VIDEO POKER

Evaluating Hands in Double Down Stud

Let's assume we are playing a "Sixes or Better" game and are trying to analyze a hand such as Qs Jh Ts 8c. You'll receive one more card and your only choice is whether to double your bet or not. You will score if you collect a nine (resulting in a straight) or match up one of the other cards --- each of which qualifies as "sixes or better". Should you double or not?

Nor surprisingly, the correct answer depends on the pay schedule. Let's look at the relevant parts of the pay schedule. Let's say that straights return 7 for 1, jacks or better return 2 to 1 and pairs of 6s through Ts return even money.

Working it out in your head (or with paper and pencil) is actually feasible. For each possibility you need to keep in mind how many cards yield each particular hand and multiply that by how much the hand is worth. If the total equals or exceeds 48, double your bet. If not, don't. And the reason 48 is the magic number is that there are 48 cards left in the deck. We started with 52 of them and are looking at four of them. 52 - 4=48.

In the hand in question, there are four nines in the deck that will give us a straight worth 7 coins. There are a total of six queens-and-jacks that will give us a "2-coin high pair" and a total of six tens-and-eights that will give us a "1-coin high pair." Add this up as follows: 4x7 + 6x2 + 6x1 = 46. Since this is below 48, we shouldn't double. But on a hand such as KQJ9, which has an extra "2-coin high card" we'll get 4x7 + 9x2 + 3x1 = 49, so we should double. Each additional card going from the "1-coin high card" to the "2-coin high card" category (or from the "not a paying pair" to the "1-coin high pair" category) gets us 3 units closer to our goal of 48. So with this pay schedule, the appropriate strategy rule for inside straights is "with three or more 2-coin high cards in the hand, double. With two or less, don't."

Some of the pay schedules return 8 for 1 for straights. What would be the rule then? The first hand would be 4x8 + 6x2 + 6x1 = 50. This is above 48 so we double. With only one "1-coin high pair", such as an unsuited JT97, we should know by now that this will reduce our count from 50 to 47 and we should not double. This yields us a rule for this pay schedule of "with two or more 2-coin high cards in the hand, double. With one or less, don't."

Now let's assume we were playing a game that returned six coins for a straight, along with the same high-pair structure as above. Should we double on a 2345 draw? On this hand there are eight cards that will fill in the straight (four As and four 6s), so 8x6=48 and we're right on the boundary. What should we do? Insofar as the expected value of the game itself is concerned, it doesn't matter whether we double or not, as the expected return on the additional coin(s) wagered is exactly equal to their cost. But if there's any kind of a slot club, the extra coins bet will bring benefits. So you should double your bet if there's a slot club. If there's not a slot club, or you don't have your slot club card inserted (shame on you!), doubling on this hand optional.

Pay schedules for Double Down Stud are tricky. Different pay schedules differ in the value of straight flushes, 4-of-a-kinds, full houses, flushes, straights, and even the break between 2-coin high pairs and 1-coin high pairs. If that isn't complicated enough, they have over-98% versions for one pair games (i.e. any pair gives you your money back), sixes or better, sevens or better, double double bonus poker, deuces wild, deuces wild bonus and joker poker. (In the latter game, use 49 as the magic number rather than 48). There are 8 pay schedules returning over 99%, including two over 100%. In a subsequent article, after these games are more widely available, I'll let you know how to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. But for now, with any pay schedule, you can at least figure out how to play each hand perfectly