Deuces Wild Bonus

First, thank you to the Wizard an JB for providing guidance of Video poker games along with strategies. I always have your strategy guides loaded on my iphone when I go to play at my local casino and it has enhanced my gaming experience.

I've have been looking at new type of VP game @ the Seminole HR in Tampa, FL called Multi-Streak Poker. It has been briefly mentioned in WoV forum before, but no formal analysis has been done on this game. Videopoker.com allows you to play this game for free:

http://www.videopoker.com/play/?game=29&title=Multi-Streak%20Poker

The rules of this game have been discussed before on this forum:

https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/video-poker/17055-variant-not-found-on-woo-or-wov/

My favorite and most familiar VP game to play is Deuces Wild. Unfortunately DW is not available in the Multi-Streak format at the Seminole HR in Tampa. The closest I can get is Deuces Wild Bonus.

On the WOO site the various DWB paytables are stated with their expected return:

https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/bonus-deuces-wild/

But I did not find a strategy guide for DWB and there is no option in the WOO customized VP strategy guide calculator for DWB.

Could someone give me some guidance on the optimal strategy for this game? Perhaps it is somewhere else on the internet. At 97.36%, the specific table I am playing at has a relatively weak return. The paytable is below:

800/400/200/25/80/40/20/10/4/3/3/1/1

Thank you in advance.

Quote: QuadCore

there is no option in the WOO customized VP strategy guide calculator for DWB

That's because it's listed in the menu as Bonus Deuces Wild.

10/4/3/3 strategy

@JB

Simple as that! TY

I didn't bother to look there as I thought that Bonus Deuces Wild would be covered under the "Anything's Wild" category

The strategy is not that different from regular Deuces Wild so I'm happy that I wont have to memorize too much new stuff.

Do you think the strategy changes with the multipliers?

It looks like the dealt hand determines the multipliers, so there should be no difference in strategy from the standard version.

Quote: QuadCore

Do you think the strategy changes with the multipliers?

Unlike ultimate x, strategy doesn't change in multi-streak because multipliers are awarded based on your dealt hands.

But speaking of ultimate x, ever thought putting up a deuces strategy up, JB?

In the version on videopoker.com, the way it works is somewhat confusing: it shows that a multiplier is awarded for a pair of Jacks or Better on the deal. However, in Bonus Deuces Wild, being dealt a Deuce plus a Jack/Queen/King/Ace does not satisfy this criteria, as no multiplier is awarded. Yet being dealt a pair of 3s with a Deuce does satisfy the criteria for having been dealt 3 of a kind, and the 3 of a kind multipliers are awarded. I don't know if this is an oversight on the vp.com version or if it's intentional and how it works in the casino version.

Quote: JB

In the version on videopoker.com, the way it works is somewhat confusing: it shows that a multiplier is awarded for a pair of Jacks or Better on the deal. However, in Bonus Deuces Wild, being dealt a Deuce plus a Jack/Queen/King/Ace does not satisfy this criteria, as no multiplier is awarded. Yet being dealt a pair of 3s with a Deuce does satisfy the criteria for having been dealt 3 of a kind, and the 3 of a kind multipliers are awarded. I don't know if this is an oversight on the vp.com version or if it's intentional and how it works in the casino version.

So far, my experience has been with the online free play version. And, in it, the deuce does not factor into the early multipliers i.e. Jacks or Better or 2 pair. But once you get to the 3 of a kind and higher multipliers the deuce does get factored in.

Now that I have the strategy guide for Deuces Wild Bonus, I will check out the casino version and report back if the same rule applies at the casino.

Also, I noted that my particular casino awards a somewhat less favorable set of multipliers. Everything is the same as the online version except:

Flush pays 4x/3x/1x instead of 4x/3x/2x
Full House pays 4x/3x/1x instead of 4x/3x/2x

Out of curiosity, I was wondering if someone could explain to me why the strategy changes if the multiplier is based on the Result hand and the strategy does not change if the multiplier is based on the Dealt hand

Quote: QuadCore

Out of curiosity, I was wondering if someone could explain to me why the strategy changes if the multiplier is based on the Result hand and the strategy does not change if the multiplier is based on the Dealt hand

Because when multipliers are awarded due to final hands, how you play the hand will change the probabilities and average values of your future multipliers.

