Originally Posted by slobdinger View Post
At 8/5 Bonus Poker the expected return on the pair of jacks is about 1.53 bets where the expected return on the 3-card royal is about 1.41 bets. If you routinely hold these 3-card royals over the high pairs you are doing two things, knocking your royal odds down from about 40,000 down to under 34,000....but you are giving up EV in return. You are not getting the full value of the 99.166% return with optimal strategy.
How often do I get a 3-card royal draw? You make it sound like it happens consistently. I might play video poker for four hours and get one or two 3-card draws.