Question of the Day - 04 October 2023

The first few weekly video poker tournaments have been held at the Downtown Grand and the format is as follows.

Sign-up opens at 5 p.m. every Thursday; the tournament starts at 6. 

The entry fee is $25 and you can rebuy once. 

You play on set machines; they're assigned randomly and the game is Double Double Bonus (you can't choose the game variation). You try to scream through 500 credits in four-minute rounds.

Getting through all the credits means playing at a blazing pace that very few can achieve, so in this format, speed is the primary factor. In speed tournaments, playing more hands is much more important than playing accurately. You still have to play reasonably correctly, making sure not to miss pairs or 3-of-a-kinds, but if you don’t see things like inside straights and straight-flush draws right away, the default is to hold the high cards, draw, and hit the Deal button as quickly as possible.

The faster players definitely have an advantage, but they’re not unbeatable. A few over the few weeks of tournaments have played through all the credits, but none has won the tournament. That's due to the luck factor, when slower players hit big hands. Case in point: Our very own Andrew Hunt won last week's tournament. He's no speed demon, but he hit two 4-of-a-kinds, including aces (for 800 credits), and won the grand prize. 

The top three places win prize money and 100% of the entry fees is returned.