There is a version of 10-6 DDB that pays 200 for the straight flush rather than 250 and that change drops the return from 100.06% to 99.96%. Casinos which have a firm policy of never offering a game returning more than 100% sometimes have this game. I refer to the games as 10-6-50 and 10-6-40, where the 50 and 40 represent the one-coin return for the straight flush.
The strategy for the two games is very similar, of course, but not identical. If I had places where I could play both games, I’d likely use one strategy for both. But I don’t know of any casino with the 10-6-50 game where I want to and am welcome to play, so I concentrate on the 10-6-40 strategy. The Dancer/Daily Winner’s Guide for Double Double Bonus covers the 10-6-50 game completely. Today I’ll just discuss the differences between the two games. All money amounts assume you are playing for dollars, betting five coins at a time.
1. A♠ K♥ Q♥ J♣ 9♥ — When you get 250 for the straight flush, KQ9 is superior by 0.9¢. When you get 200, AKQJ is better by 3.8¢. In this example, I showed the A and the J unsuited with each other. The result would have been the same if they were both the same suit. And the relationship between KJ9 and AKQJ is exactly the same as presented here.
In this example, the value of the straight flush only affects one of the possibilities, namely KQ9 or KJ9. The value of the straight flush has no affect on AKQJ because there are two or three suits involved. In the rest of the hands we’re going to discuss today, both of the top two possibilities are affected by the value of the straight flush.
2. Q♥ J♥ 3♠ 4♠ 5♠ — In 10-6-50, holding the 345 is superior by 10¢. In 10-6-40, holding the QJ is better by 3.2¢. The other 2-card royal flush draws (KQ, KJ, AK, AQ, AJ) remain lower in value to 345. The play, and the amounts, will be the same for 456 and 567 as they are for 345. For 678 and 789, the same rule applies but the amounts are different.
3. K♦ Q♦ J♣ 9♣ 5♦ — Here the J and 9 may or may not be suited with each other, and the 5 may be any card in the range of 2-8. In 10-6-50, the correct play by 0.3¢ is KQ. In 10-6-40, the correct play by 0.03¢ is KQJ9. Yes, I know that it’s tough to get excited with a distinction worth only 0.03¢. If it helps you get over that a bit, the play and numbers are the same in K♦ J♦ Q♣ 9♣ 5♦. See! Isn’t that better now?
4. There is a group of 3-card straight flush draws with no high cards and one inside, including one outside straight penalty, compared to an A by itself. In each of these cases, the straight penalty to the straight flush sometimes must be unsuited with the A in order for the play to change, and sometimes not. In 10-6-50, we always hold these 3-card straight flushes. In 10-6-40, we hold the
These plays are affected by low straight penalties to the A, namely 2, 3, 4, and 5, and sometimes also affected by a kicker penalty, namely a 2, 3, or 4, since it reduces the chances for the hand AAAA2, AAAA3, or AAAA4. Saying this slightly differently, the 5 is a low straight penalty without being a kicker penalty. The 2, 3, and 4 are both.
a. 2♠ 3♠ 4♠ 6♦ A♣; 2♠ 3♠ 5♠ 6♦ A♣; 2♠ 4♠ 5♠ 6♦ A♣ — In all three of these cases, the value of the 3-card straight flush is identical. With the 6 unsuited with the A, and the straight flush 234, in 10-6-40 hold the A by 4.8¢. In 10-6-50, hold the straight flush by 4.5¢. When we have 235 or 245, the value of the A is increased by about a penny because there is now one additional kicker available than when the straight flush combination was 234. Why? Because 234 has three kickers, and 235 and 245 have only two. After a card is discarded before the draw, it cannot come back after the draw.
b. 2♠ 3♠ 4♠ 6♦ A♦; 2♠ 3♠ 5♠ 6♦ A♦; 2♠ 4♠ 5♠ 6♦ A♦— In these three cases, the A is suited with the 6. This has no effect on the value of the straight flush combination, but lowers the value of the A by about 3.7¢. This is not enough to change the play, namely, hold the A in 10-6-40 and the straight flush combination in 10-6-50.
c. The following nine hands are all similar to each other. In each case, the outside straight penalty is unsuited with the A. In each case, you hold the A in 10-6-40 and the straight flush draw in 10-6-50. In five of the cases there are similar hands which do not follow the same rule. In this latter group of hands, we go for the straight flush draw in both games.
Before I announce my rule for keeping these hands (and their exceptions) straight, see if you can come up with a rule that covers each of these cases.