For example, in most forms of non-wild video poker, it's usually never correct to hold 3 to a flush over garbage. But in ultimate x it is correct to hold 3 to a flush over nothing because when you make a flush, you are awarded a 10 or 11X multiplier for the next hand.

Thank you for the explanation.

Speaking of multipliers, there seems to be a quirk in the videopoker.com online free play version of Triple Play Multi-Streak Poker where you can be eligible to get multipliers without paying for it. Normally, you have to bet 30 credits to be eligible for multipliers (5 credits for a hand x 3 hands as well as 15 additional credits for the Bonus bet). However, if you just load the game, pick your preferred VP game, and you immediately deal without hitting anything else, what happens is you bet one credit on the bottom hand and you are still eligible for multipliers. You can repeat this two more times before the box that says "Bet Max For Multiplier Action" appears and you go to the usual having to bet 30 credits to be eligible for multipliers. Then you can skip to a different VP game and repeat until you have played all the available VP games. After playing all the available VP games, you have to reload the game to be able to do this quirk again.

I wonder if this will work in the casino as it would prove a significant advantage especially in larger denominations. You will only be playing for the 1 credit pays, but getting multipliers will make it worth it.

I briefly tried to replicate this quirk and things seemed to work differently in the real world, but I did not have time/money to properly evaluate. If someone else has access to this game at a local casino, they may want to give this a shot as well. After all the one credit bets don't cost much.

I'm still practicing the online version of Deuces Wild Bonus to learn the strategy so that I can play this game at my local casino in the Multi-Streak format. Unlike my initial impression, there do seem to be quite a few differences between Bonus Deuces Wild and regular Deuces Wild (ex. you never hold 4 to a Straight in Bonus Deuces Wild at least at the pay table that I play)

Quote: QuadCore

I always have your strategy guides loaded on my iphone when I go to play at my local casino and it has enhanced my gaming experience.

A word of caution...

I seem to recall a conversation between Bob Dancer and Bob Nersesian (gambling attorney, extraordinaire) on GWAE from a while back where Bob N indicated that using a strategy chart from your smart phone could be construed by the casino and/or gaming as use of a device to aid in playing a legitimate strategy - which is considered cheating. I know, it seems crazy when you can have the same thing there on paper without issue. But if the casino or gaming decide they want to make your life miserable, they can use the strategy on your phone as an excuse if they choose to do so.

Quote: FunkyDoctor

A word of caution...

I seem to recall a conversation between Bob Dancer and Bob Nersesian (gambling attorney, extraordinaire) on GWAE from a while back where Bob N indicated that using a strategy chart from your smart phone could be construed by the casino and/or gaming as use of a device to aid in playing a legitimate strategy - which is considered cheating. I know, it seems crazy when you can have the same thing there on paper without issue. But if the casino or gaming decide they want to make your life miserable, they can use the strategy on your phone as an excuse if they choose to do so.

So basically you are saying that if you were to win a jackpot, especially a big one, they can refuse to pay you. They review the video footage of your play and, if at any moment, you pulled out your phone to refer to the optimal strategy during your time on the machine you hit a jackpot on, then they say that you cheated and refuse to pay you.

I wonder if any of the forum members have had any experience with this. With the prevalence of Smart Phones, I'm sure that there are many who use these devices to assist them in playing the optimal strategy for VP. The variability in pay tables makes it difficult to memorize all the small changes in optimal strategy that occur with changing pay tables. I play DW and, in my casino, there are 6 different pay tables for DW.

Quote: QuadCore

I wonder if this will work in the casino as it would prove a significant advantage especially in larger denominations. You will only be playing for the 1 credit pays, but getting multipliers will make it worth it.

I briefly tried to replicate this quirk and things seemed to work differently in the real world, but I did not have time/money to properly evaluate. If someone else has access to this game at a local casino, they may want to give this a shot as well. After all the one credit bets don't cost much.

Ok so I tried this out, and, in my experience, this quirk that is present in the online free play version of Mult-Streak poker could not be replicated at my local casino.

