Stack the Deck Poker

Stack the Deck Poker is a new video poker variant where on certain hands on the deal, like three of a kind or four to the royal, the game adds extra cards to the deck of whatever you need. Like in this hand where I got three sixes on the deal and the game added five more of the missing six to the deck.



They also add wins for a five of a kind and a Baby Royal (suited 9-K). The price is an extra two coins bet per hand.

Please click the link at the top of this post for my new page on the game. A huge thanks to Gary Koehler, who is a member here, for doing the math. I'm running rather busy so it saved me the trouble.

I am not aware of any placements for this game yet but it can be played at VideoPoker.com.

The question for the poll is would you play Stack the Deck, assuming the same return as conventional video poker?

I'll pass. Games like these are designed to trick the DDB type crowd that chase those high paying quads or higher.

P.S. For the record, you have to be a Gold member to play this game on their site for now.

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Strategy
I'm afraid you're on your own with that for now (don't you hate it when I say that?).

Now that you mention it, yeah.


Which brings me to:

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Full house and three of a kind — Five extra of the rank of the three of a kind.

Would the strategy really suggest dumping the pair and busting the full house to go for quads?



If the bottom line House Edge were the same, yeah I’d play. But that’s a big if, and I’ll need that strategy worked out first.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Would the strategy really suggest dumping the pair and busting the full house to go for quads?

After posting, I voted. That’s when I noticed that my concern is one of the poll options.

Glad to see that I’m not the only one with such a concern…

I get that they're trying to always come up with new forms of VP to keep players entertained/etc... but I hate how pretty much every new form involves betting MORE than 5 coins and yet you don't always get the reward for betting those 'extra' coins. Such as in this game. For JoB for example, basically on a DEALT 3oak, FH, quads, and 4 to a royal you get the extra 5 cards. Trusting this site then the probabilities of getting these hands DEALT are as follows:

P(3oak) = (1/47) = .0213
P(FH) = (1/694) = .0014
P(quads) = (1/4165) = .0002
P(4 to royal) = .0012 (.000025*47 --- assuming my idea of taking the P(royal) and multiplying by 47 to get rid of the last *(1/47) of getting it is a correct cheat).

Assuming that royal number is wrong, because I'm doing this quickly, it still will be a very small number so it won't change my point much. My point is that according to the above, the SUM probability that you'll get actual USAGE out of the feature seems to be ~.02414, or about 1 in every 42 hands. I do see on the Wiz's write up that it also randomly (?) changes the pay table and pays more sometimes? How often does it do this? Because basically I think it would SUCK to sit around for ~40 hands paying 7 coins for a 5 coin pay table just to get that 1 hand where you have an 'increased draw.' You bleed so fast in these games when you pay the extra coins and don't get to use the feature... especially when they force you to play 5 hand multi-play. Say you play JoB and get dealt J-J and don't improve... you still lose 10 coins.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Which brings me to:Would the strategy really suggest dumping the pair and busting the full house to go for quads?

Yes, but not for quads but the 5 of a kind. For example, 3 Aces + 2 9s, hold the 3 aces.

I actually don't think it is a bad game, however, I've only played it for a short amount of time when it was a contest on videopoker.com. I'm looking forward to giving it another try once it is available to non-gold members. Does anyone know when that is supposed to happen?

The main thing that stood out to me when playing it was the feature didn't seem to happen often enough. I guess I would be in the class of players looking for a "higher risk - higher reward" game.

Am I understanding this correctly -that betting the extra two coins lowers the overall return?

Take Jacks or Better, for example. The standard Jacks or Better game has a return of roughly 99.5%. But, from the Wizard's WOO page, the Jacks or Better game with the Stack the Deck feature has a return of 98.55%? So the Stack the Deck Wager reduces the return by almost 1%?

Quote: Romes

My point is that according to the above, the SUM probability that you'll get actual USAGE out of the feature seems to be ~.02414, or about 1 in every 42 hands. I do see on the Wiz's write up that it also randomly (?) changes the pay table and pays more sometimes? How often does it do this?

You overlooked that the Stack the Deck Version (with 7 coins wagered) has higher payouts for Trips, Straight, Flush and Full House. For Jacks or Better with 7 coins wagered:

Trips: 20 (normally 15 = 5x3)
Straight: 35 (normally 20 = 5x4)
Flush: 55 (normally 30 = 5x6)
Full House: 60 (normally 45 =5x9)

Quote: gordonm888

The standard Jacks or Better game has a return of roughly 99.5%. But, from the Wizard's WOO page, the Jacks or Better game with the Stack the Deck feature has a return of 98.55%? So the Stack the Deck Wager reduces the return by almost 1%?

I don't see the information available, but presumably the base pay schedule without the bonus bet will be something less than full-pay 9/6, so base EV will be less than 98.55%.

My guess would be 9/5 (98.45%) because many of these new bonus features only boost EV slightly.