Ultimate X Bonus Streak - played it for 1st time today.

I played DDB 8/5 & J 8/5 5x.25. Hit a 12x4oak, so made +$105.
Someone left a 4X multiplier, but I just played 10-coin, so I'm not sure what would have happened if I bet 1-5 coins.

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Has anyone done an analysis of this game yet?
Looks like 4-card inside straights (vs. single high card) & 3-card flushes with high card ... may be more powerful than regular UX (10-coin).

1) No multiplier for pair or 2-pair.
2) Streaks of 2-5 hands with multipliers (which continue even if all the hands draw blanks).
2a) If you hit a streak inside the streak, the first streak's remaining multipliers all go to 12x. However, if you hit a full-house (5 streak hand) inside another streak, you don't get any extra hands (bummer).
3) Multipliers might be more vulture-proof (e.g. have to bet 10-coins, so have to wait until average multiplier is over 2.0x)

Possibly announced 11/17/16 or earlier.
http://www.rgtonline.com/article/more-and-more-new-games-125028?CategoryName=Gaming%20Tips&SubCategoryName=

http://www.videopoker.com/play_games/free/?game=126
Game is available on-line at VideoPoker.com (but I haven't tried it there yet).

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P.S. Has anyone seen "Ultimate X Spin Poker" in the wild? Would love to try it.

Quote: mamat

3) Multipliers might be more vulture-proof (e.g. have to bet 10-coins, so have to wait until average multiplier is over 2.0x).

Not true, I don't know what it would be, but it's certainly not that high.

Quote: Mission146

Not true, I don't know what it would be, but it's certainly not that high.

Right. The base game could be anything you wanted that paid above 50% (which most state minimums are 85%) and ANY multiplier would basically make it a +EV play.

Quote: Romes

Right. The base game could be anything you wanted that paid above 50% (which most state minimums are 85%) and ANY multiplier would basically make it a +EV play.

Yeah, I think I've made this comparison before, but if you were to assume a base paytable of 95% for regular UX (none of them are that low), then the simple formula to determine the overall return of one 2x multiplier (if you HAD to bet 10 credits) would be:

(.475 * 10) + (.475 * 10) + .475 = 9.975 or 99.75%

Again, that would be a 95% return with the feature (none of them are that low) and assumes that the feature does not add any value to the overall return of a ten credit bet, in terms of percentage, which it always does with regular UX.

The worst possible paytable appears to be 6/5 Jacks:

https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/ultimate-x/

Which returns 95.6740% of a ten-credit bet. The base game of 6/5 Jacks return .949961, so we take half of that (.4749805) and subtract that from the overall UX return of .956740 and we see that .4817595 of the return comes from the feature.

(.4749805 * 10) + (.4817595 * 10) + .4749805 = 10.0423805 credits or 100.423805%

Theoretically, however (especially with the UX Bonus Rules that I really don't fully know) it is conceivable that single 2x multiplier wouldn't be enough to put it over the top if not enough value is added from the five extra credits bet. Certainly, if UX were like Hot Roll in which the ER% remains the same whether someone is playing the feature or not, (for a different reason) then a single 2x multiplier might not be enough on a very small handful of games...but I doubt that is the case.

Alpax at video poker.com forums has done work on these new games trying to figure them out.

Quote: Romes

Right. The base game could be anything you wanted that paid above 50% (which most state minimums are 85%) and ANY multiplier would basically make it a +EV play.

Hmmm. I'll have to think about the analysis. I had assumed that hands below 2.0x would be at a disadvantage.
I am confused.

If I have no multipliers on regular UX, then I receive two things when I play one hand at 10-coin (assuming no pre-existing multipliers).
(1) Regular payout - return 48-49.9%
(2) Bonus multipliers for next hand - I had (perhaps mistakenly) assumed that the average would be around 2.0x
On the first hand only (say I cashed out immediately), it is a -EV hand, losing +50.1-52% of my initial bet.

However, the 2nd hand could be a +EV or -EV hand depending on the multipliers earned.
(1) Payout with starting multipliers 1.0x-12.0x - return 48-600%
(2) Bonus multipliers for next hand

The overall payout with infinite hands should be the reported theoretical setting of the game (or am I missing something)?

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There is a similar situation with UX (the regular game) when a minimum bet is required. For example, if a game has minimum bet $5, when you play 10-play nickels, you are unable to bet 1-5 units.

Usually on these games, I only "vulture" at 2.1x or higher (playing 10-coins)... and play until the avg multiplier is below 2.1x.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Alpax at video poker.com forums has done work on these new games trying to figure them out.

Thanks for the links to alpax's early analysis.

If you're forced to bet ten, your average multiplier should be at least 2X for the future hands you want to play. And I'm fairly sure you're forced to bet ten in this game at all times.

Re: Alpax's analysis

The interesting thing about it, it seems fairly robust with regular Ultimate X strategy.

Quote: tringlomane

The interesting thing about it, it seems fairly robust with regular Ultimate X strategy.

With regular Ultimate X, leftover hands seem to average 145-150%, so +/-2% strategy differences just don't matter.

One guy who had vultured UX for years didn't even realize that kickers in DDB paid extra.

Almost all vultures play UX heads-up for 10-credits, and it can be scary to see what they hold.
It's a lot easier to get dealt a full-house for a page of 12x, than to find a page of 12x,
so most people who look for extra multipliers just put the money right back in.

Some APs (with major leaks in their games) play 10x$1, 10x.50, 10x0.25, 10x.10 UX with sub-99% (or even sub-98%) payouts. Often playing games which are -1% worse than other UX games on the same machines. 10x$1 DDB 9/5 98.5% is -$600 to -$800 EV/hr. Scary.