Great new video poker games

26 November 2015

By John Grochowski

A couple of days before the beginning of this fall’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, I was asked about a video poker game by Matt Bourie, son of American Casino Guide publisher Steve Bourie.

“Have you seen a game that’s like Triple Play, but you’re dealt three different hands at the start?” he asked. “Then the machine picks the best hand, and plays that three times. I was wondering if you could pick your own hand if you disagree with the machine’s choice.”

I told him I hadn’t seen the game, but I’d file away the info for my meeting with IGT video poker content manager Trevor Lynch at our meeting on the last day of the expo. I just assumed it was an IGT game, because most video poker games are. Scientific Games has video poker through its WMS Gaming and Bally Technologies acquisitions, and Incredible Technologies has video poker, but IGT dominates the segment to the tune of 95% of the market.

My assumption was correct. In fact, when I saw Lynch, the first game he steered me to was Super Hand Poker.

Super Hand Poker uses the standard video poker game families – Jacks or Better, Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker and more. The maximum bet is 10 credits per hand, so betting the max takes 30 credits instead of the 15 you’d bet on a standard Triple Play game. IGT refers to games with that bet configuration as “five plus five” – five credits per hand on the base game, plus five credits per hand for the special feature.

Three hands are dealt, and the game identifies one as the Super Hand. In one trial hand, two hands had nothing special, but one had a pair of queens. On the draw, all three hands then started with the queens.

The game pays on both pre-draw and post draw hands. In another trial, one hand had a flush and another had three of a kind. I was paid for both, then the flush was presented as the Super Hand. I held all five cards, and was paid on three flushes.

What if you disagree with the machine’s selection? There’s a “Swap” button, enabling you to choose your starting hand.

Video poker rarely uses the top box as part of game play, as slot machines do. That makes IGT’s new Power House Poker a groundbreaker. It’s also a five-plus-five game, but you can select Triple Play, Five Play or 10 Play options.

Whenever you have dealt winners, it gives you additional hands in the top box, meaning extra winnings and extra chances to improve then hand. On a Triple Play trial, a pair of aces triggered three additional hands in the top box. Now instead of three chances, there were six chances to draw the fourth ace or to fill out a full house. The extra wager increases your risk, but you also get extra rewards on any dealt winner from a pair of jacks on up.

Super Draw 6 Card, is just what you’d expect – you get six cards instead of five. It’s also a five-plus-five game, available in Triple Play, Five Play and Ten Play. You start with a five-card hand, but on the draw you get a sixth card with each active hand. It pays on traditional five-card hands, so the sixth card gives you extra chances to form winners. It also pays on some new six-card winners, including two threes-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind with a pair, and six-card straights, flushes and royal flushes.

Look for John Grochowski on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/7lzdt44) and Twitter (@GrochowskiJ).