I received an email from a player who told me that he found an error in Dream Card. I was definitely interested. If I verified that it was an error, I would send the information along to the folks at IGT (who manufacture the game), videopoker.com (who invented the game), and the player community. Whether IGT and videopoker.com chose to “fix” the problem in their next release would be up to them, but even if they did, older versions might still be out there and players should be warned about it.
Please note that this falls into the realm of “hearsay.” I didn’t see the error, and the man who told me about it said it happened to his son. There’s plenty of room in there for some misunderstanding to have taken place. Still, the situation is interesting on a couple of different levels which makes it worth talking about.
Curiously, I came away concluding that yes, there may have been an error with Dream Card in this situation, but it wasn’t the error I got the email about!
Here’s the situation. The player was playing 9/6 Jacks or Better Dream Card. Dream Card moves a 99.54% game to 99.56% — with a much bigger variance.
The dealt hand was A♠ K♠ Q♠ Q♦ DC, where DC indicates a Dream Card which is supposed to be the best possible card given the first four. The machine chose the T♠, giving the player a 4-card royal flush. The player wanted the Dream Card to be another queen, giving him 3-of-a-kind.
I told him that a 4-card royal was much superior to a 3-of-a-kind. I suggested he enter the hand A♠ K♠ Q♠ Q♦ T♠ on Video Poker for Winners and see that the 4-card royal is worth 92.34 coins. Then if he entered the hand A♠ K♠ Q♠ Q♦ Q♣, he would see the value of the trip queens is 21.51. If the reader hasn’t gone through the exercise of checking the value of combinations using VPW or other quality software, it’s an educational process to go through. It’s not difficult and it is eye-opening.
“So,” I asked, “why on earth would you prefer 3-of-a-kind to a 4-card royal flush? It’s not close!”
“Well, my son uses the Dancer-Daily strategy card and that card says 3-of-a-kind is better. If it isn’t better, why did you print the wrong information?”
Hmm, this could be embarrassing. I do have a good explanation for that but I can see where the confusion arose. The first two lines in both the Basic Strategy and the Advanced Strategy for that game are as follows:
RF5; SF5; 4-OF-A-KIND; FULL HOUSE; 3-OF-A-KIND; TWO PAIR
RF4 > FL5 and ST5 > any SF4
The top line of the strategy lists all hands in that game that are always held when dealt — with no exceptions. This list of hands is not the same for all games. There are games where from AAA44 or AA339 you just hold the aces, but Jacks or Better isn’t one of those games.
The second line lists those cases where a 4-card royal flush or a 4-card straight flush is in the same five cards as a dealt flush or a dealt straight. That is, from A♦ K♦ Q♦ J♦ T♣ you hold just the diamonds, but from Q♦ J♦ T♦ 9♦ 8♣ you hold all five cards.
A key underlying assumption for the strategy cards is that the combinations listed on the first line of the card are mutually exclusive with the combinations listed on the second line of the card. That is, you can’t have 3-of-a-kind and a 4-card royal in the same five cards. It takes at least seven cards to have both combinations.
I suppose technically you could argue the hand A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ T♥ is on the first line of the card, and any four cards from that combination are also on the second line of the card — hence the lines are not completely mutually exclusive. But anyone who has trouble figuring how to play a dealt royal has no chance to understand my writings anyway.
If combinations are mutually exclusive, it doesn’t matter which order you list them in. Liam W. Daily and I recognized that using this underlying assumption allowed us to give completely accurate strategies with fewer rules. And we saw that as a good thing.
When you introduce the concept of Dream Card and you’re considering among alternative fifth cards, we can no longer hold with the assumption of mutual exclusivity while playing that version.
Simply put, the Dancer-Daily strategy card was designed for the “regular” version of Jacks or Better, not the Dream Card version. Since the machine almost always selects the correct Dream Card, you can continue to use the strategy card for the hands where Dream Card is not in effect.
With all that said, while the T♠ would be a much better choice than the Q♣ given the first four cards, the J♠ would be better still, simply because a jack presents three extra chances to end up with a high pair (namely the other three jacks) and a ten gives you no such chances.
Possibly the machine actually gave the correct card and there was a mix-up in the way the situation was presented to me. I assume IGT and videopoker.com can check on that easily enough. But whether there was or wasn’t an error, a discussion on an underlying assumption of the strategy card made this a conversation worth having.
Never miss another post
I strongly feel that your response to the player’s question was more than adequate. It is clear the player (and his son) has much to study to be able to get a grasp of the game. Dreamcard came after the guides so to be fair there is no way for the guide to be able to handle the unique situation.
