt so I was never close to winning although twice I had 2 royals in a session and scored over 10K points.

[Spock]

Spock, the link you gave returned to this page, so I went to Wizard of Odds and found this page:

http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-...es/dream-card/ Is this the page you had in mind?

Yes, that was it. I don't know how I managed to screw that up so badly.

STP requires 1 coin v. the 5 for Dream Card, so it makes sense it comes up more often. I like games like STP because it seems to be a modest increase in cost for potential large wins. But I've yet to find a game where the bonus portion doubles the cost that I found worthwhile.

[Alan Mendelson]

STP requires 1 coin

We were discussing this earlier. How many coins are required to be eligible for the Super Times Pay bonus? Must you play 6 coins or if you play just one can you still get the STP bonus?

I mentioned that I've gotten the bonus when I didn't have max coins played.

[Spock]

First 5 coins go to the normal hand, 6th coin activates the STP. Try it at Videopoker.com

Pick any game and it should start out at the maximum number of hands, but with 1 coin per hand. Up the coins per hand one at a time and you'll see the STP activate on the 6th coin.

[Alan Mendelson]

The variance is extremely high. You need to hit some of the big hands to keep afloat.

If you need the "big hands" to keep afloat, are you better off trying for some of the quads in the "big hand games" such as Double Double Bonus or Triple Double Bonus? And if you do get lucky and get a quad, or quad with kicker do you then quit??

Because you are paying "double" for each hand you play, quads on the lower variance games such as Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker, don't have the payoff that quads in DDB or TDB have.

What do you think?

[bigfoot66]

The WOO page explains a lot of this. I think the dream card feature adds a very small amount to the return and the different games get the dream card with different frequencies. I played this game online last night and I lost a lot of credits very quickly. I think I would prefer a game with a smaller premium and fewer times when you get the dream card.

[regnis]

We were discussing this earlier. How many coins are required to be eligible for the Super Times Pay bonus? Must you play 6 coins or if you play just one can you still get the STP bonus?

I mentioned that I've gotten the bonus when I didn't have max coins played.

Alan (and hello to everyone--this is my first post although I have been a regular"reader" here for a long time) ---let me clear up your confusion re Super Times Bonus. You need 6 coin in to be eligible. However, if you are playing a 3 way game, this game allows you to play 1 line at full pay as opposed to each coin going to the next line. So on a 3 way, you can play 1 line at 6 coins to activate.

[arcimede$]

If you need the "big hands" to keep afloat, are you better off trying for some of the quads in the "big hand games" such as Double Double Bonus or Triple Double Bonus? And if you do get lucky and get a quad, or quad with kicker do you then quit??

Because you are paying "double" for each hand you play, quads on the lower variance games such as Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker, don't have the payoff that quads in DDB or TDB have.

What do you think?

The problem has to do with the number of dreamcards that are given. For higher variance games you get fewer opportunities so that nullifies this logic. For example, you will get lots of 4RF chances in a game like deuces wild or BP because you get the dreamcard much more often. This is what led to all those RFs I got during the tournament.

[Alan Mendelson]

Do you think the videopoker.com tournament used the actual software? I played TDB and in one of the sessions I was dealt AAA3 with a dream card which was the ace. That gave me a 12,000 point hand.

[Alan Mendelson]

Alan (and hello to everyone--this is my first post although I have been a regular"reader" here for a long time) ---let me clear up your confusion re Super Times Bonus. You need 6 coin in to be eligible. However, if you are playing a 3 way game, this game allows you to play 1 line at full pay as opposed to each coin going to the next line. So on a 3 way, you can play 1 line at 6 coins to activate.

Thank you! And thanks for joining us!!

[Alan Mendelson]

I think I would prefer a game with a smaller premium and fewer times when you get the dream card.

Do you mean you'd prefer a game with a better payback and more times when you get the dream card?

Based on that criteria the #1 choice would be 9/6 Jacks with the dream card coming 50.5% of the time, or
Deuces wild with the Deuces Wild with a 25-15-9-4-4-3 paytable coming 59% of the time.

[arcimede$]

Do you think the videopoker.com tournament used the actual software?

It's slightly different due to it running on our PCs, but it is "functionally equivalent" and based on an RNG.

I played TDB and in one of the sessions I was dealt AAA3 with a dream card which was the ace. That gave me a 12,000 point hand.

Yes, that's why the number of dreamcards in TDB is lower. The chances of hitting hands like this are much higher. First of all, you need to realize that the number of 4 card deals is much lower than the number of 5 card deals. It has 270,725 possible deals. Of that number you can be deal 3 aces 4 ways and combine that with 12 kickers. That's 48 combinations. This means you should see this hand dealt once every 270,725/48 = 5640 hands. A huge difference. Of course, you won't get the dreamcard every time, but the same math also works of 2s, 3s and 4s. So, lots of big hands.

Now, consider the fact that we will lose all of that and more since the game is less than 100% return. That says you need to get a lot of long losing spells due to spending 10 credits for every hand.