A woman recently hired me to teach her the idiosyncrasies of 8/5 Bonus Poker. She knew 9/6 Jacks or Better cold and wanted to know how the games differed — down to the smallest degree. I quoted her two prices — the lesser one was if I could write an article or two about what I was teaching her; the more expensive one was if I couldn’t. Cheaper won out.
There are a lot of players who use 9/6 JoB strategy for 8/5 Bonus. This isn’t a terrible approach. It takes a 99.166% game and reduces it to 99.158%. If you play for dollars at 800 hands per hour (i.e. $4,000 coin-in), the difference between using 9/6 JoB strategy and perfect 8/5 Bonus strategy is 32¢ each and every hour. Some players argue that life is too short to worry about earning an extra 32¢ an hour in exchange for additional study.
(If that’s your position, you should probably skip this column.) My view is that while reviewing the tough hands, we often remind ourselves of several other hands that might otherwise have been forgotten. And I still remember years ago when a 25¢ hourly raise on a job was a big deal. To be sure inflation has set in, among other things. I enjoy learning the small nuances of the game.
(As a side note: I find it sad that 8/5 Bonus is the best game in many casinos. It is getting tougher and tougher to find an edge at video poker. Since complaining won’t do me much good, players who wish to profit from casinos now have to study harder than they did previously. Partly for this reason, many players have decided to no longer play video poker. For some, that decision came after a few painful, expensive years until they finally came to the conclusion that they couldn’t keep up any more if they only expended the effort they wanted to expend).
The hands she struggled with that I want to discuss today were an unsuited QJ in the same hands as a suited JT7, J97, and J87. While those three suited cards and the unsuited Q total four cards, there is also the fifth card in the hand that we must also consider.
On the Dancer/Daily strategy cards, QJ is listed above these 3-card straight flushes with the following exceptions: (< JT7 except when 8p; < J97 or J87 only when Ap). Let’s look at these one at a time.
a. QJ < JT7 except when 8p. (The 8p symbol means an 8 penalty, and in these hands means the fifth card is an 8): So four of the cards in this hand are QJT7. First of all, the fifth card cannot be suited with the JT7. If it were, we’d have a 4-card flush in the hand. Further, if we had a K or a 9, we’d have a 4-card consecutive straight, and if we had an A, we’d have a 4-card inside straight with 3 high cards. And we can also eliminate every Q, J, T, and 7 because that would give us a pair. All of the combinations listed so far are greater in value than both QJ and JT7. So the only cards we are concerned with are a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 8 all of a suit different than the suit of the JT7. Whether this card is suited or not with the Q is irrelevant in today’s problem.
If the fifth card is a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, the JT7 is worth 1.3¢ more, assuming you’re playing dollars, 5 coins at a time.
If the fifth card is an 8, QJ is worth more by 4.6¢.
Since having an 8 penalty is the only time you need to hold QJ we phrase it that you hold JT7 “except when 8p.”
If the reason “why” is important to you, an 8 (compared to a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6) reduces the chances of a JT987 straight by almost 27% (7.4¢). It also reduces the chances of a QJT98 straight from an unsuited QJ by a little (1.5¢), but it’s much harder to get a straight holding two cards than it is holding three.
b. QJ < J97 only when Ap: The first four cards in this hand are QJ97. For reasons very similar to what was listed above, the fifth card must be an unsuited A, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, or 2.
For an A (which must be unsuited with the Q), J97 is the better play by 3.3¢.
For an 8, QJ is better by 6.6¢.
For a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, QJ is better by 0.7¢.
In this case the usual hold is QJ, except when there’s an ace, so we phrase it that you hold J97 “only when Ap.”
c. QJ < J87 only when Ap: This hand begins with QJ87. Now the fifth card must be an A, T, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, or 2.
For an A (which must be unsuited with the Q), J87 is the better play by 1.3¢.
For a T, QJ is better by 4.6¢.
For a 9, QJ is better by 6.6¢.
For a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, QJ is better by 2.6¢
As in the last example, in this case the usual hold is QJ, except when there’s an ace, so we phrase it that you hold J87 “only when Ap.”
If you are trying to learn this, I recommend you try to duplicate the figures I’m printing here. Any of the better video poker software products allow you to do this and the more you use these products to do tasks you might not normally do, the more useful these tools will become when you’re trying to learn something new.
Although I have memorized these particular rules and therefore play these hands perfectly, I have never bothered to learn the “by how much” figures. If I can memorize the rule, that’s plenty good enough for me. The reason I’m including the details here is that there might be some readers who want to learn this, but find the “except when” and “only when” phrasing in the same rule too confusing to master. If you can make up a better phrasing that works for you, go for it! If you wish to write me about this, I’ll be happy to publish here your improvement. I can credit you by name if you wish, or make it an anonymous contribution if that suits you better.
When we created the strategy rules, Liam W. Daily and I struggled with how to phrase this. We figured the “except when” and “only when” phrasing would make perfect sense to logicians; we also recognized that most of our readers weren’t masters of logic. We just couldn’t find phrasing that we liked better.
For my student, we simply went over these hands again and again. Eventually the phrasing made sense to her. But even so, she better review this from time to time or she will forget it.