However, I did find out that Multi-Streak poker is quite amenable to vulturing for left over multipliers. It can better than Ultimate X vulturing since you potentially end up with 3 unused multipliers as opposed to only one in Ultimate X. This has been discussed on this forum before:

https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/video-poker/17055-variant-not-found-on-woo-or-wov/

As an example, when looking at the Triple play Deuces Wild Bonus at the .25 level I noticed that someone had won nicely and abandoned the 5x/4x/3x multipliers for the next 3 games. I put in 3.75 (0.25 per credit x 5 credits x 3 hands) and repeated twice for a total of 11.25, but got NOTHING out of it which was quite disappointing and surprising to me.

I started thinking about the chances of completely losing 3 triple play hands in a row and I will attempt to use my rudimentary knowledge of probability to calculate this.

Based on JBs strategy guide, using Basic strategy in my particular payable of DWB 10/4/3/3, the probability of getting nothing is 0.553614, so 9 continuous hands with nothing is 0.553614 to the 9th power which is 0.0048850 giving a frequency of 204.71 (a little less than the frequency of getting a Straight Flush using Basic Strategy for my particular DWB paytable).

Please correct my if my math is wrong as I'm not very experienced in this.

Ouch that sucks. The overall probability of bricking 3 consecutive hands of 3 is higher than what you calculated though because final hand strength is positively correlated to the dealt hand. You'll see the benefits of "vulturing" clearly when you get dealt "pushes" or "winners".

The Wizard studied this for 9/6 JoB, and for 3-play bricking all the hands is 0.2626027353. Doing that 3 consecutive times is (0.2626027353)^3 = 0.0181091363 or 1 in 55.22. The answer for deuces will probably be in about 1 in 50 as garbage is slightly more likely.

https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/appendix/2/

Quote: tringlomane

Final hand strength is positively correlated to the dealt hand.

So as the strength of the dealt hand increases the chances of a good paying final hand increase as well. I can see how this increases the probability of completely bricking a 3-play hand over the probability of bricking 3 separate 1 play hands in a row.

Would my calculation have been correct for 9 consecutive 1-play hands lost?

Quote: QuadCore

So as the strength of the dealt hand increases the chances of a good paying final hand increase as well. I can see how this increases the probability of completely bricking a 3-play hand over the probability of bricking 3 separate 1 play hands in a row.

Would my calculation have been correct for 9 consecutive 1-play hands lost?

Yes, missing 9 1-play hands in a row would have been how you calculated it.

Quote: QuadCore

So basically you are saying that if you were to win a jackpot, especially a big one, they can refuse to pay you. They review the video footage of your play and, if at any moment, you pulled out your phone to refer to the optimal strategy during your time on the machine you hit a jackpot on, then they say that you cheated and refuse to pay you.

I wonder if any of the forum members have had any experience with this. With the prevalence of Smart Phones, I'm sure that there are many who use these devices to assist them in playing the optimal strategy for VP. The variability in pay tables makes it difficult to memorize all the small changes in optimal strategy that occur with changing pay tables. I play DW and, in my casino, there are 6 different pay tables for DW.

In order not to pay you, I believe they have to believe you were cheating. It's illegal but I don't know if its cheating. They could arrest you. If anything did happen (doubtful) Most likely they would just peg you as an AP and possibly 86 you.

Quote: QuadCore

this quirk that is present in the online free play version of Mult-Streak poker could not be replicated at my local casino.

I expect that if the quirk were present in a live machine, to be exploited, it would need the machine to be reset (to original, from-factory condition) to trigger the quirk.

Quote: AxelWolf

In order not to pay you, I believe they have to believe you were cheating. It's illegal but I don't know if its cheating. They could arrest you. If anything did happen (doubtful) Most likely they would just peg you as an AP and possibly 86 you.

Are you saying that it's illegal to use a smart phone to refer to strategy while playing VP or BJ on a machine? Sounds extreme to me.

I'm thinking that in Indian territory, they can be more liberal with what they define as cheating as you will have limited legal recourse.

Please define "peg you as an AP and possibly 86 you"

I'm still waiting for any forum members to step up and say if they ever had problems in a casino with using a smart phone to refer to optimal strategy while playing VP. I try to memorize the main points of the strategy, but have to pull out my phone around 1-3 times a session to refer to the borderline plays, which do tend to change somewhat based on the paytable. I try and do this discreetly like I'm checking my text message or e-mail because I am wary about being accused of cheating or being warned about phone usage.