Last week my blog consisted of five mini-blogs. Each of these was about something I wanted to say but none was worth an entire column.
The last of these, changing notation slightly, was that you were playing NSU Deuces Wild and were dealt W45K as your first four cards, where the W represents a deuce and bold italics represent the cards that are suited with each other. Last week I called them all spades. It doesn’t really matter, but I’ll keep that true this week because it will simplify the answer. The question was: Of the possible 48 cards remaining in the deck, how many of them make the proper hold for the hand be exactly W45?
After I prepared that blog, but before it was published, I asked the same question to a couple of player-friends. They each had several answers/guesses and didn’t get the correct answer until I suggested they look it up on computer software. Before going on, I’ll be talking about relatively advanced concepts today. If you’re a beginning player, trying to learn advanced concepts before you have mastered the basics can mess up your learning process. You’ve been warned!
First let me give you how to play each of the 48 possible hands, and then I’ll tell you why. The dollar figures on each line tell you how much of an error it would be if you played W45 and you were playing for dollars, five coins at a time.
9 cards — any spade gives you a five-card flush. $10.31
3 cards — any deuce makes the correct play WW45. $15.65
9 cards — any 4, 5, or K gives you 3-of-a-kind. $4.78
15 cards — any non-spade A, 3, 6, 7, or 8 gives you a hand where the solitary deuce is the correct hold because these cards provide a straight penalty and the original K penalty . Between 9 cents and 20 cents, depending on which card we’re talking about
9 cards — any non-spade 9, J, or Q also gives you a correct hold of the deuce by itself because of “Power of the Pack” reasons and the possibility of a wild royal flush. Between 0.6 cents and 1.5 cents, depending on which card we’re talking about.
3 cards — any non-spade T makes the correct hold W45. Better than the solitary deuce by 0.9 cents. So, the correct answer was 3 out of 48 cards.
Now let’s talk about it. For the first three categories: the flush, 3-of-a-kind, and WW45, I’m not going to discuss any further. They should be obvious to all readers of a video poker column.
The next category, any A, 3, 6, 7, or 8 which are all straight penalties to W45, plus the king of spades which is a flush penalty. In Level 4 strategy on both the Dancer Daily strategy card and the Winner’s Guide, it says hold the deuce itself when there is both a flush and straight penalty.
The next category, any 9, J, or Q, has Power of the Pack considerations. In the Winner’s Guides, we used the term “Pack” to indicate the remaining cards after the first five have been dealt. Here I’m slightly modifying that to indicate the remaining cards after the first four have been dealt.
When you are considering one or more deuces by themselves, the more cards that are already dealt at the extremes of the A3456789TJQKA continuum, the more likely you are to end up with a straight or straight flush with the cards remaining in the pack.
The king itself is the critical card here. For this rule to apply the cards must specifically be KQ, KJ, or K9, with one of them suited with the W45.
The reason why W45K T has a different play than W45K 9 is that the T interferes with wild royal flushes when you hold the deuce by itself. Out of the 178,365 possible draws from that deuce, 192 of them form a wild royal when you are dealt a T and throw it away compared to 236 of them form a wild royal when you are dealt a 9 and throw it away.
As we already mentioned, the flush and straight penalty cards lead to an error of between 9 cents and 20 cents. For some players, that is too small to worry about. I understand. For recreational players, going through the trouble to learn, memorize, and recall this penalty card situation is more trouble than it’s worth. Especially since it’s a relatively rare hand. Still, to me this a MAJOR ERROR, far larger than I’m willing to voluntarily put up with.
The Power of the Pack considerations at the end are all worth less than two cents. Which is why these corrections were listed in the appendix to the Winner’s Guide while the rule including flush and straight penalties was listed in our Level 4 Advanced strategy.
Even though it’s not always worth a whole lot, I have all of these rules memorized and apply them whenever they arise. Part of this is because I play for larger stakes than $1, five coins at a time. Part of it is because, in spring 2025, coin-in on this game is probably more than 50% of all my gambling activity. And part of it is just my outlook on gambling — if I’m going to do it, I look for every legal edge I can get.
“So, the correct answer was 3 out of 48 cards.”
As expected, I was right.