{"id":4664,"date":"2016-10-11T09:19:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T16:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=4664"},"modified":"2016-10-11T09:19:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T16:19:45","slug":"new-video-poker-games-g2e-players-point-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/new-video-poker-games-g2e-players-point-view\/","title":{"rendered":"New Video Poker Games at G2E from a Player\u2019s Point of View"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this year\u2019s G2E gaming show, I published a discussion of new video poker games — written for casino managers. You can see that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s article is addressed to players — but it assumes you have read the previous article. Any phrasing that is exactly the same in the two articles is listed in italics, so you can skip that part if you\u2019ve read the earlier words.<\/p>\n

IGT<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Magic Deal Poker <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is a 10-coins-per-line game. It plays like regular video poker, except about 3.8% of the time, on the deal, you receive one, two, or (very rarely) three mystery cards.<\/em><\/p>\n

    In general, I liked this game. It is similar to Dream Card poker, except:<\/em><\/p>\n

    Dream Card has one mystery card whose value is determined BEFORE the draw. You can change the dream card if you don\u2019t like the card selected by the machine.<\/em><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Magic Deal has one, two, or three mystery cards whose value is determined AFTER the draw. You cannot change such mystery cards, although in no cases did I see a hand where the machine picked a less-than-max-value card.<\/em><\/li>\n
    2. Dream Card has obnoxious sound effects; fortunately, they\u2019re missing from this game.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Another way to phrase the mystery cards occurring 3.8% of the time is to say that they happen 1-in-26 hands. That means you are paying twice what the hands are worth 25 out of 26 hands — and then hopefully you catch up when the multipliers come.<\/p>\n

      For players who \u201ctest the waters\u201d by playing a few hands to see how things are going, this game will very frequently cause your score to drop like a stone. For players who believe that today\u2019s score matters, this game will cause many of you to go away muttering.<\/p>\n

      The correct plays when you receive one or more mystery cards aren\u2019t always that obvious. Letting an M<\/em><\/strong> stand for a mystery card and assuming you were playing a game just like 9\/6 Double Double Bonus (except for the 10-coin per line ante and the occasional mystery card(s)), how would you play this hand: K\u2660 Q\u2660 Q\u2666 M M<\/em><\/strong>?<\/p>\n

      Deuces Wild players who see the mystery cards as basically equivalent to wild cards will hold QQMM<\/em><\/strong>, which would be correct in Deuces Wild. This is the wrong play here. KQMM <\/em><\/strong>is a much better play. Why is the play in this game different from the way you\u2019d play in Deuces Wild? Because if you draw one of the remaining three royal cards in Deuces Wild, you\u2019ll get paid for a wild<\/em> royal, frequently worth 125 coins. If you draw one of the same cards in Mystery Card, you\u2019ll get paid for a 4,000-coin natural <\/em>royal.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Ultimate X Spin Poker<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Ultimate X and Spin Poker are both popular games — and this game links them well. It should work. Ultimate X is a 10-coins-per-line game and Spin Poker doesn\u2019t require any additional money to play, so this game also costs 10 coins per line — or 90 coins overall.<\/em><\/p>\n

        Players who try to figure the correct strategy on this game will find it a much different problem than figuring out how to play \u201cregular\u201d Ultimate X. In regular Ultimate X, each of the lines deals with its own 47-card pack of cards — which is the original 52 cards minus the five you were dealt.<\/p>\n

        In the Spin Poker version, you have one 52-card deck in play. If you draw the A\u2665, for example, in one of the fifteen spaces, you cannot also draw the same card in another place. Additionally, because of the way the lines in Spin Poker cross each other, you\u2019ll usually get each card drawn in three separate lines (although it will be two lines or five lines in the center column.)<\/p>\n

        What this means is that the variance in the Spin Poker version of Ultimate X will be significantly higher than it is in the Ten Play version of Ultimate X. Those who play regular Ultimate X know it already has a sky-high variance.<\/p>\n

