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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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March 24, 2009

Unusual Penalty Card Situations in Quick Quads

(Author's note: "A Quick Guide to Quick Quads," a manual co-authored by myself and Glen Richards, is now available for free at www.videopoker.com/quickquads. It provides strategies for all available Quick Quad pay schedules as well as discussing the logic behind all Quick Quad plays.)

I've written several articles about Quick Quads on this site. If you're not familiar with the game, go back and read some of those articles first. Today's article is more advanced and assumes you are at least reasonably fluent with the game.

Explain the following plays in 9/6 Double Double Bonus Quick Quads:

    a. 5h 5s 4h 3c 9s      hold 5h 5s
    b. 5h 5s 4h 3c Ts      hold 5h 5s 4h (or 5h 5s 3c)
    c. 5h 5s 4h 9s Ts      hold 5h 5s

Keep in mind that these are close plays. Even if this is not a game you play often (or at all), it's possible to work out the answers logically if you understand the basics of the game.

The normal penalty-free play from 554 or 553 in this game is just to hold the fives. Something is different in b) that allows us to hold the lower-card kicker, but whatever that is, it doesn't exist in c). Can you examine the patterns and figure it out?

In regular video poker games, the value of a pair of 5s is not dependent on the other cards in the hand (assuming you don't have another pair or another 5, or both). In Quick Quads there are two different types of cards that can hurt the value of a pair of fives.

First of all we have a ten, which I abbreviate as a T. If you draw three Ts to a pair of 55s, i.e. TTT55, you get paid for four Ts in this game, worth 260 coins. If all four Ts are still in the deck, there are four different ways you can draw three Ts (i.e. TcTdTh, TcTdTs, TcThTs, and TdThTs). If you were dealt a T and threw it away, say the Tc, you only have once chance to draw TdThTs. Since a T is present in b) and c), but not in a), that partially explains the different plays.

The second factor affecting the value of 55 is one or more low cards, specifically an A, 2, 3, or 4. The reason why these are important is because from 55, if you draw 54A, for example, you'll get paid for four 5s. If all four 4s and all four As are in the deck, you'll have 32 chances to draw such a combination. If you were dealt a 4 and threw it away, there are now only 24 ways to draw such a combination. (These numbers might seem to be twice as large as they should be. Remember there are still two fives out there and we can draw either one.)

Each low card in the hand (assuming they don't add up to 5 -- such as a 4 and an A or a 2 and a 3) hurts the value of 55. (If we did have 554A or 5532, we'd have a "Quick Trip" and hold all four cards.) Since b) has both a T in the hand and two low cards, the value of the pair of fives is as low as possible. The value of 554 doesn't change in each of the three examples here, but it's only in b) that we have both a ten AND two low cards and it's only in b) that the value of 55 is below that of 554.

When I first discovered this hand, I decided to check out 4428. Normally 442 is not a combination we hold in this game (although we do hold 44A and 443 -- the fact that "half-valued" kickers are less valuable than "non-half-valued" kickers is covered in earlier articles). Surely adding the 8 to 442 hurts the value of 44 by itself without affecting the value of 442 at all. It turns out that it's a closer play than without the 8, but from 4428K, for example, we still just hold the 44.

Then my mind goes, what if there was an additional lower card kicker to 4428, such as 4428A. Well that may well now make 442 more valuable than 44 by itself, but 44A is more valuable yet.