Top Card Poker

Here is a new game concept that builds on top of traditional TCP. There is a middle community card that is only for the player, and this allows you to place bets on both the left and right hand.
Enjoy!
http://www.topcardpoker.com/

Interesting. I played for a bit and enjoyed it, and I'd play it in the casino.

If this is your game and website, may I make a suggestion? On the 5 card hand, if you have a pair less than Jacks, it values the hand as "high card", where it would be better calling it "Non qualifying pair" or something like that. It looks wrong on the surface.

It also treats A-2-3 as an Ace-high hand instead of a Straight.

Thank you JB for letting us know about this problem. It is now fixed.
rsactuary, your suggestion is great! We've applied it to the game.

Here are some screenshots:
Ace Low Fix
Ace High check
Non Qualifying Pair

Well done. The game has potential.

ZCore13

I have play it. It is a simple, nice and easy game, I like it.
It is a great game (Good job well done) VladAlex1.

Nice job, Alex! I would play this in the casino. Not that fond of the bonus paytables, they seem a bit light to me, but I'm not sure I'm fully understanding them either. 3x for flush, 5x for straight...meh. not great on the higher values... why not paytables people accept already?

Anyway, I like the mechanism.

I had a small glitch, after you had amended the 5 card to say non-qualified pair or whatever, had a pair of 10s in the Right hand, and it just said high card in that bet oval. So it's not picking up all those hands yet.

So it seems to me it's exactly 3cp except you play 2 hands and have additional side bet options... So 3cp but getting the player to bet more.

I like it overall.

I like it -- well done.

Quote: VladAlex1

Here is a new game concept that builds on top of traditional TCP. There is a middle community card that is only for the player, and this allows you to place bets on both the left and right hand.
Enjoy!
http://www.topcardpoker.com/

It's good to see this in its final form Vlad. Nice job with it.

Is this going to be strictly for online gaming or is this also going to be installed in physical form. I ask only to gather how it will be dealt to the players in its physical form...?

Thank you beachbumbabs for your review of Top Card Poker!

Vlad: I'm not sure which paytables you are referring to. Could you please send me some links or examples?

Alex: I plan to write a script to run the game a million times to figure out the chances of winning, and the best game strategy. There is already a best strategy for 3cp, but it may not apply to our TCP, so we'll see.
3CP: "Optimal strategy in ante and play is to raise if you have a queen/6/4 (that is a queen, 6, and 4 all in the same hand) or greater, regardless of the bonus pay table. Overall the player stands to lose 8.66% of the Ante but win5.29% on the Raise." https://wizardofodds.com/games/three-card-poker/

http://www.topcardpoker.com

Quote: VladAlex1

I plan to write a script to run the game a billion times to figure out the chances of winning, and the best game strategy.

I fixed your quote

Quote: VladAlex1

Thank you beachbumbabs for your review of Top Card Poker!

Vlad: I'm not sure which paytables you are referring to. Could you please send me some links or examples?

Alex: I plan to write a script to run the game a million times to figure out the chances of winning, and the best game strategy. There is already a best strategy for 3cp, but it may not apply to our TCP, so we'll see.
3CP: "Optimal strategy in ante and play is to raise if you have a queen/6/4 (that is a queen, 6, and 4 all in the same hand) or greater, regardless of the bonus pay table. Overall the player stands to lose 8.66% of the Ante but win5.29% on the Raise." https://wizardofodds.com/games/three-card-poker/

http://www.topcardpoker.com

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, each of the 3 sidebets is an independent proposition. For the 3 card pairs plus sidebet, there's a 6-4-1 paytable out there, and a 6-3-1 which is commonplace. You're working with the same possible hands with one overlapping card, so I don't know how much the community card affects the paytable, but I would think it's actually more harmful than less; if you get a pair on one side using the center card, it's that much less likely to get a pair on the other side.

You're paying a flush 3x and a straight 5x + 1x, with the 1x an ante bonus (as done in 3cp), instead of 6:1. I'm not sure what that makes the HE on the sidebet, especially with the effect of removal of the center card, but it seems exorbitant. Same short pay feel to the 5 card hand, though it could be better than it seems. For example, the 6 card bonus bet on 3cp these days does not pay 2 pair and yours does, nor does it push on job. But it pays 3oak 5x, straight 10x, flush 15x, fh 20x. Yours pays lower on all those, and you only have 5 cards to work with, not best 5 of 6.

