{"id":122039,"date":"2021-09-28T09:24:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T16:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=122039"},"modified":"2021-09-28T09:24:32","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T16:24:32","slug":"a-look-at-double-double-bonus-poker-plus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/a-look-at-double-double-bonus-poker-plus\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look at Double Double Bonus Poker Plus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Perhaps this is a very old game, but I just saw it for the first time recently. It looked interesting, so I thought I\u2019d analyze it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was playing $5 NSU Deuces at Harrah\u2019s Cherokee and had just hit four deuces for a $5,000 jackpot. Always nice, but it\u2019s a once-every-5,356-hands event on average, so it\u2019s not all that rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I was waiting to be paid, I checked the adjacent machine for games. I didn\u2019t expect any better games than what I was playing, but regular scouting pays dividends. Sometimes you find something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found Double Double Bonus Poker Plus (DDB+). This was just like regular Double Double Bonus Poker (DDB), except that on four 5s-Ks with an A kicker, you get 400 instead of 250. They had the 9\/6 version for $5 machines, 9\/5 for $2 machines, and 8\/5 for $1 machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I got back to my hotel room, I analyzed it using WinPoker. I could have used Video Poker for Winners, but I rotate between them so as to stay sharp with both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out the DDB+ game is worth 99.45% versus 98.98% for DDB. For simplicity, I\u2019ll remember that the DDB+ game adds a half-percent over DDB. It\u2019s not exactly correct, but I\u2019m unlikely to see this game in lots of places, so the simplification is accurate enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 99.45% game could well be the best game in a casino. It\u2019s not at Harrah\u2019s Cherokee, but it\u2019s looser than any game at some casinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step was for me to look at whether the strategy changes between the games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, there\u2019s the obvious. Whenever I\u2019m dealt 5555 \u2013 KKKK, I now need to look at the kicker. If it\u2019s an ace, I hold all five cards. If it\u2019s not an ace, I need to discard the kicker and draw. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s the not-so-obvious. I started to look at the value of high pairs, like JJ, QQ, and KK. These combinations will go up in value by 3.7\u00a2 for the five-coin dollar player. (Yes, I know the specific machine I found was $5 denomination rather than $1, but I like to use the $1 standard because it\u2019s more understandable to more players. If you\u2019re playing a different denomination, you can multiply or divide appropriately.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For 3.7\u00a2 to matter, the play has to be close. The only ones I could think of were hands like K\u2660<\/span> K\u2665 Q\u2665 J\u2665<\/span> 9\u2663 and Q\u2665<\/span> Q\u2663 J\u2663 T\u2663 8\u2666<\/span>. It turns out you hold KQJ<\/em><\/strong> in both games in the first example, but in the second example you hold QQ in DDB+ and QJT<\/em><\/strong> in regular DDB.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are advanced hands, to be sure, but that\u2019s where all of the changes will be. It\u2019s a 2.9\u00a2 mistake to hold QJT<\/em><\/strong> in the second example above in DDB+. I would probably master that one, but it\u2019s not earthshaking if you let it go. It only comes up one time in 108,000 hands or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I checked a few other hands where a pair might be slightly wrong in DDB and didn\u2019t find any that changed in DDB+. If you find one, please post it in the \u201cComments\u201d to this blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, I looked at holding a single A. The DDB+ pay schedule adds about 0.4\u00a2 to the value of a single A. There aren\u2019t many hands in this game where another combination is favored over a single A by less than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hands I considered were A with KQ, A with QJ, and A with JT. <\/em><\/strong>I discovered that with A\u2660 K\u2665<\/span> J\u2663 7\u2660 3\u2660, the play in DDB is KJ and the play in DDB+ is A, but only by 0.03\u00a2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the A versus QJ hands, I couldn\u2019t find any differences in the way the two games are played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t examine A versus JT<\/em><\/strong>, but I would if I were going to play the game seriously. Pointing out that there is a potential change here is enough. If you want to play this game, you\u2019ll have to figure it out the rest of the way yourself. It\u2019s not hard, but it does mean you need to install the game on some computer software and put in some hands and analyze them. Good players teach themselves how to do this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you only use the wizardofodds.com free resource for your video poker analysis, unfortunately this game is not supported there. And unless it becomes a lot more popular than I think it is, it is likely never going to be supported there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless you were going to play this game a lot for stakes that are meaningful to you, it doesn\u2019t appear that changing the strategy you know for DDB is worth the price of learning a new strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that is clear, though, is that if you\u2019re a DDB player and can find a DDB+ game with the same return for the full house and the flush, you should definitely play DDB+. It\u2019s just as much fun as DDB, plus it pays an extra half percent! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the only DDB+ game you can find returns less for either full house or flush than the available DDB game, it\u2019s better to stick with the DDB game. It\u2019s rarely the best game in a casino that is financially best for the player, but it is the most popular game.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps this is a very old game, but I just saw it for the first time recently. It looked interesting, so I thought I\u2019d analyze it. I was playing $5 NSU Deuces at Harrah\u2019s Cherokee and had just hit four deuces for a $5,000 jackpot. Always nice, but it\u2019s a once-every-5,356-hands event on average, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Look at Double Double Bonus Poker Plus by Bob Dancer","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2,3],"tags":[428,2110,418,2109],"yoast_head":"\nA Look at Double Double Bonus Poker Plus - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/a-look-at-double-double-bonus-poker-plus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Look at Double Double Bonus Poker Plus - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Perhaps this is a very old game, but I just saw it for the first time recently. It looked interesting, so I thought I\u2019d analyze it. I was playing $5 NSU Deuces at Harrah\u2019s Cherokee and had just hit four deuces for a $5,000 jackpot. 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