Strictly Slots November 2022

PLAYER’S EDGE BY JOHN GROCHOWSKI

THE BIG ACE GAMES Big paydays give video poker players a reason to play

V ideo poker games with enhanced payoffs on four Aces have been a video poker staple for more than two decades.Bonus Poker,Double Bonus Poker,Double Dou ble Bonus Poker,Triple Double Bonus Poker and beyond are among the most popular games around, and have proven stay ing power.This fascination with the big Ace games is reflected in a constant stream of emails from readers. Consider the following: DO VIDEO POKER GAMES DEAL FEWER ACES? Given a five-coin bet, four Aces will bring you 400 coins on Bonus Poker or 800 on Double Bonus.The payoff also is 800 most of the time on Double Double or Triple Double, but if the fifth card is a 2, 3 or 4, that leaps to 2,000 on DDB and a whopping 4,000—as much as a royal flush—on TDB. Compare that to the 125 on all four of a kinds in Jacks or Bet ter. There has to be some kind of adjustment, right? There is, but the adjustment doesn’t come from reducing the number of Aces dealt. It comes of adjustments elsewhere on the pay table. We don’t draw four Aces less often on the Ace-jackpot games. In fact, those who play at expert level get four-Ace hands more often in those video poker favorites.We get four Aces once per

5,106 hands in 8-5 Bonus Poker, once per 4,567 hands in 9-7-5 Dou ble Bonus, once per 4,252 hands in 9-6 Double Double Bonus— broken down into once per 16,236 with the low-card kicker and once per 5,761 hands without—and once per 4,578 hands in 9/7 Triple Double Bonus—broken down to once per 14,214 hands with the kicker and once per 6,751 hands without. The reason we get Aces more often in the big jackpot games is because we adjust strategies to go for them more often.Dealt Ace of clubs, Jack of diamonds, 7 of hearts, 4 of clubs, 2 of hearts in 9-7 Triple Double Bonus,we hold just theAce and give ourselves a long shot chance at four Aces with a kicker. Dealt the same hand in 9-7 5 Double Bonus, we hold both the Ace and the Jack. The adjustments to offset the big jackpot hands come on the rest of the pay table. In Bonus Poker,with the smallest Aces jackpot, two pairs pay 2-for-1, while they pay only 1-for-1 on the other games.Triple Double Bonus, with the biggest jackpot, pays only 2 for-1 on three of a kind, while the others pay 3-for-1. Other pay table adjustments are made on full houses, flushes and straights. Smaller payoffs on more frequently occurring hands make it unnecessary to tinker with card frequency to make the payback percentages come out right.

18 NOVEMBER 2022 ■ STRICTLY SLOTS ■ www.casinocenter.com