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Playing a special hand at video poker

6 June 2019

QUESTION: How would you play the following hands in Double Double Bonus Poker? 7 of spades, 8 of hearts, 10 of hearts, queen of hearts and ace of clubs; and 3 of hearts, 9 of spades, 10 of spades, jack of spades and ace of clubs.

ANSWER: In both cases, your best play is to hold three cards to a a straight flush, though how close a call it is depends on the pay table.

In your first hand, 7s-8h-10h-Qh-Ac, the tricky part is that the three hearts are not consecutive. It’s a double-inside draw where you must land both the 9 and jack of hearts to complete the straight flush. There’s only one way make a straight flush out of 1,081 possible draws.

However, those 1,081 draws also include 129 pairs of jacks or better, 27 two-pair hands, nine threes of a kind, 15 straights and 44 flushes. Factor all the potential payoffs and your average return is 2.58 coins per five coins wagered when you hold 8-10-Q. That’s an easy call over the next best draw, holding the ace and discarding the other four, with a 2.33 average return.

Some players are tempted to hold the ace and queen together, but the long shot at four aces with a low-card kicker for a 2,000-coin bonanza makes ace a better play than ace-queen with a 2.20 average return.

It’s a closer call in 8/5 Double Double Bonus, where the flush payoff is reduced from 6-for-1 to 5-for-1.The 2.37-coin average return on 8-10-Q barely edges the 2.31 on the lone ace. It remains much better than the 2.20 for holding both high cards.

The second hand, 3h-9s-10s-Js-Ac, gives you more chances to complete a straight flush. You can make the hand with 8-9 of spades, 9-Q of spades or Q-K of spades.

That dramatically increases the value of holding three parts of a straight flush. In 9/6 DDB, the average return per five coins wagered is 3.54 coins on 9-10-J, 2.32 on the lone ace or 2.20 on ace-jack.

Reduce the pay table to 8/5 and the lower flush playback means a lower average return on the three spades, but it’s still not a close call. The average return on 9-10-J of the same suit is 3.34 coins, far ahead of the 2.30 on ace or 2.20 on ace-jack.

In both cases, the three-card straight flush with a high card is the best play available to you, but the decision is much clearer cut when the draw is open-ended rather than on the inside.


QUESTION: I don’t know if this counts as a story for your back-to-back jackpots file, but my wife and I won simultaneous jackpots.

We were playing Wheel of Fortune games, right next to each other – the dollar three-reel games. I got a spin of the top wheel, and while it was still spinning, she got one, too.

Mine landed on the $1,000 space, and we high-fived. Then hers landed on the $1,000 space, too! That was more than high-fives. That was hugs and whoops and laughter and a story I’m sure we’ll be boring our friends with for years.

ANSWER: How about if we just make a subfile with couples or friends winning together? I’ll put this one alongside the couple who wrote to me when I first started winning about gaming. She’d won a slot jackpot while the husband was losing at craps. She suggested that he just come play the slot next to her, and then he won a jackpot too.

Congrats to you and your wife, and thanks for sharing!
John Grochowski

John Grochowski is the best-selling author of The Craps Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book and The Video Poker Answer Book. His weekly column is syndicated to newspapers and Web sites, and he contributes to many of the major magazines and newspapers in the gaming field, including Midwest Gaming and Travel, Slot Manager, Casino Journal, Strictly Slots and Casino Player.

Listen to John Grochowski's "Casino Answer Man" tips Tuesday through Friday at 5:18 p.m. on WLS-AM (890) in Chicago. Look for John Grochowski on Facebook and Twitter @GrochowskiJ.

John Grochowski Websites:

www.casinoanswerman.com

Books by John Grochowski:

> More Books By John Grochowski

John Grochowski
John Grochowski is the best-selling author of The Craps Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book and The Video Poker Answer Book. His weekly column is syndicated to newspapers and Web sites, and he contributes to many of the major magazines and newspapers in the gaming field, including Midwest Gaming and Travel, Slot Manager, Casino Journal, Strictly Slots and Casino Player.

Listen to John Grochowski's "Casino Answer Man" tips Tuesday through Friday at 5:18 p.m. on WLS-AM (890) in Chicago. Look for John Grochowski on Facebook and Twitter @GrochowskiJ.

John Grochowski Websites:

www.casinoanswerman.com

Books by John Grochowski:

> More Books By John Grochowski