        I really<\/em> dislike it that you can\u2019t play off your multipliers at the end of a session by betting five coins. I know there are players who make their living playing off these multipliers, but as a player who plays the game for hours at a time I find the regular stream of players coming in a checking the multipliers on every game of every machine to be annoying.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Bonus Streak Ultimate X<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          This is a very difficult game to play at 10-coins-per-line. Instead of the usual multipliers you earn on the next hand in regular Ultimate X, here you earn a stream of multipliers over the next several hands. That is, you might earn a stream of 2x, 3x, 4x, 8x,12x over the next five games. If while playing this stream you receive a paying hand big enough to create additional multipliers (at least 3-of-a-kind in most games) all remaining multipliers on that line go to 12x.<\/em><\/p>\n

          The stream of multipliers created by getting certain hands creates a nightmare for players to analyze. \u201cRegular\u201d Ultimate X is tough enough and the games overhold the par sheet values. This game will be much tougher. And the correct strategy will be very different from that of \u201cregular\u201d Ultimate X. I see this game only being successful for low stakes for recreational players.<\/em><\/p>\n

          This game is very<\/em> difficult to play correctly. There are many, many different possible combinations of multiplier streams. In addition, low paying hands (usually Jacks or Better and Two Pair in games without wild cards) do NOT earn multipliers. This makes basic strategy on this game very different from that of regular Ultimate X.<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Color Match Royals<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            The premise of the game is that the hand A\u2663 K\u2660 Q\u2663 J\u2660 T\u2660 is called a Black Royal, paying 2000 coins, and the hand A\u2666 K\u2666 7\u2665 4\u2665 2\u2666 is called a Red Flush, which pays a little less than a regular flush. You also have black and red straight flushes.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Although I don\u2019t know the exact strategy, it appears as though you should go for \u201ccolor flushes\u201d a high percentage of the time. This makes the game very boring as you are generally trying for a hand worth 20 coins when you have to pay 10 coins to play. If you don\u2019t go for the color flushes, you\u2019re giving up a lot of expected value.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Currently on www.videopoker.com<\/a><\/em> there\u2019s a free tutorial on how to play this game. \u00a0<\/em>It is a simplified strategy, but I know of none better out there.<\/p>\n

            I do not like this game very much. To me, it doesn\u2019t pass the \u201cfun to play\u201d test. <\/em><\/p>\n

            There are streams talking about this game on vpFREE, wizardofvegas, videopoker.com, and possibly other sites as well. I am not alone in my non-appreciation. Check out those discussions if you want more information.<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Super Triple Play Jackpots<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              Generally, I liked this game — but not the name. This is a form of \u201cWheel Poker.\u201d Possibly there are some patent or royalty issues I don\u2019t understand, but using \u201cWheel Poker\u201d in the title would tell players what they are getting.<\/em><\/p>\n

              This game combines Super Triple Play, which is a 6-coin-per-line game where you get higher-than-usual payouts on 4-of-a-kinds (usually, depending on the game), and Wheel Poker, where you also pay an extra coin per line and you get to spin the wheel when you receive a 4-of-a-kind. Adding these games together makes this a 7-coins-per-line game.<\/em><\/p>\n

              The strategy is relatively easy to figure out assuming you have an approximately-correct figure for the average wheel spin. <\/em><\/p>\n

              In the original Wheel Poker, the wheel spin was worth about 430 on average. If I were collecting data while playing, I\u2019d start with that number. I\u2019d collect data on at least a few thousand spins before I came up with my \u201cfinal answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

                \n
              1. Flip & Pay Poker<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                This was my favorite new game in this year\u2019s mix. The game is relatively easy to understand without software, and the idea is different and interesting.<\/em><\/p>\n

                This is a 10-coin-per-line game, where the machine will flip at most one card under the following conditions:<\/em><\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. One card will be flipped one rank higher or lower, and always the same suit. That is, the 8\u2663 will only be flipped to a 9\u2663 or a 7\u2663.<\/em><\/li>\n
                2. This is done with a 52-card deck, so if there is an A\u2666 2\u2666 on the deal, the 2\u2666 will not flip to an A\u2666 because there aren\u2019t duplicates in a 52-card deck.<\/em><\/li>\n
                3. The resulting hand must be two pair or higher for flipping to occur.<\/em><\/li>\n
                4. The flipped hand must be higher in Expected Value than the unflipped hand.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  For example, if you were dealt 5\u2660 6\u2665 7\u2663 8\u2666 8\u2660, one of the 8s will flip to a 9, giving you a dealt straight.<\/em><\/p>\n

