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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.

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Oct 04, 2006

These Hands Are Fit to be Tied --- Part 3 of 3

For the last two weeks, I've been looking at hands in various video poker games where there are two different plays which are tied for being best. This week I want to look at one more game and draw some conclusions.

Joker Two Pair

The good version of this game has a 20-10-6-5-2-1 pay schedule and returns 99.92%. The reason this high-paying game survives is it is devilishly difficult.

In the hands where you begin with a joker, there is really no difference between a 3-card royal flush with no insides, specifically W'JT' (where the W stands for wild card, and in this game that means a joker) and a 3-card straight flush with no insides (specifically W'45'-W'9T'). The reason why these are the same is the joker royal flush returns the same amount as a straight flush, namely 500 coins on a 5-coin basis. Therefore, in conjunction with Liam W. Daily, in the Dancer/Daily strategy cards we use the §F3 to represent either a 3-card royal OR a 3-card straight flush, and §F4 to indicate the four card versions of both.

1. With the joker, two different §F3 with 0 insides --- in the range of W'45'-W'JT' but far enough apart that they do not form a 5-card straight. One example is W '67' "JT".

2. With the joker, two different §F3 with 1 inside --- in the range of W'34', w'35'-W'QT', W'QJ'. Both W'34' and W'QJ' have an inside because they are too close to the endpoints of the A23456789TJQKA ranking. One of many examples would be W '34' "9J'.

3. With the joker, two different §F3 with two insides --- in the range of W'23', W'24', W'25'-W'TK', W'JK', W'QK'. Sometimes straight interference affects only one of the §F3 combinations, such as §'KQ' "96" where the 9 interferes with the value of the W'KQ' but neither the K nor the Q interfere with the value of the W'96'. In cases like this, you go with the §F3 with no interference.

4. With the joker, two different §F3 with three insides --- in the range of W'26'-W'9K', plus all A-high and A-low. A typical case would be W 'A2' "6T". If the interference only goes one way (such as W 'A2' "59") the two combinations are no longer tied with each other. Sometimes even those there are two tied combinations, there is a higher-ranking ST3, such as W '37' "8Q".

5. With the joker, a 4-card flush and a 4-card inside straight --- one example of this is W 'KQ4' T.

6. With the joker, two separate 3-card straights with no insides --- in the range of W45-WJT.

7. With the joker, two different mid-cards with equal interference --- from W5 to WT --- such as from W QT53 both WT and W5 have equal values.

8. With the joker, W4J with equal flush and straight interference. One example is from W'4J'K2, you may hold either W4 or WJ.

9. No joker an open-ended 4-card straight with a pair --- such as with 45677, you have two separate ways to hold 4567.

10. No joker --- two separate 4-card inside straights --- such as with AKQT9, both AKQT and KQT9 have equal values.

11. No joker --- two separate 2-card straight flushes with no insides --- in the range of '45' to '9T'. They have to be far enough apart so that they are not a 4-card straight (with or without an inside), and the fifth card has to be chosen carefully so that it interferes with neither SF2, or both equally. Two such examples are '56' "9T" A and '45' 7 '9T'.

12. No joker --- two separate 2-card straight flushes with one inside --- in the range of 34, 35-9J. The fifth card must interfere equally with both SF2, as in "34" 7 '9J'.

13. No joker --- two separate 3-card inside straights --- Usually 3-card inside straights are less valuable than single mid-cards, but sometimes there are enough penalties so that the 3-card inside straights come out on top. One example is Kh Jd Tc 8h 4c..

14. No joker --- two separate mid-cards. Sometimes cards in the range of 5-T are held by themselves. Of these, T is the highest valued because it's the only one that can be part of a royal. In the no-joker section, a natural royal is A LOT more valuable than a straight flush. Sometimes the hands are symmetrical (such as from Ah Ks 9c 6d 2s both the single 9 and the single 6 have equal values), and sometimes the hands are not symmetrical (such as from Ah Jd 9c 6h 5s, holding either the 9 by itself or the 5 is equally good.)

Finally, the reasonable question is "Why go through this exercise?" It takes some effort to create a list which doesn't directly lead to more profits. Isn't this a time that could be spent playing video poker profitable being wasted?

My answer is it isn't a waste of time at all. Before I play a game in a casino, I want to be playing it very close to accurately. Just creating these lists over the past few weeks taught me things I didn't already know about some of these games. And the more things I know about whatever game I'm playing, the better my chances are of not making mistakes when I do play.