Optimum Strategy for 1 coin JB

Is there an optimum strategy for 1 coin JB (where the Royal = 250 instead of 800)? Or, does the same strategy for 5 coin JB apply to 1 coin as well? I've been told, for example, to always discard the 10 on a two-to-a-royal when playing only 1 coin. If there does exist an optimum 1 coin strategy, what is the EV/Variance?

I know, I know, I should always play 5 coins but there are circumstances where only one coin is the best alternative from a bankroll/bet standpoint.

Thanks in advance.

My suggestion is to drop limits instead of playing one coin at the current limit. Your paytable will likely be worse at the lower limit, but if it doesn't drop too far, you'll probably be better off.

Here's the comparison of returns for different paytables:

Type	5-coin return (4000 coin royal)	1-coin return (250 coin royal)
9/6	99.5439%	98.3735%
9/5	98.4498%	97.2156%
8/5	97.2984%	96.0635%
7/5	96.1472%	94.9117%
6/5	94.9961%	93.7600%
6/4	93.9316%	92.6470%

So if, for instance, you're looking at playing one coin on a 25¢ 7/5 machine (common at Harrah's properties), see if you can find a 5¢ 6/5 machine instead and play five coins (if it has a 5-coin jackpot; some require more coins). Your bet is still 25¢, but your return is slightly better, and if you do hit a royal, you're getting 4000 nickles ($200) instead of 250 quarters ($62.50).

If you're having trouble finding smaller limit machines and it's not busy, look at the multi-hand machines. They usually have smaller limits with 5-coin jackpots, and you can tweak it into playing one hand at a time. Just make sure you look at the paytable in the help screen first.

I guess I should have been more specific: A 1 coin vs. 5 coin strategy on a 9/6 JB machine.

The issue is that in high end strip properties (MGM/Harrah's) you can't find a good machine except in the high limit room. If your bankroll will only support a $1 machine ($5 total bet), then the best deal available is 1 coin 9/6 JB on a high limit machine.

So, the question remains: If you play 1 coin on a 9/6 JB machine, how does the strategy differ from the 5 coin strategy?

It's kind of frustrating because I can't seem to get a straight answer to this question (I've tried many different sources). The response is always the same: Don't play a 1 coin machine. I already know that, but in this case a 1 coin play is the best bet.

As for being better off with a slightly lower 5 coin payout schedule, I would argue that the lower variance (4.5 vs. 19) on the 1 coin play makes the 1 coin play far more attractive.

The basic strategy for 1-2-3-4-6-9-25-50-250 Jacks or Better is:

Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, or Full House
4 to a Royal Flush
Flush or Straight
Three of a Kind
Two Pair
4 to a Straight Flush
One Pair (JJ thru AA)
4 to a Flush
3 to a Royal Flush
4 to a Straight (TJQK)
One Pair (22 thru TT)
4 to a Straight (2345 thru 9TJQ)
3 to a Straight Flush (345 thru 9TJ, 8xJ, 8JQ, 9xQ, 9JK, or 9QK)
4 to a Straight (JQKA)
2 to a Royal Flush (JQ, JK, QK)^A
3 to a Flush with 2 high cards
2 to a Royal Flush (JA, QA, KA)
4 to a Straight (9JQK or TxxA)^B
3 to a Straight Flush (Axx, 234, 2x5 thru 7xT, 7xJ, 89Q, 8TQ, or 9TK)
3 to a Straight (JQK)
2 to a Straight (JQ, JK, or QK)
2 to a Straight (JA, QA, or KA)
Jack, Queen, King, or Ace^C
3 to a Straight Flush (2x6 thru 6xT)
Discard everything

The total error is 0.0013%, which can be eliminated by learning the exceptions:

^A 3 to a Flush with 2 high cards beats Suited JK or QK if the cards include a Jack, Queen, and King
^B Suited 79J beats unsuited 9JQK
^B Suited 7TJ beats unsuited TJQA and TJKA
^B Suited 8TQ beats unsuited TQKA
^C Suited TJ beats Jack if there is no 9 penalty

Thank You!

What is the EV/Variance for this strategy?

If you ignore the exceptions, the EV is 98.3722% as opposed to the perfect strategy EV of 98.3735% as shown in an earlier post. The variance for the basic strategy (ignoring the exceptions) is 4.920608, and for the perfect strategy is 4.926806.

Thank you again! I appreciate the response.

One last question: According to the strategy, if I have xxJQA, xxJKA, xxQKA, etc., I would throw away xxA and keep the two high cards. Is this correct? It seems very counter-intuitive.

Quote: scotty81

Thank you again! I appreciate the response.

One last question: According to the strategy, if I have xxJQA, xxJKA, xxQKA, etc., I would throw away xxA and keep the two high cards. Is this correct? It seems very counter-intuitive.

Hands with 3 high cards are handled the same as they are in 5-coin Jacks or Better, and the majority of its variants. For example, with xxJQA:

If the J,Q,A are in 3 different suits, keep the lowest 2 high cards.
If the J,Q,A are in 2 different suits, keep the two suited cards.
If the J,Q,A are all in the same suit, keep the 3 to the royal.

I supplement my income by playing Texas Hold'em. My local casino offers a players card that gives free food and free bus fare, if one earns 2500 player points over a 6-month period (June to Dec; Dec to June). I play poker so often that it is profitable for me to play enough video poker to accumulate the required points. I can earn about 500 through my play in the poker room, leaving 2000 to be earned through video play.

The only machine at the casino that has a 9/6 pay table is a 3-play, 5-play, 10-play machine. I can only play 5 credits/hand if I play at least 3 hands at once.

