Face Card Frenzy

Face Card Frenzy is a video poker variant that pays big on a three of a kind with three J-A or four of a kind with a J-A kicker. It also bumps up other pays as well. However, you have to bet 10 coins per line, and half of them vanish to pay for the increased wins, which as based on a five-coin bet.

I haven't seen it in a casino yet, but you can play it at VideoPoker.com. I think you have to have a Gold membership.

Just analyzed the four Jacks or Better pay tables and my return agrees with that kindly provided to me by VideoPoker.com. Please check out the returns at my new page on Face Card Frenzy.

The question for the poll is would you play Face Card Frenzy?

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason." -- Jack Handy

I worked all day yesterday adding more pay tables to Face Card Frenzy. I hope somebody will have a look.

A few words as to what degree the Free Card Frenzy option affects volitility would be helpful. Without a good strategy you don’t know whether or not you’re making a good bet, so would serious VP players try this?

Quote: BleedingChipsSlowly

A few words as to what degree the Free Card Frenzy option affects volitility would be helpful. Without a good strategy you don’t know whether or not you’re making a good bet, so would serious VP players try this?

The standard deviation of the highest Double Double Bonus pay table is 9.783853. That is quite high. The strategy is surely complicated.

I've played this on videopoker.com - I didn't really like it, and cannot see myself playing in the casino. Of course, I never won during the time I played.

I think the 1-4, 5, 6, and 10 credit returns for the deuces games were input incorrectly at the very bottom of the page.

Quote: tringlomane

I think the 1-4, 5, 6, and 10 credit returns for the deuces games were input incorrectly at the very bottom of the page.

Thanks, you're right. I already fixed it.

I wonder if the bigger issue here is casinos and game manufacturers trying to make VP closer to slots. I don’t see many taking the time to learn perfect, or even close to, strategy on these games therefore increasing mistakes and return. So the pros will not play these games leaving them to plops if they even get played at all. And with mistakes I wonder if the true return isn’t closer to 90% than the stated theoretical.

I think you are spot on identifying the purpose of the feature, Boz. Face Card Frenzy is a feature the player enables, an option. As a follow on to Boz’s theory, I wonder what it would cost a player in terms of reduced expected return if the base game was played using best strategy, unadjusted, with the feature enabled. Perhaps a forum member with more talent, time and resources than I can take a shot at answering that.

Most, if not all, of the new VP games are more than 5 coins to play, and most of those are 10 coins. The expected return between 5 coin and full coin is relatively close on most of them, often with a slightly higher amount with full coins but still negative.

So if they can get people to play the 5+ coin games they should be increasing revenue.

The problem I have with these games is that the volatility tends to increase dramatically. If you hit something it's great, but since you are paying twice as much to play when you don't hit much your cash vanishes quickly.

Quote: Boz

I wonder if the bigger issue here is casinos and game manufacturers trying to make VP closer to slots. I don’t see many taking the time to learn perfect, or even close to, strategy on these games therefore increasing mistakes and return. So the pros will not play these games leaving them to plops if they even get played at all. And with mistakes I wonder if the true return isn’t closer to 90% than the stated theoretical.

Yeah, IGT is coming out with many more of these games lately where strategy is going to deviate from standard VP strategies quite a bit, and people will likely not adjust enough.

A videopoker.com poster crunched out the strategy for DDB using Video Poker for Winners, the strategy is definitely tough.

http://forum.videopoker.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9439