New VP game idea: Monster Jackpot Bonus Poker

[slobdinger]

In most Jacks or Better games the high pairs play over the 3-card royals. But that changes if a sequential is involved and the royal cards are in sequential position.

[Alan Mendelson]

In most Jacks or Better games the high pairs play over the 3-card royals. But that changes if a sequential is involved and the royal cards are in sequential position.

What you say is true, but If i have three high cards to a royal (so that pairing any high card will give me my money back) I would drop the pair to draw to the royal.

Example:

As Ks Js Jh 3c I would gladly hold the three spades in this example. I'm not playing this hand to get a pair. I'm playing this hand to get a royal or even a straight or a flush is better than a pair of jacks.

[slobdinger]

What you say is true, but If i have three high cards to a royal (so that pairing any high card will give me my money back) I would drop the pair to draw to the royal.

Example:

As Ks Js Jh 3c I would gladly hold the three spades in this example. I'm not playing this hand to get a pair. I'm playing this hand to get a royal or even a straight or a flush is better than a pair of jacks.

To each his own, but this is definitely not optimum strategy. 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.

[Alan Mendelson]

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.

[slobdinger]

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.

Frugal and Wolf Video Poker have a function called "tweak the strategy chart." All i had to do was place the 3-card royals over the high pairs in the strategy chart and then hit the analyze tab. It showed 99.0656%. So you are giving up a tenth of a percent by playing it the way you do.

By the way, you can download Frugal Video Poker for free at wolfvideopoker.com

[jbjb]

So you are giving up a tenth of a percent by playing it the way you do.

Yeah, not a big deal. I'll keep the pair and forego the huge variance though.

[RS__]

Frugal and Wolf Video Poker have a function called "tweak the strategy chart." All i had to do was place the 3-card royals over the high pairs in the strategy chart and then hit the analyze tab. It showed 99.0656%. So you are giving up a tenth of a percent by playing it the way you do.

By the way, you can download Frugal Video Poker for free at wolfvideopoker.com

You'd think someone who cares so much about 0.06% would use proper strategy, so as to not give up this 0.1% in return.

[Alan Mendelson]

You'd think someone who cares so much about 0.06% would use proper strategy, so as to not give up this 0.1% in return.

I'm not sure what your point is here?

If I was so concerned with return I'd be playing 9/6 Jacks instead of 8/5 Bonus at Caesars. Clearly I am playing 8/5 Bonus because I want a crack at bigger payoffs. It's very frustrating to play JOB and get quad aces -- and it's happened to me too many times.

Before you ask me why I'm not playing DDB or TDB for the bigger payoffs, the answer is I have but I have also lost too much on the volatility of those games.

Getting back to the 3-card royal draws -- I am not in the casinos every day. So on the rare occasions when a 3 card royal presents itself I am going to go for it. However, I am not going to dump trip-queens to go for a 3-card royal the way Rob Singer would.

[jbjb]

For every one quad aces you get, I'll get more money off the full houses and flushes in between. BTW, I hit four aces on 7/5 BP today and only play it at this location because the JoB is 8/5 which actually makes the BP a better choice. Overall of these bonus games though, I prefer 8/5 SDDB.

It's all about preference and nobody is wrong on how they play or spend their money. Beats wasting it watching over paid celebrities and sports players.

[Alan Mendelson]

BTW, I hit four aces on 7/5 BP today and only play it at this location because the JoB is 8/5 which actually makes the BP a better choice.

Why would you even bother playing that?

[RS__]

Why would you even bother playing that?

Idk why he plays 7/5 BP....but I've played 6/5 BP in some locations because it's the best (least awful) game. Sometimes it doesn't matter what the return is on the game....it matters what kind of return you can get out of it (i.e.: good promos).


Alan, in another thread you make a huge deal about the 0.06% return difference. And now you're (essentially) saying you don't care that much about the return?

[jbjb]

Time waster. For quarters, I'll play it for short 15-20 minute bursts. I don't sit and "gamble" for long periods of time. It's not costing me much and it's their best paying 25¢ low variance game.

