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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.

For a 3,000-word preview of Bob's juicy new novel, "Sex, Lies, and Video Poker", visit www.bobdancer.com.

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July 5, 2005

VIDEO POKER: A Homework Assignment in Multi Strike

In last week's column, I went over the logic behind the "+ 6", "+ 4", or "+ 2" technique that is used to figure out strategies for Multi Strike. If you're not familiar with that argument, you should review what I wrote a few mouse clicks away.

The purpose of adding these numbers is to take into proper consideration the value of playing higher lines, at double the current stakes (and then double again, and then double again, in the case of the bottom line) without having to ante any more money. On FREE RIDE hands, where you are guaranteed to move up to the next higher round, the appropriate play is to use "basic strategy", without the "+ 6" or other additives.

So far I'm just repeating the "tried and true" rules. Now for something new. What if, for example, there are only two possibly correct plays on a given hand, and BOTH POSSIBLE PLAYS will cause you to advance to the next line?

Consider a hand like 33388 in a game like 8/5 Super Aces Bonus, where the basic strategy is to hold all five cards, but it's a close decision. The relevant numbers in the pay table are as follows:

	Basic	+6
Four of a Kind	80	86
Full House	8	14
Three of a Kind	3	9

How much you get for a straight flush or two pair, for example, is totally irrelevant on the hand in question. If you hold the full house, that's all you can get, and if you hold the trips, the hand can remain trips, or be improved to a full house of 4-of-a-kind. That's all that's possible.

Notice that adding 6 to each 3-of-a-kind triples its payout. It less than doubles the payout for Full House, and has a relatively small effect on the return for Four of a Kind.

Using the 86, 14, and 9 numbers would certainly be appropriate if there was doubt that you would make it to the second level. Here there is no such doubt. Using the 80, 8, and 3 numbers would certainly be appropriate if you received a FREE PLAY pass to the second round. That's not what happened either --- although on this particular hand the result is the same.

So my question to you is which pay table should you use to figure out how to play this hand? Use the basic one (where you KNOW you should hold the full house) or use the Multi Strike one (which you might not have figured out yet)?

There are many other such hands in Multi Strike games that have this type of "both top plays take you to the next level". In 10/7 Double Bonus, it is a close play(in the regular version) on a hand like AA332 whether to hold AA or AA33. In all Deuces Wild variations, for example, any hand that starts with two or three deuces must fit into this category, because you are going at least to hold the deuces whether or not you hold other cards. In Kings or Better Joker Wild, any hand that starts out joker-ace-king unsuited, where the choice is between joker ace and joker king, fits this category because holding either one gives you a "kings or better" paying pair.

There are several dozen game type/pay schedule combinations within the Multi Strike framework. If this not-previously-discussed phenomenon changes the way correct play on a few hands, wouldn't that change the return on the game? The first time this occurred to me, I wondered if the mathematicians at IGT took this into account when they created their documentation for the various states' gaming committees around the country.

I STRONGLY encourage you to work through this. You will discover something interesting about Multi Strike if you do. Sometimes my columns generate discussions on various Internet bulletin boards. Perhaps the same will happen here. I won't participate in those discussions until after my "answer" is published next week, but if there is any remaining debate on the correctness of my answer after next week, I'll be happy to join the debate.