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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.
Oct. 01, 2002
Sequential Quads At the Castaways
During October the Castaways is offering a 200-coin bonus for all 4-of-a-kinds in sequential order --- that is from left to right, clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades --- on all 5¢ through $1 video poker games. Bridge players instantly recognize that order, but even if you're not a bridge player, remembering alphabetical order isn't too tough. The "kicker" may be in any of the five positions.
First let's see how often it happens. For any quad, there's a 1-in-four chance that the left-most card in the quad is a club. Once that card is selected, there's a 1-in-three chance that the next card is a diamond. And then a 1-in-2 chance that the third one is a heart. And, of course, once the first three cards in the quad are selected, the fourth one must be a spade. Multiplying these together lets us know that we have a 1-in-24 chance that any given quad is sequential. Having a 1-in-24 chance to collect 200 is equivalent to an average bonus of 8.33 for each quad.
I know 9/6 Jacks returns 99.54% with quads paying 125, and I used that as a base to determine how much the promotion was worth. I ran it with quads paying 133 (99.922%) and 134 (99.969%) and figured that since the real number is 133.33 (i.e. 125 + 8.33), the actual return is very close to 99.94%, which means the promotion adds almost 0.4% to the basic game. This is a good deal for players.
I looked at what changes I would make to 10/7 Double Bonus and full pay Deuces Wild strategy to take advantage of this promotion. This list isn't comprehensive, but it will give you some idea of my methodology.
In Double Bonus, usually a suited QJ9 or a suited JT9 is preferred to a low pair in the range of 55 through TT. It turns out it depends on position. From 5c 5d Qh Jh 9h you hold 55, but from Qs 5d 5h Js 9s, you should hold QJ9. Can you see why there'd be a difference?
When the low pair is in sequential order and in the first two, the last two, or the first and last positions, it is equally likely whether the remaining two cards will be in order or not. Since it's 50/50 whether you receive a 200-coin bonus for the quad, I added 100 to the 250 you usually receive for these quads and then checked the hand on WinPoker.
If the pair is in any other position, it is only a 1-in-3 chance that a resulting quad will be sequential. To see this, let's assume the 5d and 5h are in position 2 and 3 respectively. If the resulting quad ends up either in positions 1234 or 1235, it's 50/50 that the 5c will be in the first position. But if they end up in positions 2345 then they can't be in sequential order because no matter whether the 5c is in position 4 or 5, the hand won't be sequential. A 1-in-3 chance to add 200 coins means an average gain of 67 for each quad. Making the return for a quad worth 317 (i.e., 250 + 67) and checking the result shows us that a suited QJ9 and JT9 are better than 55.
On hands like 44567, usually you hold 4567 in Double Bonus over the low pair. But during this promotion prefer the sequential 22, 33, or 44 (in any acceptable position) to a 4-card straight, but with 55-TT, sequential or not, continue to go for the straight.
In full pay Deuces Wild (i.e., where 4-of-a-kinds pay 5 and 5-of-a-kinds pay 15) I noticed two strategy differences after a quick scan.
The first is easy. In a hand like 55669 in this game, usually the strategy is to hold 55 or 66 but not both. Now, if one of the pairs is sequential and the other one isn't, pick the sequential one.
The second one depends on position. Consider 5c 5d 5h 8s 8h. According to WinPoker, holding the full house is 4.90 coins better than holding 555. Drawing two cards to 3-of-a-kind results of quads one time in 23.5 times. But if sequential quads give a bonus of 200 coins, and all quads resulting from this position will be sequential, then this bonus is worth 200/23.5 = 8.51 coins. This is quite a bit more than the average of 4.90 coins you will give up by just holding the trips, so it is a good investment.
But now consider the hand 6s 8d 8h 8s 6h. Now the sequential quad is a 1-in-47 times chance because the 8c must be in the first position to qualify. 200/47 = 4.26 on average, which is not enough to compensate for giving up 4.90 coins, so on this hand you should keep the full house.
There are definitely additional hands to adjust in each game, but you'll have to discover them for yourself. I teach at Castaways every Tuesday evening at 7 pm, so it might seem like I am scratching their back by encouraging you to play this promotion primarily because they scratch mine. While that is a factor, any other casino running a good video poker promotion for players merely has to let me know at bobdancer@lvcm.com and I'll be happy to analyze it in this column.
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