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Bob Dancer writes a video poker column for beginners to experts. He also writes a column with Jeffrey Compton, "Player's Edge", featuring information on promotions at various Las Vegas casinos. Player's Edge is published each Friday in the Neon section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Click here to send Bob Dancer an e-mail.

June 03, 2003

More on 4-Cards-To-The-Royal

I received three emails on last week's column about the 4-cards-to-the-royal that ran at Tuscany last month. So I thought I'd address them publicly. The promotion (now over) awarded a 100-coin bonus if you ended up with 4-cards-to-the-royal without a paying hand, and we were specifically addressing 10/7 Double Bonus played for dollars. Even though the game for dollars only lasted for one day and after that you needed to play for half-dollars or quarters, the change in stakes doesn't change the correct play for any hand.

One email asked me about (AKQT)5. Since WinPoker gives the value of drawing to (AKQT) as being worth $93.62, and holding all five cards was worth $100 due to the promotion, then it must be right not to draw to the hand. The person writing the email was quite proud of himself for this realization.

Actually, holding all five cards would be a major mistake. While it is true that the drawing to (AKQT) is worth łonly˛ $93.62 on average, included in this average are the 26 times you could end up with nothing at all --- (the three non-suited-with-the-royal cards of each rank from 2-T, minus the specific 5 you threw away at the start). So drawing to (AKQT) gives you an extra (26 * $100) / 47 = $55.32 --- or $148.94 in total.

The second email came from someone who wanted to know about the hand (AK)[QT]5, where the choice was to go for either of two separate royals, or to keep the normal AKQT. As before, we start by looking at WinPoker, which gives a value of $3.09 for AKQT, $2.77 for the suited AK, and $2.26 for the suited QT. Those who remember last week's exercise will remember that the bonus added 41˘ to a suited (KQ), so since we only need to add 34˘ to (AK) to make it the preferred play, it is certainly worth checking out and off the top of my head I'd say to hold it. Holding the (QT) needs to add so much more that it's not even worth checking out.

Drawing three cards to (AK), let's first look at the (QJ) draw. Any non-same-suit card in the range of eight ranks 2-9 works, less the one card of rank 5 we threw away. This yields 23 combinations. Drawing either (QT) or (JT) the same 23 cards work, plus the extra three tens in the deck --- because a pair of tens does not disqualify us from the bonus. This adds up to (23 + 26 + 25) * $100 / 16,215 = 46˘. This is quite a bit more than the 34˘ difference that AKQT was superior to (AK), so a switch in strategies was called for.

The third email was intended to be humorous. Someone suggested that since I tell my classes that my wife Shirley really likes to hold (AT), they wanted to know whether this was a promotion she fell in love with because now it was the correct play to hold that combination? I don't know whether this person expected an honest answer but here goes anyway.

This was definitely NOT a promotion that Shirley would go for because she has sinus problems and promotions that attract a lot of players inevitably attract a lot of smokers and that makes her miserable. If this were a promotion she knew about but nobody else did, then yes, she'd like it. But when it gets bandied over the Internet like this one did and there are a large number of players going for it, she'll pass.

In my early days in Vegas, however, when I was strongly trying to build a bankroll and survive as a video poker player playing quarter and dollar games, this would have been a promotion I would have played as long as it was around. Since it was set up as a 12-hour a day promotion, I'd would have been there all twelve hours, plus an hour beforehand to make sure I could get a machine. The fact that holding (AT) was allowed would have been one of several strategy adjustments I made, but not special in and of itself. The fact that it offered a high dollars-per-hour return would have been the driving force for me.