During the past 6 months, I earned 700 points (2800 hands X 3 required) using the strategy for 5-coins. My return was an abysmal 93%, which was going to make my "purchase" of the players card unprofitable. I realized then that for a casino, the hand distribution for video poker is probably going to be very close to the distribution generated by your pay table analyzer. But the individual player, is not likely to play nearly enough hands to get that distribution. Particularly for a player such as myself, who is only going to play about 8,000 hands over 6 months, the distribution of hands I get is extremely unlikely to bear any resemblance to the probability table and if I play in reliance on that table, my variance will be very high.

It occurred to me, that for a player such as myself, who is going to play a very limited number of hands, it makes the most sense to ignore any Royal Flush bonus and play as though a Royal Flush paid the same as any other straight flush. According to your analyzer, this results in a payout of 98%, which is acceptable to me and the variance is only 4.9%, as opposed to 19.5%. For the next 650 points (2600 hands X 3 required), I used this strategy, and my return was 99.9%. Obviously, that won't keep up, but it seems to me that over 8,000 hands I am likely to achieve close to a 98% return.

There are some hands that I am not sure how to fit into my strategy. I'll present my strategy & then tell you what the problem hands are

Royal flush
straight flush
4 of a kind
full house
flush
3 of a kind
straight
4 card straight flush
2 pair
high pair
4 card flush
KQJT
low pair
open-ended straight
3 card straight flush:
(a) 2 gaps & 2 high cards
(b) 1 gap & 1 high card
(c) open-ended with no high cards
AKQJ
3 card flush with 2 high cards
AQJT (ex JT7s), AKJT (ex JT7s), AKQT (ex QT8s), KQJ9 (ex J97s)
3 card straight flush:
(a) A + 2 low cards
(b) 7 through K with 2 gaps & 1 high card
(c) 234
(d) 2 through T with one gap
KQJ
AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, QJ (with 3 high cards, other than KQJ, I keep the 2 lower ones, unless 2 are suited, in which
case I keep the 2 suited ones)
JTs with no nine
one high card
3 card straight flush , 2 gaps, no high cards
discard everything

Problem Hands

Kh(earts), Qh, Js(pades), 2h, 3c(lubs)
keep KQJ, KQ or KQ2? With no J and some other off-suit card (7c, eg), do I keep KQ or KQ2?
Suited AK with an off-suit Q or J and a small card of the same suit as the AK. Keep the 2 high cards only or the 3
to a flush?
Suited AQ with an off-suit K or J and a small card of the same suit as the AQ. Keep the 2 high cards only or the 3
to a flush?
Suited AJ with an off-suit Q or K and a small card of the same suit as the AJ. Same question
Same problem and question for KQ suited and QJ suited.

My inclination is to keep KQJ in the first situation and 3 to the flush in the others, except for KQ and QJ, where I would keep the KQ and the QJ.

I would appreciate your advice.

Thank-you.

Quote: HoldemJunkie52

Problem Hands

Kh(earts), Qh, Js(pades), 2h, 3c(lubs)
keep KQJ, KQ or KQ2? With no J and some other off-suit card (7c, eg), do I keep KQ or KQ2?

Keep the KQ suited, but that's a hair-splitting play. Probably the one with the least variance, though.

Quote:

Suited AK with an off-suit Q or J and a small card of the same suit as the AK. Keep the 2 high cards only or the 3
to a flush?

Keep the three to a flush. Another hair-splitter.

Quote:

Suited AQ with an off-suit K or J and a small card of the same suit as the AQ. Keep the 2 high cards only or the 3
to a flush?

Same as above; three to a flush.

Quote:

Suited AJ with an off-suit Q or K and a small card of the same suit as the AJ. Same question
Same problem and question for KQ suited and QJ suited.

Three to a flush. KQs. QJs. A good rule of thumb is to keep two high suited connectors unless it's an ace-high, otherwise keep the three to a flush. I used to play this strategy for freeplay at my local casino so I'm slightly familiar with it.
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What bet level are you playing at now? I hope not the five credits on three hands. There is no reason to play five credits if you are playing a non-royal strategy. Actually, your best play to limit variance would be to play the 10-play with one credit on each hand. This is a $2.50 a spin play. You could bump that up to two credits a hand for $5.00 a spin, or three, etc., depending on how much money you are trying to put through an hour.

Thank-you for the reply. I try to play about $3/hand, to strike a balance between risk & the amount of time I have to spend playing. My understanding from other posts is that variance increases with the number of hands played. So I'm playing 3 hands. I play for 25 cents/hand, 5 credits per hand. I figure that my odds don't get worse by playing 5 credits and it still gives me a shot at the monster Royal bonus (my odds of hitting it are about 1/60,000 as opposed to 1/40,000 playing optimal strategy.

Quote: HoldemJunkie52

Thank-you for the reply. I try to play about $3/hand, to strike a balance between risk & the amount of time I have to spend playing. My understanding from other posts is that variance increases with the number of hands played. So I'm playing 3 hands. I play for 25 cents/hand, 5 credits per hand. I figure that my odds don't get worse by playing 5 credits and it still gives me a shot at the monster Royal bonus (my odds of hitting it are about 1/60,000 as opposed to 1/40,000 playing optimal strategy.

Not true. Variance increases with the amount of money you spend. If you risk the same amount of money per spin, spreading your action across more hands will actually reduce your variance. If you are really looking to limit variance, you should play the 10 play at 1 credit per hand. Even the five play at 3 per hand would be less risky. Your expected loss will be the same regardless. I just find it bizarre to play a short-credit strategy on a five-credit hand, but if that's what floats your boat, go for it.

Incidentally, your return of 93% versus 98% has nothing to do with any strategy changes. That is just the luck of the draw. You will see a range of returns anywhere from 75% to 125% over any given short-term session.