Fifty Play Wild Royal Dilemma

One of the great joys of playing Deuces Wild video poker is to be dealt a wild Royal Flush. The payoff is a cool 125 coins. Playing strategy can get complicated, however, depending upon the number of deuces you are dealt to the wild royal. To hold or not to hold? That is the question.

Now how about this for a dilemma: You're playing nickel Fifty-Play Deuces Wild video poker, max coins per spin (250 nickels or $12.50). All of a sudden you are dealt four-to-a-royal with a deuce for a Wild Royal Flush. At 125 coins per line that's 6,250 nickels or $312.50.

Sounds like it's a no-brainer to hold all the cards and collect your bird in the hand money. But wait a minute! You've got fifty hands to play with. Maybe you should hold the four-to-a-royal and hit deal in an effort to rack up some 4,000 coin natural royal payoffs.

The mathematical odds against catching that fifth card on any one of the hands are 46 to one. With 50 hands to play, the percentages are with you to catch at least one natural royal. But is it enticing enough to risk the sure thing $312.50?

My friend Jeff Gillespie in Las Vegas was in the hot seat with this predicament. He wound up holding the Wild Royal and collecting. Was that correct strategy?

I posed this question to video poker expert John Robison, author of the newly released The Slot Expert's Guide to Playing Slots published by Huntington Press of Las Vegas, Nevada. John holds a Master's Degree in computer science from the Stevens Institute of Technology and is one of the nation's leading authorities on video poker.

John writes:

"This turned out to be an interesting question. My gut reaction was that you'd probably hold the 4-card royal because in 9/6 Jacks, you hold 4-card royals unless you have a straight flush, which is worth more than the wild royal flush in Deuces Wild. I checked the beginner's Deuces Wild strategy on Bob Dancer's card and it said to hold all paying hands, except always hold a 4-card royal flush when you have a hand with one deuce. The recreational strategy, however, says not to break a Wild Royal Flush for a natural 4-card royal flush. Hmmm. I checked the hand using WinPoker and it's not even close. The better play is to take the wild royal flush."

John used the paytable for full-pay Deuces Wild for the calculation. He is pretty sure the nickel 50-play machine at the Gold Coast, which is the machine Jeff played, is not full pay.

My buddy made the correct play to hang on to his wild royal flush after all. Not knowing what the correct mathematical strategy was, I surely would have been tempted to break it up and try to get lucky with some draws for natural royals. Then I would have started thinking about the $312.50 I was guaranteed by holding the wild royal. Decisions, decisions.

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