With so many sidebets on the game, if they each were in the 3% range instead of the 7-10% I estimate, you'd still make plenty of money, and you wouldn't burn out your players so quickly. Just my opinion.

lucky one:)
community card affect
https://goo.gl/photos/4gpjufdaWux9uyw28

http://www.topcardpoker.com

Running the game a billion times will take my computer approximately 7 hours. For now here are the results of 10 million rounds for 5 card bonus with the paytable adjusted to ensure RTP 95%. Does it make sense? Something is strange about Straight...

Quote: VladAlex1

Running the game a billion times will take my computer approximately 7 hours. For now here are the results of 10 million rounds for 5 card bonus with the paytable adjusted to ensure RTP 95%. Does it make sense? Something is strange about Straight...

In a 5 card hand, a straight is much harder to get than 3oak. Your table shows this. That effect is reversed in a 3 card hand, where it's much harder to get 3oak than a 3 card straight. But you're paying more on 3oak than a straight. Reversing them will result in a much lower RTP than you currently have.

You might consider paying job 1:1 rather than pushing to make up for it and raise the RTP back where you want it.

Results of Top Card Poker Performed by Simulation of One Billion Rounds.
The probabilistic breakdown for Ante/Play was generated with the following player strategy:
The player played bets if they held hands of unsuited Queen, 6, 4 or better.


http://topcardpoker.com/forumPics/TCPRawSimResults.jpg

beachbumbabs, thank you for the points about 3ok vs straight. The only update I did was ensure that ace low is picked up for straights, which had a minor effect on the simulation results.
We've updated the game's payout tables to ensure the following RTP:

Ante, Play and Ante Bonus RTP = 99.61%
3 Extra bonus RTP = 96.52%
5 Extra bonus RTP = 96.06%
Strategy: play with unsuited Queen, 6, 4 and higher

http://www.topcardpoker.com

Quote: VladAlex1

beachbumbabs, thank you for the points about 3ok vs straight. The only update I did was ensure that ace low is picked up for straights, which had a minor effect on the simulation results.
We've updated the game's payout tables to ensure the following RTP:

Ante, Play and Ante Bonus RTP = 99.61%
3 Extra bonus RTP = 96.52%
5 Extra bonus RTP = 96.06%
Strategy: play with unsuited Queen, 6, 4 and higher

http://www.topcardpoker.com

Nice Games VladAlex1.

Quote: VladAlex1

Results of Top Card Poker Performed by Simulation of One Billion Rounds.
The probabilistic breakdown for Ante/Play was generated with the following player strategy:
The player played bets if they held hands of unsuited Queen, 6, 4 or better.


http://topcardpoker.com/forumPics/TCPRawSimResults.jpg

Vlad: First, I enjoy your game and would probably play it on line. The graphics are good, and the gameplay is more fun than conventional 3CP, in my opinion.

Your results, as summed over One Billion Rounds, have something wrong with the way the way the data is accumulated on the Play bet. I think your posted results have ignored the occasions when the "dealer does not qualify" and the Play Bet only pushes, rather than wins..

Gordonm888, thanks for your positive feedback and observations.

Since we originally posted our results, we've continued to analyze the game, and you are correct we did have an issue with how we analyzed dealer qualification. This has now been fully considered in our code as shown bellow. We've ran 10 million rounds for various strategies to identify the best strategy which turns out to be Q 4 3. Using this strategy, RTP is 99.74% as shown in our calculation summary below.

Screenshots of RTP calculation summary
RTP outputs
RTP indepth 1
RTP indepth 2

Screenshots of our code:
dealer qualification code 1
dealer qualification code 2
dealer qualification code 3

Vlad: Nice job! Problem fixed. Very clear exposition of your results!

Good luck. Please let us know when you get a placement on an online casino site (I think you can't just post it on this site -because that would be advertising - but you could post it on your topcardpoker site. Or, at least, send me a PM on this site.)

Sorry for the late arrival.

Pretty good game. The demo was well done.

To be honest, I think this game might be difficult to deal and isn't a significant improvement from playing two hands of Three Card Poker at the same time. Still, better than most casino game ideas I've seen.

If you get it into a casino, please let me know, and I'll write up a page for it.

Quote: Wizard

Sorry for the late arrival.

Pretty good game. The demo was well done.

To be honest, I think this game might be difficult to deal and isn't a significant improvement from playing two hands of Three Card Poker at the same time. Still, better than most casino game ideas I've seen.

If you get it into a casino, please let me know, and I'll write up a page for it.

I'm struggling to grasp the differentiating factor as well. Why would I play this over playing two Three Card Poker hands?