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VIDEO POKER
 Bob Dancer writes a video poker column for beginners to experts. He also writes a column each week with Jeffrey Compton titled Player's Edge, which features information on promotions at various Las Vegas Hotel. Player's Edge is published each Friday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Click here to send Bob Dancer an e-mail.
June 18, 2002
An Easy Test For You
You are playing some sort of video poker game that doesn't have use a deuce as a wild card. It could be Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus, Triple Bonus Plus, Joker Wild or whatever. But it is not Deuces Wild, Deuces Bonus or one of their variants.
In any of these games, I want you to evaluate three different straight flush draws, namely:
234 235 345
To score perfectly on this test, all you have to do is to rank them from high to low. We haven't specified how much two pair, straights, flushes or straight flushes receive in this game, so you only need to determine "relative value" rather than "absolute value". You need to determine which is highest in value, which is second highest and which is third highest --- or perhaps there could be a tie.
Work out your answer before you read on. I'll wait.
You should have known right away that 345 is in highest position --- or perhaps tied for the highest. There are no gaps. And it is far away enough from the top and bottom of the deck so that you can fit cards above it or below it. There are actually three straight flushes you can get from this starting point: 76543, 65432, and 5432A.
Also knowable right away is that 235 is in the lowest position --- or perhaps tied for the lowest. There is a gap, and every gap reduces the number of possible straight flushes. If you count them, you'll see that there are two straight flushes you can get from this starting point: 65432 and 5432A.
That leaves us with 234. If I tell you that 345 is worth $3.00 in some game, and that 235 is worth $2.50, you should be able to tell me whether 234 is worth exactly $3.00, exactly $2.50, or somewhere in between. There are no gaps, but its proximity to the ace creates an "inside" which has exactly the same value as a gap. Counting straight flushes leaves you with the same two we had with 235, namely 65432 and 5432A, so the value of 234 is also $2.50.
So the answer to the test is that 345 is the most valuable, followed by 234 and 235 which have equal value to each other. And this is true in every game that doesn't use the deuce as a wild card.
Is this just "ho hum" information, or is it important? I think it is critically important if you want to play hands correctly. In 9/6 Jacks or Better or 10/7 Double Bonus, for instance, on a hand such as 3h 4h 5h Qs Js, you should hold 345 but on a hand such as 2h 3h 4h Qs Js or 2h 3h 5h Qs Js, you should hold QJ. If you thought that all three combinations had the same value, or perhaps that 234 had equal value to 345, then you would have gotten at least one of these plays wrong.
Memorizing the play of these hands and applying that knowledge to all games is an equally bad procedure. In 8/5 Bonus Poker, a game related to Jacks or Better and a game in which the correct play to most hands is identical to the correct play of the same hand in 9/6 Jacks, you hold the QJ in all three of the hands listed above. Conversely, in all forms of Joker Wild, any of the straight flush hands would be preferable to QJ.
So the correct way to play each hand is a lesson for another day, but the fact that 234 is equal in value to 235, and that they each are less in value than 345 is a lesson you should commit to memory. Because it is true for every game not using a deuce as a wild card.
For those of you who play mostly Deuces Wild, the exact same lesson can be expressed in that game by looking at 456, 457, and 567. The first two combinations have the same value, which is less than the value of the third combination.
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