4♠ 6♠ 7♠ 8♥ A♣ (but not 4♠ 5♠ 7♠ 8♥ A♣ or 4♠ 6♠ 7♠ 3♥ A♣)
5♠ 6♠ 8♠ 9♥ A♣ (but not 5♠ 6♠ 8♠ 4♥ A♣)
5♠ 7♠ 8♠ 9♥ A♣ (but not 5♠ 7♠ 8♠ 4♥ A♣)
6♠ 7♠ 9♠ 5♥ A♣
6♠ 7♠ 9♠ T♥ A♣
6♠ 8♠ 9♠ 5♥ A♣
6♠ 8♠ 9♠ T♥ A♣
7♠ 8♠ T♠ 6♥ A♣ (but not 7♠ 8♠ T♠ J♥ A♣)
7♠ 9♠ T♠ 6♥ A♣ (but not 7♠ 9♠ T♠ J♥ A♣)
These are all 3-card straight flush combinations with no high cards and one inside. They all have an outside straight penalty card unsuited with the A. There can neither be two low straight penalties nor an additional high card in the hand. I think this rule correctly accounts for all of the cases.
d. The next group of hands contain an A and a suited JT. You always hold the A by itself if there’s a flush penalty to the JT or a 9 penalty. Once you eliminate these two conditions, there are special rules depending on whether there’s a 7 penalty or 8 penalty (or neither), and also depending on whatever kind of penalties the A has. This is covered thoroughly in the Winner’s Guide to Double Double Bonus and there’s no need to repeat those conditions here.
There are several hands where the additional two cards are unsuited with the A and have exactly one kicker penalty and one card in the range of 5-8. It doesn’t matter if these two cards are suited with each other or not. If these conditions are met, you hold the JT in 10-6-50 and the A in 10-6-40. The entire list is:
| 2♥ 5♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 2♥ 7♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 2♠ 5♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 2♠ 7♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 3♥ 5♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 3♥ 7♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 3♠ 5♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 3♠ 7♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 4♥ 5♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 4♥ 7♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 4♠ 5♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 4♠ 7♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 2♥ 6♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 2♥ 8♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 2♠ 6♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 2♠ 8♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 3♥ 6♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 3♥ 8♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 3♠ 6♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 3♠ 8♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 4♥ 6♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 4♥ 8♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | |
| 4♠ 6♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ | 4♠ 8♥ J♣ T♣ A♦ |
I suspect that I’m one of the few players to attempt to learn and apply these differences between the two games. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether this is a sign of professionalism on my part, or a symptom of some disease.
Whenever I struggle with the finite points of different video poker game strategies and pay table strategies, I think of Fahrenheit 451. Each individual was assigned a book to memorize word for word.
And those were the “Book People”: the good guys.
My comment is always the curious question as to why the SF only pays 250-1. It rarely if ever hits. I’ve hit almost as many RF’s.
Eddacat, I had the same questions about this until someone explained it to me. A good acquaintance of mine analyzed paytables of all kinds and he explained me this phenomenon in simple words. The truth is that either the Royal Flush and the Straight Flush is heavily underpaid and should give the player a much higher return if it pops up on your screen. On the other hand, other payouts, such as perhaps Trips and Flushes , and of course Full Houses in the 10-6 DDB version are overpaid to give the player a greater play. In Deuces Wild the best example is 4 Deuces that pay way too much but make the game so exciting whereas 3 aces are basically worthless. The designers of these games have adjusted the paytables to create a better gambling experience. If the Royal Flush and the Straight Flush would pay according the true odds it would be a super volatile game because other wins would come short to equalize the overall return. In fact, you may want to hit more full houses and many flushes in this game and once in a while you hit a royal which is fine, but doesn’t change much.
“The designers of these games have adjusted the paytables to create a better gambling experience.” – Boris
Do you realize the designers of these video poker games were working with “basic” technologies when compared with today’s technology. I remember someone on the web was analyzing pay tables using a Intel 286 processor.
Your understanding of old video poker games do not fit the facts.
Do you even know when the original 9/6 JOB pay table was created? Or the 100.76% full pay deuces Wild? Or even the 100.17% 10-7 DBP?
Hello EV Bandit, your commets are refreshing and appreciated. I don’t think that in the 80s an 90s the computer people were middle aged, but I agree with you that today’s technology is way more advanced than 20-30 years ago. Although good videopoker is harder and harder to be found and the times for loose gaming are not quite the best, let’s hope for a great time once this pandemic is through and the casinos try to get the show running at full steam. It would be hard to see Station Casinos not bringing back FPDW. Where else can we find this game nowadays?
