A Look at Extra Action Poker

I’ve been playing Extra Action Poker on www.videopoker.com. The game only appears in a few casinos so far, but the nice thing about my column is that it will remain on this site indefinitely, so if six months from now you want to consider playing this game, the information about it will still be here.

Extra Action Poker (EAP) is found in Triple Play and Five Play variations. In each case, if you play five coins per line (either 15 or 25 respectively), you get an option to pay an additional 5 coins (per game — not per line), 10 coins, or 15 coins to receive 4, 8, or 12 bonus hands respectively.

The bonus hands are triggered by dealt aces (or deuces in Deuce Wild variations). In my explanation, I’m going to be talking about dealt aces only — rather than qualifying every mention by saying that dealt deuces count if you’re playing a Deuces Wild variation. As we shall see in our example below, it doesn’t matter if we hold additional cards to the aces, we get just the aces in the bonus hands. In fact, we could discard any aces dealt (as would be appropriate if we were dealt K♥ Q♥ J♥ A♣ 3♦), and we’d still get start all of the bonus hands with that ace.

Whenever you aren’t dealt any aces on your hand, you get no bonus hands at all. The pay schedule on the bonus hands is:

 

Royal Flush	4000
Straight Flush	4000
Four of a Kind	1000
Full House	60
Flush	40
Straight	20
	15
Two Pair	10
Jacks or Better	5

It looks straightforward enough, but keep in mind that EVERY starting hand begins with one or more aces. If you were not dealt at least one ace, you didn’t get any EAP Bonus this time. So to get a royal flush, you need to draw four perfect cards to a lone ace. This is neither more nor less likely than completing an ‘A2345’ straight flush.

Starting from a lone ace, it is also possible to end up with ANY four of a kind. They all pay the same. There is no bonus for kickers. And Two Pair always gives you 10 coins, whether you’re playing a game with that feature normally (such as Jacks or Better) or not (such as Double Double Bonus Poker.)

This pay schedule is attached to all of the EAP Bonus games without wild cards. The return on the EAP Bonus is 99.31%. The bonus is only added to pay schedules returning less than 99.3% to start with. So you might see it on 9/5 Jacks or Better but you’ll never see it on 9/6 Jacks or Better.

To see how the game is played, look at Figure 1 below. We are playing Triple Play, 8/5 Bonus Poker, and are dealt “aces full,” namely A♠ A♣ A♥ 4♣ 4♦. We paid 15 coins for the Triple Play, and an addition 15 coins for 12 EAP Bonus hands.

Figure 1Figure 2 shows the correct play in Bonus Poker, which is to hold all five cards. Were we playing a poker variation where four aces pay a lot more, we’d just hold the aces and discard the fours. But in this particular game, it’s appropriate to hold all five cards. Notice that even though we held all five cards, the bonus hands just held the aces.

Figure 2In Figure 3, we see the draw to the bonus hands. We are fortunate enough to get two quads and one full house. This is a better than average score. Also notice that in the second bonus hand from the top on the left we drew a 4♣ and in the lowest bonus hand on the right we drew the 4♦. This could not happen in “normal” Triple Play games, but it can happen here.

Figure 3How much the total game returns depends on the return of the base game and how many coins you’re betting on the EAP Bonus compared to how many coins you’re betting on the base game.

For example, let’s take 8/5 Bonus Poker to start with. The game returns 99.17%. If you’re betting 15 coins on Bonus Poker (which is the case if you’re playing Triple Play), and betting 15 coins on the EAP Bonus, then the net is the average of the two returns, which comes out to 99.24%. Had you bet only 10 coins on the EAP Bonus the total comes out to be 99.22%.

If you’re playing 25 coins on Bonus Poker (which is the case if you’re playing Five Play) and only betting 5 coins on the EAP Bonus, then the total return is 99.19%.

Below I’m listing all currently authorized games and their total return. These figures presume you are betting 15 coins on the EAP Bonus. Should you be 5 or 10 coins instead (no chance for betting any other number of coins), the returns will be correspondingly smaller.