                  If you don\u2019t like the flipping, you can unflip. Sometimes some of the flips may seem strange. For example, in Triple Double Bonus, assume you are dealt A\u2663 A\u2666 5\u2660 6\u2665 7\u2663, the machine will flip to AA557 or AA667 or AA577. Whether the machine flips or not, good players are just going to hold the pair of aces and throw away the other three cards. <\/em><\/p>\n

                  Most players will not be sure whether it\u2019s better to be dealt AA667 or AA567, given you\u2019re just going to be holding the aces. The machine likes flipping to two pair (correctly!) but which is better is a mystery to most players and many will unflip.<\/em><\/p>\n

                  My only problem with the game is the machine makes the choices and many players will be unsure why choices were made. The rules aren\u2019t all that difficult — but they\u2019re a bit tricky until you get used to them. A player dealt A\u2666 A\u2660 A\u2665 K\u2660 5\u2665 REALLY wants that king to be flipped to an ace and may get angry when it doesn\u2019t happen. If a floor person or shift manager is called over, that person MUST be fluent with the reason the K doesn\u2019t flip to an ace (because the player already has an A\u2660 and the hand can\u2019t contain two of them).<\/em><\/p>\n

                  When I first played the game, I didn\u2019t read the help screens. I tried to figure out the rules for myself. I tried to come up with cases where the smart player would unflip — such as K\u2666 Q\u2666 J\u2666 T\u2666 8\u2660. If the 8 flipped to a 9, giving you a straight, you definitely should want to unflip. You\u2019re going to throw the card away anyway, but you want all four 9s still in the pack rather than just three of them. When I read the rules for flipping, they said cards were only flipped when there was an increase in EV — so that should mean the 8 would not be flipped to a 9. But I\u2019m not sure. That\u2019s a fairly rare hand and nobody in the booth was positively sure how the game was programmed.<\/p>\n

                  Scientific Games<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

                  The only other company I saw at the show that offered \u201cready everywhere now\u201d new video poker games was Scientific Games. What they offered is a very close copy of IGT\u2019s Triple Play series of games on which the patent expired not so long ago. <\/em><\/p>\n

                  The Scientific Games version includes Single Hand, Triple Hand, Five Hand, Ten Hand, Twenty-Five Hand, Fifty Hand, and Hundred Hand games on the same machine. Players will figure out quickly that Fifty Hand is basically the same game as Fifty Play. The game titles are the same ones used by IGT, namely Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus, etc. <\/em><\/p>\n

                  In two of the games, Scientific Games uses a different name than IGT does. It may have been intentional, but both times it struck me as a typographical mistake. They used the name Triple Bonus for a game that IGT calls Triple Double Bonus. Triple Bonus is an older game based on Kings or Better and it\u2019s very different from Triple Double Bonus. Also, Scientific Games has a game called Joker\u2019s Wild rather than Joker Wild. <\/em><\/p>\n

                  The pay schedules on the Scientific Games are very similar to the IGT pay schedules, except often the straight flush pays 275 coins rather than 250. This adds about 0.05% to the player and is essentially a type of bribe to induce players to try the Scientific Games version rather than IGT\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n

                  So far this game hasn\u2019t sold well, so players may never see it. <\/em><\/p>\n

                  The game has several features of the latest WMS games (which came out two or three years ago.) WMS has been swallowed up by Scientific Games which is why you see those features here. As I recall, Station Casinos (now Red Rock Resorts) had the Las Vegas locals market monopoly on these games, and Harrah\u2019s (now Caesars) had the national monopoly. These two casino chains never put these machines with good pay schedules so they didn\u2019t take off. Once other casinos saw their results, they didn\u2019t want the games either.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  At this year\u2019s G2E gaming show, I published a discussion of new video poker games — written for casino managers. You can see that here. Today\u2019s article is addressed to players — but it assumes you have read the previous article. Any phrasing that is exactly the same in the two articles is listed in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2,3,6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nNew Video Poker Games at G2E from a Player\u2019s Point of View - 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\/new-video-poker-games-g2e-players-point-view\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Video Poker Games at G2E from a Player\u2019s Point of View - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At this year\u2019s G2E gaming show, I published a discussion of new video poker games — written for casino managers. 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