Multistrike STP

South Point casino in LV is said to have 9/6 Jacks or Better Multistrike Super Times Pay machines. Does anyone know what the expected return is on this type of machine? Thanks.

Doesn't seem to be anything on wizardofodds.com about this particular game. Would you simply bump up the return on multistrike by the STP multiplier of 1.00278 which takes generic JOB from 99.54 to 99.82?

In other words:

JOB multistrike return 99.79%

x STP multiplier 1.00278

= 100.07%

I have never played this game, so not sure how it works. Anyone with knowledge of the game think this crude calculation is valid?

I appreciate any thoughts...

I don't think this is valid. I bet that the Super Times Pay Multistrike game has lower probabilities of the "Free Ride" feature which permits the player to advance to the next round with or without a winning hand. To verify this, you would need to find a Multistrike game with the same exact paytable.

Minor changes in the Free Ride frequency can be used to tweak the overall pay by decreasing the likelihood that a player advances.

El Cortez also has this game for dimes, 9/6 Jacks.

I don't know the payback percentage. I think it is ripe for a Wizard analysis. I can't imagine what the strategy would be; you would have to take into account both the multistrike and STP multipliers -- devilish.

Quote: wayneg5

South Point casino in LV is said to have 9/6 Jacks or Better Multistrike Super Times Pay machines. Does anyone know what the expected return is on this type of machine? Thanks.

According to IGT (specifically their Android paytables app), MS STP 9/6 JoB returns 99.81% with optimal play. Let me emphasize the WITH OPTIMAL PLAY part - multistrike games have very different strategies than normal video poker, and if you don't know proper strategy and try to fake it, you will lose heavily.

I don't know of any publicly available analysis of strategy for MS STP. It will be very complicated because you'll need 16 different strategies, one for the top line and free rides, and five for each possible multiplier on each of the bottom three lines.

If you want to play multistrike at South Point, I'd recommend their five-play MS 9/6 JoB, which returns almost as much (99.79%) and has published strategies available.

As far as I know, the super times pay multiplier doesn't affect the strategy. Still, you need at least 4 strategies to get Multistrike right.

Crystal, 5-spot is right on this one. You would be right if future multistrike levels were not dependent on you getting a paying hand on the current hand, which is why all MS multiplier=8x and Free Rides use standard strategy. If you think about it, as STP multiplier increases on hands with any given MS multiplier, we use a strategy that is closer to standard strategy since there is relatively more weight on the value of the hand at the current level and correspondingly less weight on value of future hands. Also, as the Multistrike level increases, there is relatively less weight on the value of future hands, which is the relationship that is familiar with regular Multistrike.

Also, some of the 16 combinations of MS level and STP multiplier will have very close strategies with other combinations. E.g., with 9-6 Jacks or Better, MS=1 & STP=3 has the exact same strategy as MS=2 & STP=2 because the per-coin add-ons for these two combinations are so close.

Following are the per coin add-ons to 4 decimal places to each pay line (considering Royal Flush = 800, SF = 50, ..., Jacks or Better = 1) for each level to get the exact strategy:

...............................STP=1 STP=2 STP=3 STP=4 STP=5
Multistrike Level 1 1x 7.1204 3.5602 2.3735 1.7801 1.4241
Multistrike Level 2 2x 4.7449 2.3725 1.5816 1.1862 0.9490
Multistrike Level 3 4x 2.3891 1.1945 0.7964 0.5973 0.4778

When calculating this strategy, I carried more decimal places, so I don't know if this rounding will cause some slight errors, but any errors should be fairly insignificant.

I should also state that I estimated the frequencies of the various STP multipliers from my own play, because I have never seen that exact frequency, but I doubt if that would have much if any appreciable effect since I fixed the average multiplier to be 3. I have never seen the app that 5-spot mentioned, but the EV for this game from my calculations came out to 99.8102%.

The strategy doesn't change too much from level to level. Really, on the bottom level, you just try to get a paying hand to go to the next level. Once you get above that, you get closer and closer to basic strategy, focussing on trying to get to the next level again.

The Wizard has his strategy here: https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/multi-strike/

The biggest mistake you can make on that game is playing basic strategy on all levels.

Got it. I didn't think about how the value of continuing is less when there is a higher multiplier.

Quote: boymimbo

The strategy doesn't change too much from level to level. Really, on the bottom level, you just try to get a paying hand to go to the next level. Once you get above that, you get closer and closer to basic strategy, focussing on trying to get to the next level again.

The Wizard has his strategy here: https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/multi-strike/

The biggest mistake you can make on that game is playing basic strategy on all levels.

The method suggested here by the Wizard is for regular Multistrike, not Multistrike with STP. Certainly you could use the +2/+4/+6 method here and simply ignore the STP multiplier. It would be simpler, but would no longer be "near" optimal as the Wizard suggested there that this method probably would be within about 0.02% of optimal. The reduction in ER is from 99.8102% to 99.6557%; not a bunch, but some might not be satisfied with that large of a reduction.

Certainly what you said about the "biggest mistake" would be true. If you simply decided to use computer-perfect regular 9-6 Jacks or Better strategy regardless of the Multistrike Level OR the STP Multiplier, the ER for the Multistrike STP game would drop all the way to 97.6677%.

BEWARE: I was playing this game at El Cortez, for quarters, without the Super Times Pay bet. So I was only playing it like a regular Multi-strike game (20 credits, $5 a spin). I hit a royal on the second line (2x pay), and it only paid $625.50! There is no bonus for the royal if you do not make the Super Times Pay bet (6 credits per line).

To say I was pissed is an understatement. Borderline dishonest IMO. Every other video poker game pays a bonus for FIVE coin play, not six.

I seem to recall analyzing the STP multipliers on MS STP and concluding that if the 5-coin prizes were the same as the 6-coin prizes, the return would be exactly the same whether betting 5 coins per hand or 6 coins per hand. This is probably why they made the 5-coin prizes equal to 5 times the single-coin prizes, so that those who bet max are given a lower house edge than those who do not.

Nevertheless, I empathize with the feeling that you were short-changed $1,374.50 on your royal.

Quote: JB

I seem to recall analyzing the STP multipliers on MS STP and concluding that if the 5-coin prizes were the same as the 6-coin prizes, the return would be exactly the same whether betting 5 coins per hand or 6 coins per hand. This is probably why they made the 5-coin prizes equal to 5 times the single-coin prizes, so that those who bet max are given a lower house edge than those who do not.

Nevertheless, I empathize with the feeling that you were short-changed $1,374.50 on your royal.

Yeah, to misquote Bart Simpson, I had a cow. It was actually because of your analysis that I was not playing the STP bet. I just wanted to play regular multi-strike (99.79% return), which I thought I was doing pretty well, until I got screwed. Actually, there are two regular MS machines (no STP) a couple rows down, but they are uprights and I wanted to play on a slant-top.

El Cortez is the only place I've seen the MS STP game with anything approaching a decent paytable.

Wow, that's terrible; my condolences. I'm definitely surprised it's this way. The paytable for the free money game at LED gaming isn't even this way. It says it pays 4000 credits for a 5 credit bet. I have never looked at a casino paytable for one of these games though because MS and Ultimate X have some of the worst paytables of all VP variants in the Midwest.