 

	Triple Play		Five Play
Theme	Payback %		Payback %
Bonus Poker 8/5	99.24%		99.22%
Bonus Poker 7/5	98.66%		98.50%
Bonus Poker 6/5	98.09%		97.78%
Bonus Poker 10/8/6	97.54%		97.10%
Bonus Poker Deluxe 8/6	98.90%		98.80%
Bonus Poker Deluxe 8/5	98.36%		98.12%
Bonus Poker Deluxe 7/5	97.78%		97.40%
Bonus Poker Deluxe 6/5	97.34%		96.84%
Deuces Wild Bonus 13/4/3/3/1/1	98.97%		98.93%
Deuces Wild Bonus 10/4/3/3/1/1	98.25%		98.03%
Deuces Wild Bonus 12/4/3/2/1/1	97.68%		97.31%
Deuces Wild Bonus 10/4/3/2/1/1	97.24%		96.76%
Double Bonus 9/7/5	99.21%		99.18%
Double Bonus 9/6/5	98.56%		98.37%
Double Bonus 9/6/4	97.84%		97.48%
Double Bonus 8/5/4	96.75%		96.11%
Double Double Bonus 9/6	99.15%		99.10%
Double Double Bonus 9/5	98.59%		98.41%
Double Double Bonus 8/5	98.05%		97.73%
Double Double Bonus 7/5	97.51%		97.06%
Deuces Wild 25/15/9/4/4/3/2	99.02%		99.00%
Deuces Wild 20/12/10/4/4/3/2	98.36%		98.16%
Deuces Wild 20/12/9/4/4/3/2	98.10%		97.84%
Deuces Wild 25/16/13/4/3/2/2	97.95%		97.65%
Jacks or Better 9/5	98.88%		98.77%
Jacks or Better 8/6	98.85%		98.74%
Jacks or Better 8/5	98.30%		98.05%
Jacks or Better 7/5	97.73%		97.33%
Triple Double Bonus 9/6	98.73%		98.59%
Triple Double Bonus 9/5	98.17%		97.88%
Triple Double Bonus 8/5	97.64%		97.22%
Triple Double Bonus 7/5	97.11%		96.56%

There are a number of things to keep in mind when playing this game. First, there are no strategy adjustments necessary compared to the base game. The EAP Bonus part of the game plays itself, and does so without error. Even if you play the base game at a less-than-expert level, you’ll pay the EAP Bonus part of the game absolutely perfectly. This is very important. It takes time and energy to learn a new strategy. This game allows you to play a new game without going through this effort.

Second, you are buying a whole bunch of variance with this EAP Bonus. When you’re getting dealt aces, your score will blossom very nicely. When you’re not being dealt aces, your score will go south very quickly. Another word for variance is “excitement.” You will end up with a lot more four aces hands than you’re used to.

While the math on this game isn’t difficult, it’s a little different than what we’re used to. Let’s say we’re dealt three aces in a regular video poker game. There are 47 cards remaining in the pack (after removing the initially dealt five cards) including one ace. You have two chances to draw that case ace. That means your chances to end up with four aces are 2/47, which is 4.25%. In EAP, your chances are 2/50, or 4%, because the three “non-ace” cards in the initial deal are placed back into the pack before the draw takes place.

It might seem, then, that you’ll get four aces more frequently on the base game than on the EAP Bonus part of the game. That’s just not true. Let’s take a hand like A♥ A♣ 3♣ 4♣ 5♣ in a game like Double Double Bonus. Any player with a clue holds the clubs, so when playing correctly on this hand he has no chance at all of ending up with four aces in the base game. But on the EAP Bonus hands, you start with the two aces no matter what you’ve initially held. And while going from two aces to four doesn’t happen all of the time and is always a nice surprise, it’s certainly possible.

Also, typically you have more EAP Bonus hands than regular hands. While it’s possible to have five regular hands and only four EAP Bonus hands, it’s also possible to have eight or 12 EAP Bonus hands versus only three or five regular hands. And if you have more EAP Bonus hands than base hands, it adds up to more chances to get four aces on the Bonus hands.

Would I play this game? The answer is yes, depending . . .

Since the game always returns less than 99.30%, it would take a strong slot club and/or promotion to make this game attractive. Still, there are casinos where I profitably play 8/5 Bonus Poker (99.17%) because of the extra benefits offered by the casino. If EAP were offered in suitable denominations in these casinos, I’d consider it.

But that’s me. I’m playing for profit and “fun” is not a very important consideration in the casino. If you’re a recreational player and fun is important to you, you might consider this game. And if you do, I recommend you be dealt aces. I think you’ll find that a lot of fun!