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Given the same strategy for 8-5 Bonus Poker
and 8-5 ACES Bonus Poker, four aces or any other winning hand will occur
with the same frequency, regardless of pay table. Expert players will
make some strategy adjustments that will cause four-ace hands to come up
more often - not less - in ACES than in regular Bonus Poker.
The random number generator program that
determines the cards that are dealt is the same program whether we're
playing Bonus Poker, ACES, Triple Double Bonus Poker or any other
52-card variation of five-card draw video poker. The pay table has
nothing to do with which cards we see; it just determines how much we're
paid once we have our final hand.
In ACES Bonus Poker, each ace has a letter
displayed on the card - "A," "C," "E" or "S." If a four-ace hand spells
out "ACES" in the proper order on consecutive cards - the fifth, non-ace
card may not appear in the middle of the hand - the payoff for a
five-coin wager is 4,000 coins instead of the usual 400 on four Aces.
Drawing the four Aces in the proper order is
a fairly rare event - less common than even a royal flush. In the 8-5
version, where full houses pay 8-for-1 and flushes pay 5-for-1, Bonus
Poker returns 99.2 percent in the long run with expert play. The ACES
bonus raises that theoretical return only to 99.4 percent.
Strategy for Bonus Poker and ACES Bonus
Poker is nearly identical. There are a few situations in which we might
alter our play to chase the bonus. For example, if we have a full house
in which the first three cards are aces that spell out "ACE," or the
last three are aces that spell out "CES," we'll discard the other pair.
If the three aces are in any other order, we keep the full house
instead.
Because we chase the aces more often, they
will come up more often. Similarly, when we adapt our strategy for games
such as Super Aces, the effect is to increase the number of four-ace
hands. In Super Aces, which pays 2,000 coins for a five-coin bet on any
four-ace hand, we'll break up two pair that includes a pair of aces, and
just hold the aces, while in many other games (Bonus Poker, Double Bonus
Poker, Jacks or Better), we'll hold both pair.
The effect of the Super Aces strategy
adjustment is to increase the number of four-ace and three-of-a-kind
hands, while decreasing the number of full houses. It's our strategy
that makes the difference, not any change in the way cards are dealt. |
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