P.S. there's nothing worse, I think, than getting AAAA3 holding AAA then half hour later throwing everything away and redrawing 6AAAA on Deuces Wild! Did this last Saturday on NSUD.

At least you won't ever catch me playing those sucker 7%+ STA or 20%+ Fire bets

[Alan Mendelson]

Alan, in another thread you make a huge deal about the 0.06% return difference. And now you're (essentially) saying you don't care that much about the return?

I don't recall making a "huge deal" about the 0.06% return difference. Please post a link.

I do know that since I am not in a casino as much as you guys are, I want to hit the bigger winners and want to give myself a better chance to do that. 8/5 Bonus gives me that chance.

You can argue that I am giving up coins that I would have had with 9/6 Jacks, but when I hit AAAA on a $25 Bonus game, I really don't care about the missed coins for flushes and full houses.

[Rob.Singer]

Alan's 100% correct on several counts. People who don't spend countless hours in casinos every week don't care about how many full houses or flushes they get. What they do care about is giving themselves the best opportunity to see the big winners that will send them home with more money than they came with. And all this theorizing about the FH's & Flushes adding up to more than what the Aces paid is irrelevant and wrong. No one who has any brains is ever going to play millions of hands, and that's exactly where that assertion comes from.

The same thing goes for a tenth of a percent in "give". Why would anyone who plays to win TODAY care one bit about something as foolish as that? And of course, as we all know, that's really how everyone plays, only the AP's spin it to make believe that tiny tenth of a % has some mysterious value by the time they step into their graves. Makes no sense at all.

[RS__]

Alan's 100% correct on several counts. People who don't spend countless hours in casinos every week don't care about how many full houses or flushes they get. What they do care about is giving themselves the best opportunity to see the big winners that will send them home with more money than they came with. And all this theorizing about the FH's & Flushes adding up to more than what the Aces paid is irrelevant and wrong. No one who has any brains is ever going to play millions of hands, and that's exactly where that assertion comes from.

The same thing goes for a tenth of a percent in "give". Why would anyone who plays to win TODAY care one bit about something as foolish as that? And of course, as we all know, that's really how everyone plays, only the AP's spin it to make believe that tiny tenth of a % has some mysterious value by the time they step into their graves. Makes no sense at all.

Be careful with whom you attack and whom you support there -- as Alan has been preaching how important 0.06% is to him. I was trying to convince him 0.06% is such a tiny amount, you shouldn't even worry about it. (It's less than ONE four of a kind on $5 BP, over the course of $1M coin in.)

[arcimede$]

I used to play a game similar to the one mentioned by Dan. It was at Circus Circus. The base game was 8/5 Aces and Eights. It had a progressive on both the RF and the sequential royal.

[jbjb]

I think it's still there.

[redietz]

Damn, I remember that Aces and eights machine at Circus-Circus. I have no idea if it's still there as I haven't been in CC in quite a long while.

One problem with Rob's whole mantra is that sports bettors could say, "What the hell? I'm playing today, not in the long run, so the difference between laying -120 and -110 won't matter TODAY." Good way to go broke fast.

[slobdinger]

I used to play a game similar to the one mentioned by Dan. It was at Circus Circus. The base game was 8/5 Aces and Eights. It had a progressive on both the RF and the sequential royal.

I remember that game. It was in Circus Circus Reno too.

[slobdinger]

Idk why he plays 7/5 BP....but I've played 6/5 BP in some locations because it's the best (least awful) game.

I used to play quite a bit of dollar 6/5 Bonus Poker at Harvey's in Lake Tahoe. But it was a little bit different set up. The quads all had 1% meters on them. The game was in the bartops at the Mountain Bar. This was in the late nineties and the machines didn't have bill acceptors. We had to buy racks of tokes from the bartender and hand feed. But the machines did hold credits so we only had to hand feed just enough to get some credits on the machines.

Several of us would jump into action when the meters hit certain points.

Generic Quads = $220
Small Quads = $320
4 Aces = $650

It was a quad race amongst the hustlers. When the key meter was hit you would hear Clang! Clang! Clang! as all the hustlers cashed out.