Big City 4s

Big City 4s is a new video poker variant to VideoPoker.com. A Gold level membership is required for this game.

It's based on multi-play poker. If the player bets six coins per play, he invoked the bonus feature. The bonus is played when the player gets a four of a kind on the draw. Rather than explain the rules twice, please read them at WoO.

As you can see, after reading the rules, the player vests into the bonus round. At some point, the jackpots must get big enough to be a positive game.

For 9-5 Jacks, assuming an adjusted strategy for the bonus, I get an RTP of 98.989%. However, my connection at VideoPoker.com gets 98.662%. I'll provide some analysis soon.

For now, the question for the poll is would you play Big City 4's?

Played this a bit on VP.com - the additions to the jackpots when you get three of a kind or full house are fairly constant and really slow the game down. Hard to build up a rhythm. Therefore I would not play it unless I thought it was very positive.

Complicated structure for bonuses, and complicated to analyze.

The frequency of the bonus points being various values when getting a 3oak or Boat must surely be one of the reasons that your analysis of House Edge gets a different answer than the game owner value. Your assumptions on frequency of bonus points awarded are probably wrong.

Is there any display that indicates the status/magnitude of the bonus that would inform players that wish to vulture the machine?

Quote: gordonm888

Is there any display that indicates the status/magnitude of the bonus that would inform players that wish to vulture the machine?
link to original post

Good question. No, there is not, at least not at VideoPoker.com. There, you have to play long enough to get a three of a kind, full house, or four of a kind, so see the meters.

I trained myself on Duces wild.

Playing this on duces wild 10 play is impossible. I played till the first ad break and had about 1100 in the top bonus meter. Being stopped almost every hand to be told (and you can't skip) that the bonus you are not hitting is going up is infuriating, which def drew play mistakes as I am trying to skip the pop up by button mashing. They will have to have the progressives/banked additions be separate from the base game or Duces is not an option (min paying hand is 3oak and it adds even when a duce is involved).

I found an error in my original work and I now agree with VideoPoker.com on the 9-5 Jacks return. With that, I analyzed all their non-wild-card games and updated my page.

Please have a fresh look at my page on Big City 4s. As always, I welcome all comments.

From your WOO page explanation of your analysis "The way I analyzed Big City 4's is to assume the player plays an infinite period of time. Thus, any credits won towards the jackpots are just as valuable as if they were awarded immediately."

Hmmmm.

Let's take a simplified case in regards to this on-line casino game: a player who plays this game for four hours each Sunday. On the first Sunday he gets some 3oaks and a boat and earns some bonuses. What happens the next Sunday when he logs onto the game? Are the bonuses still there, specific to his player account?

Or, does the game reset the bonuses after the player has logged out and been absent a week? Does the player have to start over on the ladder of bonuses?

Or, are the bonuses handled like a multi-player progressive? On the second Sunday, and each subsequent Sunday, can our hero log on and have the opportunity to earn the elevated bonuses that are the results of other players that have played the game?

I'm not just making mischief here; IMO these are important questions. At a minimum, this should be addressed by your WOO article. Because they player is persistently and immediately paying the "1 unit credit" fee there are legitimate issues about the amount of playtime required to achieve the average equilibrium values of bonus payouts that your article cites.

Quote: gordonm888

From your WOO page explanation of your analysis "The way I analyzed Big City 4's is to assume the player plays an infinite period of time. Thus, any credits won towards the jackpots are just as valuable as if they were awarded immediately."

Hmmmm.

Let's take a simplified case in regards to this on-line casino game: a player who plays this game for four hours each Sunday. On the first Sunday he gets some 3oaks and a boat and earns some bonuses. What happens the next Sunday when he logs onto the game? Are the bonuses still there, specific to his player account?

Or, does the game reset the bonuses after the player has logged out and been absent a week? Does the player have to start over on the ladder of bonuses?

Or, are the bonuses handled like a multi-player progressive? On the second Sunday, and each subsequent Sunday, can our hero log on and have the opportunity to earn the elevated bonuses that are the results of other players that have played the game?

I'm not just making mischief here; IMO these are important questions. At a minimum, this should be addressed by your WOO article. Because they player is persistently and immediately paying the "1 unit credit" fee there are legitimate issues about the amount of playtime required to achieve the average equilibrium values of bonus payouts that your article cites.
link to original post

First, I don't think you'll see this game at an Internet casino for real money.

Second, if you did, Internet casino progressives usually work the same way as land casinos. You get the game in the state the last player left it.

Here are where the sum of the level 3 and 4 jackpots for the game to be breakeven.

Game	Pay Table	RTP	Combined Jackpots
Jacks or Better	9-5	98.66%	1569
Bonus Poker	8-5	99.41%	1417
Bonus Poker Deluxe	8-5	98.56%	1590
Double Bonus	9-6	96.99%	1902
Double Double Bonus	9-6	99.18%	1464
Super Double Double	8-5	99.85%	1329
Super Double Bonus	8-5	98.99%	1496
Triple Double Bonus	9-6	98.38%	1632
Triple Triple Bonus	9-5	98.86%	1534

In general, to find the breakeven point, use the formula 21300 - 20000r, where r = average return to player.

Every additional 100 credits above the breakeven point is worth about 0.5% in RTP.

Quote: Wizard

Quote: gordonm888

From your WOO page explanation of your analysis "The way I analyzed Big City 4's is to assume the player plays an infinite period of time. Thus, any credits won towards the jackpots are just as valuable as if they were awarded immediately."

Hmmmm.

Let's take a simplified case in regards to this on-line casino game: a player who plays this game for four hours each Sunday. On the first Sunday he gets some 3oaks and a boat and earns some bonuses. What happens the next Sunday when he logs onto the game? Are the bonuses still there, specific to his player account?

Or, does the game reset the bonuses after the player has logged out and been absent a week? Does the player have to start over on the ladder of bonuses?

Or, are the bonuses handled like a multi-player progressive? On the second Sunday, and each subsequent Sunday, can our hero log on and have the opportunity to earn the elevated bonuses that are the results of other players that have played the game?

I'm not just making mischief here; IMO these are important questions. At a minimum, this should be addressed by your WOO article. Because they player is persistently and immediately paying the "1 unit credit" fee there are legitimate issues about the amount of playtime required to achieve the average equilibrium values of bonus payouts that your article cites.
link to original post

First, I don't think you'll see this game at an Internet casino for real money.

Second, if you did, Internet casino progressives usually work the same way as land casinos. You get the game in the state the last player left it.
link to original post

I agree with Wizard's position on, 'Usually,' and would only add that the opposite is more likely to be the case in state-regulated online casinos, though still seems to vary on a casino-by-casino (as opposed to game by game) basis, in my experience.

I was playing this today and hit a situation where I wasn't sure what to do. Triple Double Bonus with three 2s dealt + kicker 4. Normally for TDB, you hold the kicker, but given the progressives do you just hold the three deuces here? What if they were Aces?

My hunch is that you always keep the kicker with the Aces, but may give up the kicker with 2s, 3s, or 4s... or it may depend on the progressive.

Anyone looked at the math?