Hopefully by 2022 we’ll be back on track again. Until then…
From Switzerland
Boris
My records of actual results over a 20-year period show that straight flushes outnumber royal flushes by 7 to 1. In fact, it does not matter whether players are underpaid for these hands. What matters is the overall paytable and using the correct strategy.
Jerry – A royal flush is simply a straight flush that starts with a 10 card. There are 10 possible straight flushes – starting with A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. So strictly speaking, straight flushes should outnumber royal flushes by 9 to 1. However, correct strategy my skew this number slightly.
Mufasa
Well if you hold a 3 straight flush eqully than a 3 Royal, which you definetely don’t do in DDB 9-6 and 10-6 and probably the games with lesser paytables, then you would probably see as many straight flushes in proportion as Royal Flushes. I don’t have the strategy on DDB in my memory at this time but my guess is that it you will see way less str flushes for that reason. In Deuces Wild because of the wild cards there are more straight flushes with wild cards than without wild cards but that’s of course irrelevant. I still would believe that there are less straight-fluses than 9 out of 10 (as No 10 is the royal straight flush) than random because of the adjusted strategy.
Summary: Videopoker to me is one of the most fascinating games and I am glad we have this forum to talk about it 🙂
From Switzerland
Boris
I’m sorry but what is meant by 10-6 ddb?
Sam, that’s the currently best version of double double bonus poker, with 10x for full house and 6x for flush. Can’t find any better ddb game than this, but the topic in Bob´s column this week was to find out the fine tuned play if the straight flush version “only” pays 40 coins instead of 50. Not a big cut in pay but still a cut and if you want to play it absolutely perfectly then everything counts. Just like in life 🙂
Greetings from Switzerland
Boris
As far as I know from my reading, Si Redd created the original 9/6 jacks or better payable just out of his own head. If anybody has more information about this, I would love to hear it. The history of video poker is amazing to say the least.
What’s really interesting, I read somewhere in a magazine that back in the old days these vintage machines were only operated with coins and only single denominations. So there were nickel vp, quarters, 50ct and Dollars, and probably nothing higher unless the casinos created 5 dollar tokens for players that liked “more action”. Then, in the next step, they invented multi-denomination games and that’s when the first bugs were highly profitable to insiders. I read that at some time it was possible to play Nickel VP and then when you had a great hand you could turn to 5 Dollar denom and get paid “a little better”, lol. Not to mention, of course, that this bug was later on fixed and the game was back-to-normal. Would be interesting to hear if anybody can confirm this and how effectively it was squeezed out by the “wise guys”.
Greetings from Switzerland
Boris
Boris: Google “John Kane Video Poker”
Sangria, thank you for that input. I went to ask google about this videopoker person. Seems to me that this would lead me to a video blog or something?
Because of the ongoing travel restrictions and the high infection rate world wide, international travel is still not possible and will probably continue to remain so until the end of this year. Hopefully by next spring the situation will get better so tourists from Europe will be allowed to come and gamble. I’m looking forward to playing videopoker again.
From Switzerland
Boris
Boris:
You could also try searching:
Finding a Video Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich/Then Vegas Made Them Pay
Sangria: I read the hole story of Kane and Nestor. Imagine they wouldn’t have become greedy and only taken 1000 a day. They could have done it for years…..Very interesting story indeed. I know that some casinos have Game King machines offering double-down feature, but I doubt that this trick still works…..
Boris: It is an amazing story. I’m sure the glitch is gone. The story says that IGT sent out updated EPROMS for every single Game King machine in the world.
Kane was not very smart. I’m sure he knew that casinos keep computer records for each slot machine and video poker machine to ensure that they are earning the casino the correct amount of money. And yet, Kane sat in the Silverton and ran up one jackpot after another over a couple of hours. He was a wealthy enough man, so maybe he didn’t care about getting caught, he just enjoyed getting pay back for his losses over the years.
Even if Kane was smarter, how often do you collect the big jackpot? There are an unlimited number of casinos in Nevada (and the world), but each jackpot is reported to the IRS. Do you rotate casinos and collect one jackpot a day from a different casino? After a while there would have to be an IRS employee who would see the endless win reportings and realize somebody was working an angle in Las Vegas. They would probably contact the Nevada Gaming Commission.
If you didn’t play with a slot card and kept the second jackpot to no more than $1,000 so there was no IRS record, I guess you could start filling a safe deposit box with cash without anybody catching on, but then what would do you do with it?
Interesting to think about.
I have seen the double-up feature return to new Game King machines. I think there are some in the Venetian.
I suppose if you searched enough backwater places like Baker, Nevada or Wendover, Nevada or Ely, Nevada, or some old cruise ship with a casino, you might still find a Game King machine that had double-up and that the EPROM was never updated.