I was paid to help somebody learn the strategy for 9\/5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus. \u201cMary\u201d was a person who wanted to learn the minimum and take the strategy with her. Whenever Mary wasn\u2019t sure of how to play a hand, she\u2019d look it up on the strategy sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suggested this wasn\u2019t such a good way to go about learning this game. There were enough unique hands in this game that you\u2019d never know if it was an unusual play unless you knew the whole strategy. But Mary reminded me that she was paying me by the hour and the customer was always right, so we were going to do it her way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today\u2019s lesson dealt with hands starting with an A of one suit and a suited JT <\/em><\/strong>of <\/em><\/strong>another. Mary wanted to concentrate on just those hands where the final answer was A or JT<\/em><\/strong>, but I informed her there were a lot of other possibilities. She allowed me to go over them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou hold all trips, which can only be aces, jacks, or tens, given that each hand we\u2019re talking about starts with AJT and there are always exactly five cards in each hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/strong>\u201c<\/strong>We hold 4-card straight flushes, namely <\/strong>KJT9<\/em><\/strong>, <\/em>QJT9<\/em><\/strong>,<\/em> and <\/strong>QJT8<\/em><\/strong>. <\/em><\/strong>Whether we hold 3-card straight flushes, <\/strong>KJT<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>and QJT<\/em><\/strong>, <\/em><\/strong>depends on whether there is another king, queen, or jack in the hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em><\/strong>At this point, Mary stopped me and said she thought the lesson was just about A and a suited JT<\/em><\/strong>, not all this stuff about royal flush draws and straight flush draws, not to mention 3-of-a-kinds and I seem to be getting into high pairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI am and it is,\u201d I assured her, \u201cbut every one of these hands includes AJT. If you don\u2019t want to look at every line of the strategy and use a top-down approach, these are all hands that can arise starting from AJT. Each of the high pairs, AA, KK, QQ, and JJ have different things to be concerned about, and low pairs are not treated all the same either. We haven\u2019t even gotten into most 4-card consecutive straights and 4-card inside straights, nor have we discussed most 3-card straight flushes, which come in four different flavors, each of which is treated differently strategically. You probably should be taking notes. We\u2019re less than halfway through and there are still some tricky hands ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary looked uncertain, not sure she was ready for this. If she pulled the plug on this lesson, so be it. I needed to know all of this because I played the game myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s look at pairs, remembering that we\u2019ve discussed trips, so they are off the table. A pair of aces is better than any other possibility, as are a pair of kings. For a pair of queens, it matters if one is suited with the JT<\/em><\/strong>. If so, we\u2019ve already discussed the 3-card straight flushes. If both queens are unsuited with the JT<\/em><\/strong>, the pair is better than anything else not discussed so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor a pair of jacks, we now have the possibility of two pair — jacks and tens. This is the only two pair combination we hold with hands included with AJT. Pairs of nines and tens are lower in value than JT9<\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow let\u2019s look at the 3-card straight flushes. Six of these include an A and two low cards. These are simple to play. Hold the three cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/strong>\u201c<\/strong>JT9 <\/em><\/strong>is more valuable than any two suited high cards and any 4-card straight in the hand except QJT9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJT8 <\/em><\/strong>is more valuable than any two suited high cards and any 4-card straight in the hand except JT98. It is lower in value than every pair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>\u201c<\/em>JT7<\/em><\/strong> is <\/em>less valuable than two suited high cards and 4-card inside straights with three high cards (i.e.,<\/em> AKJT and AQJT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you have a K in the hand suited with the A, hold AK<\/em><\/strong> unless there is a flush penalty to the AK<\/em><\/strong>, in which case you hold AKJT. If you have an unsuited K in the hand, hold AKJT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA Q in the hand is played identically to a K, with the exception that QJT9 is greater than either AQ<\/em><\/strong> or AQJT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are three other hands starting from AJT <\/em><\/strong>where you hold neither A nor only JT. <\/em><\/strong>From AJT98, the correct play is JT98 and those hands with a 4-card flush (including JT<\/em><\/strong>), hold the 4-card flush. From AJT and any low pair, hold the low pair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay. We\u2019re now ready to discuss the hands you wanted to look at first: AJT with none of the above items in the hand. But as you can see, there are a LOT of other possibilities before we get to this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith AJT without any of the cases already described, first look at penalties to JT<\/em><\/strong>. If there is a 9, 8, or flush penalty to JT<\/em><\/strong> in the remaining cards, you hold the A by itself, no matter what penalties the ace has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf there is a 7 in the hand, hold the A unless there are two flush penalties to the A. In this case, a straight flush penalty to the case counts as a flush penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the JT<\/em><\/strong> is totally unpenalized, hold the JT <\/em><\/strong>if the A has one or more flush or straight flush penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s it. That\u2019s the entire strategy for these hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo, I\u2019m ready to play now?\u201d Mary asked me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot really. AJT <\/em><\/strong>is probably the trickiest combination in this game, but an unsuited AQJ is played differently in this game than any others. Plus, the 100-for-1 return for straight flushes, rather than the more typical 50-for-1 return causes quite a few unusual plays. We can go over those later if you like. I think you\u2019ve had enough for today.\u201d \u201cFinally, something we agree on.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was paid to help somebody learn the strategy for 9\/5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus. \u201cMary\u201d was a person who wanted to learn the minimum and take the strategy with her. Whenever Mary wasn\u2019t sure of how to play a hand, she\u2019d look it up on the strategy sheet. I suggested this wasn\u2019t such a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[601,557],"tags":[561,585],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}