I recently hit a sequential royal flush. I was seated near a husband and wife who were playing for lower stakes than I was. The man especially was in full mumble about how bad his luck was that day. (Complainers are common among video poker players. I’m sure you’ve sat next to a guy just like this.)
We had not shared a word with each other before the royal, but they both congratulated me on it. I said, “Yes, a sequential royal is pretty rare.” He hadn’t noticed it was sequential before I mentioned it, and then he told me what bad luck it was that the game didn’t pay extra for sequentials.
“I don’t consider an $8,000 royal to be bad luck. And even if sometime in the future I am playing on a machine with a sequential royal bonus, which I almost never do, today’s royal has nothing to do with the odds of me hitting another one on a different machine.”
He told me he had only hit one sequential in his life. I commented that I had hit quite a few, and in fact didn’t even know how to do an accurate count.
He looked at me and said that sequentials are so rare that nobody has hit quite a few. And counting them wouldn’t be difficult. Even an idiot could do it.
“Really?” I responded. “Actually, I’ve played a lot of Fifty Play and Hundred Play and the cards are so small I usually don’t even check to see if they are sequential. And, in fact, one time I was dealt a sequential royal on a nickel Hundred Play machine for $20,000. Does that count for one sequential or 100?”
He backtracked quickly. “I wasn’t considering multi-line games. And yes, I can see that with multi-line games in the equation, it’s possible to hit a lot of them. And, wow, $20,000! That’s pretty cool!”
“Thank you,” I said. “Not bad for an idiot, huh?”
Sounds like Bob suffers no fools.
Sounds like Bob’s Peeve of the Week. You play next to other humans, the vast majority of whom aren’t as skilled and knowledgeable as you, you run the constant risk of being annoyed by their disgusting ignorance whenever they have the temerity to open their silly mouths.
It is best to just smile and agree with them.
“…sequentials are so rare that nobody has hit quite a few.”
Bob, are you sure it wasn’t Kevin Lewis who said this to you? The “nobody…” statement is classic Kevin.
LOL. Sorry Kev. Luv ya.
Candy
Yup, I was dealt one a few years ago & didn’t realize the odds were 650,00 – 1 as you mentioned in last weeks post…
Larry K, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the 650K – 1 odds are for ANY dealt royal, with the occurrence of a dealt sequential royal being substantially more rare… I’m sure it’s an easy calculation (not for me) to estimate the odds of being dealt a sequential royal. Ending the hand with a sequential is as we all know pretty unusual, and I had my first sequential after nearly 20 years (play maybe 30 days a year) in 2019 holding 4 legs. I only play single-hand games, mostly DDB, TDB and SDB. Then the next day I had another sequential holding just 2 legs. Fast forward to 2021 and I had another one in March holding 3 and my next royal in April was also a sequential holding 3. Of course, none of them were on machines with the big bonus for sequentials…
650’000:1 is to hit any given Royal in any sequence. It has to be dealt. To get it in a sequence would be 60x harder, according my knowledge.
Greetings from Switzerland
Boris
Sequential royals are said to be rare, but if you get one, I say, “Well done!”
Funny my last two were sequential and one was a 5 card draw but they were over 100,000 hands apart. Guess I was lucky!
The Sequential, respectively reversible (sequential) Royal Flush is a great looking picture, but the occasional happiness is not very sustainable. First of all, you basinally hit 1 of them only every 60x you actually hit a Royal, and number 2, the bonus reward on a machine offering a progressive for sequential is taking off too much from the lower paid combos, so the overall return of such reversible progressives is so bad that it’s not worth playing it.
Occasionally, for the fun part of the game, it may be an idea to throw in a bill into such a machine, but I don’t think it’s a winning play.
I sometimes walk by such machines but when I see the terrible paytable, then it’s usually the moment to skip that pipe dream and return to better machines.
From Switzerland
Boris
I forgot to mention that it’s a common phenomenon that people are usually not watching players losing on a slotmachine in any given casino all over the world. Sometimes friends, tourists or the spouse is sitting next to the player watching and killing time. Then, all over sudden, there’s a jackpot anywhere on the casino floor and like the flies on a cake, people come watching, gathering the scene, cheering or hoping for a small gift by the lucky player or begging for a small loan or so. I’ve seen this many times during my life and it’s probably in the nature of itself.
The moment when someone hits a Royal Flush is usually something to relax or to talk about , take the souvenir photo or just wait for the payout. Only the hard-core professional doesn’t waste any minute and jumps over to the machine adjacent and keeps on playing while there’s some good promotion in progress. Regardless of the distribution and order of the winning combo.
From Switzerland
Boris
A little complaining is a mechanism to let out some steam when one is running very bad, us humans sometimes feel the need to share our misery, not everyone is a robot like the robot that just did surgery on me… I like to add a bad joke to my complaints so I come off like less of a loser, I will say “I have not won a hand since Truman was President”, or “I never met a dealer I couldn’t blame”… If given a choice between sitting next to an incessant non-funny complainer or a smoker, I will choose the whiner 100 out of 100 times…
Bob,
You are the master of VP. Why not just humor the guy?
Once again a great display of social skills……
The other fella was with his wife or girlfriend. Often guys don’t quite say what they mean when the “boss” is around. Lying is sometimes required under that kind of duress.
The dealt royal is rare enough so that I assume it’ll never happen whence 15-20 bp are deducted from the return.
* On multiline games.