I would presume that people who play any form of poker (video poker, Shufflemaster table game, live head to head) in the casino setting would be very thrilled to land the ultimate outcome, Royal Flush. They all should know it comes once in a long while too. The Royal Flush is the only jackpot outcome in Jacks or Better, anyone should take 1 in 47 chance credits at 4000 instead of 1 in 23.5 chance at 125 credits!
It is too late to second guess as the guide is already in print, I am aware from the explanation that the first line is reserved for dealt hands
RF5; SF5; 4-OF-A-KIND; FULL HOUSE;
RF4 > FL5 and ST5 > any SF4
3-OF-A-KIND; TWO PAIR <- Moved in a separate line would also work
I would not be surprised if the player was dealt AAA46, would hold all 5 cards because it contains a three of a kind.
Other than that, this situation should not take away from what I strongly feel is an excellent product in the strategy cards.
Thankfully, DC lets you change a “bad” DC to the highest mathematically EV correct card. So yeah, I’d have changed it to the Js in the example.
What casino offers 9/6 JoB dream card? I find it difficult enough just to find the regular game.
“I would presume that people who play any form of poker (video poker, Shufflemaster table game, live head to head) in the casino setting would be very thrilled to land the ultimate outcome, Royal Flush.”
And that presumption would be wrong! I have folded somewhere around 70k worth of Royals, and every time I do it, it is incredibly stressful. My heart rate usually goes up noticeably, but not as much the last couple of times.
Are you going to share with us the circumstances surrounding why you fold royal flushes on occasion — or just tease us?
Most of my readers are video poker players. I don’t know what percentage of the time ExhibitCAA plays video poker, but I’m pretty sure he plays table games much, much more often. For any consequential stakes, you cannot fold a royal flush in video poker — the machine locks up on you. In table games, I suppose you can.
It would be very interesting to know the circumstances under which folding a royal flush makes sense. I’m sure a lot of us would enjoy reading a blog from you about that.
I did not expect to open a can of worms from the great ExhibitCAA with what I wrote, but I totally respect that he is superior than everybody else inside the casino who would be thrilled to get one.
I’m going to take a wild guess. and it may not be correct.
Most of the guests on Gambling With An Edge from what I understand make it a point to avoid providing identification.
The IRS requires a W2G tax forms reported for all table game winnings that exceed 300 times the original wager. Table games like Mississippi Stud (500 for 1), Ultimate Texas Hold’em (500 for 1), or Let It Ride (1000 for 1) will trigger such action when a player gets the Royal Flush.
I also remember long time ago watching Poker Superstars on television, a heads up poker tournament featuring the big time top players at the time, where I recall Phil Hellmuth talking about a player may intentionally fold a Royal Flush on live Texas Hold’em so that he/she can avoid a match up with a specific player who may pose a threat.
Like Mr. Dancer, I would enjoy a blog column about folding the Royal Flushes. It is awfully difficult for at least video poker players to have success if they do not want Royal Flushes coming their way.
This answer is exactly correct. In a table game where the payout exceeds the 300-to-1 threshold, the money cannot be collected by those of us who must remain anonymous. This limitation is why I am not generally the BP. I estimate that when playing a game such as Ultimate Texas Hold’em, having to fold Royals costs me 1.7%. In a game like Mississippi Stud, where the 5th-Street bet must be made before seeing the final card, I have to fold any Royal Flush DRAW. Thankfully, that has happened to me only once–I folded suited AKQJ, and an offsuit Ten hit the river.
Folding a potential royal is easier in M. Stud. You might get stuck with one with a 4x bet on UTH holding Ah, 7s. That’s what I was holding when I hit my one and only table game royal so far.
I think that the real point of this story is that someone with a brain the size of a walnut has no chance to win at video poker, strategy cards or no strategy cards. Anyone who, given a choice, would prefer QQQ to AKQ10 suited should be led gently away from the machine and given a glass of warm milk and some cookies.
Just one little error in Mr. Dancer’s article about the possible Dream Card defect: We don’t need 7 cards in order to have both 4 parts of a royal flush, and a 3 of a kind. We only need 6. E.g.: A-K-Q-J-J-J.
Changing the subject dealt hand just slightly leads to what might initially thought to be a Dream Card error, but in fact is not. Most experienced video poker players would rather draw to AKQJ suited rather than AKQT suited for the reasons explained in the column. But when the dealt cards in dream card are AKQ suited with an offsuit T, the Dream Card properly becomes a T suited with the AKQ rather than a J.
As it turns out AKQT suited plus an offsuit T has a slightly higher, not lower, EV than AKQJ suited plus an offsuit T.
Alas, this may not have troubled an inexperienced player as much as the choice between a 4-Royal and Trips.
Are you sure you are new to video poker? That’s a pretty subtle idea.
I had to look it up on Video Poker for Winners to verify what you said was true. And you were correct. And if I had to look it up, surely others would be unsure as well.
Thank you for pointing it out.