Video Poker Discrepancy

I was tempted to ask this in the Video Poker section, but it's really more about something I don't understand on the Wizard of Odds site.

Go to Wizard of Odds, run the Video Poker Analyzer program for Deuces Wild. Open up another window, and do the same thing for Loose Deuces so you can compare them side by side. I find this:

Hand	Deuces Wild	Loose Deuces
Natural Royal Flush	36,683,563	37,003,443
Four Deuces	338,371,902	356,121,829
Wild Royal Flush	2,983,079,808	2,839,660,324
Five of a Kind	5,318,192,488	5,290, 894,756
Straight Flush	6,920,804,690	6,442,607,795

I was under the impression that they played exactly the same way, but that the much larger payout for the Four Deuces on the Loose Deuces machine affected the strategy somewhat. Do they somehow deal various hands at different likelihoods? Is there some rule of each game that I just don't get? I thought they were just draw poker, with all deuces wild. Am I missing something?

Quote: eljefe3126

I was tempted to ask this in the Video Poker section, but it's really more about something I don't understand on the Wizard of Odds site.

Go to Wizard of Odds, run the Video Poker Analyzer program for Deuces Wild. Open up another window, and do the same thing for Loose Deuces so you can compare them side by side. I find this:

Hand	Deuces Wild	Loose Deuces
Natural Royal Flush	36,683,563	37,003,443
Four Deuces	338,371,902	356,121,829
Wild Royal Flush	2,983,079,808	2,839,660,324
Five of a Kind	5,318,192,488	5,290, 894,756
Straight Flush	6,920,804,690	6,442,607,795

I was under the impression that they played exactly the same way, but that the much larger payout for the Four Deuces on the Loose Deuces machine affected the strategy somewhat. Do they somehow deal various hands at different likelihoods? Is there some rule of each game that I just don't get? I thought they were just draw poker, with all deuces wild. Am I missing something?

I don't understand what you're really asking, since you seem to have answered your own question? They don't deal hands at different likelihoods. The entire pay table and strategy is different than jacks or better.

Quote: eljefe3126

(snip)
I was under the impression that they played exactly the same way, but that the much larger payout for the Four Deuces on the Loose Deuces machine affected the strategy somewhat. Do they somehow deal various hands at different likelihoods? Is there some rule of each game that I just don't get? I thought they were just draw poker, with all deuces wild. Am I missing something?

Click on the links below and compare the strategies, as there should be some differences in strategy.

LD>>> https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/a-1-b-84-c-1-d-0-d-1-d-2-d-2-d-3-d-4-d-8-d-15-d-25-d-500-d-800/

DW >>> https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/a-1-b-44-c-1-d-0-d-1-d-2-d-2-d-3-d-5-d-9-d-15-d-25-d-200-d-800/

Note: The links above are for "full-pay" versions of those games.

Note 2: If the pay-tables of the games are different to the ones above, you can customize the pay-table using the link below, to work out a correct strategy for each game.

https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/calculator/

Quote: eljefe3126

I was tempted to ask this in the Video Poker section, but it's really more about something I don't understand on the Wizard of Odds site.

Go to Wizard of Odds, run the Video Poker Analyzer program for Deuces Wild. Open up another window, and do the same thing for Loose Deuces so you can compare them side by side. I find this:

Hand	Deuces Wild	Loose Deuces
Natural Royal Flush	36,683,563	37,003,443
Four Deuces	338,371,902	356,121,829
Wild Royal Flush	2,983,079,808	2,839,660,324
Five of a Kind	5,318,192,488	5,290, 894,756
Straight Flush	6,920,804,690	6,442,607,795

I was under the impression that they played exactly the same way, but that the much larger payout for the Four Deuces on the Loose Deuces machine affected the strategy somewhat. Do they somehow deal various hands at different likelihoods? Is there some rule of each game that I just don't get? I thought they were just draw poker, with all deuces wild. Am I missing something?

Are you using the default paytables?

I just used the default paytables on the strategy calculator, and as expected, four deuces are more frequent on the Loose Deuces game.

Natural Royals are slightly more frequent.

Wild Royals are less frequent.

5OaK are close to equal, but slightly more frequent on the default regular deuces paytable.

Straight Flushes are meaningfully more frequent on regular deuces.

Notable strategy changes:

1. With no Wilds, three to a straight flush gets much higher preference on regular deuces, whereas some instances of two to a Natural Royal are preferred in Loose Deuces in certain instances where the three to a SF can even be in the same hand.

**Ex. Suppose you had 6s, 7s, 10s, Jd, Qd...On the default regular deuces, you hold 3SF, on Loose Deuces, JQ.********

*******Sorry, this was a bad example!!! It’s the last exception to this basic strategy listed, almost exactly as I put it!

2. With one Wild, a notable change (there may be more) is that you hold some configurations of 3SF on the Regular Deuces; on the Loose Deuces, you never do this. Absent a higher priority hold, you would just hold the deuce. Ex: W67

3. With two wilds, a big change is you would NEVER hold a straight flush draw of any kind on Loose Deuces (Wild Royal draws you would hold), but you hold some configurations of 4SF on regular Deuces. Ex: WW67

4. With three Wilds, you would keep a Wild Royal Flush on regular deuces, but on Loose Deuces, you would just keep the three Deuces.

NOTE: This uses the default paytables for these games on WoO, though I don’t know what you used. Also, I did not list any exceptions, though there are many. I only listed differences in basic strategy.

Well, at least I now know what I don't know, which I suppose is progress. (It's no longer an "unknown unknown", and is now a "known unknown".)

How does altering the pay table alter the number of combinations for each hand? I would expect that those would be fixed for a certain type of game, and that altering the pay table would alter the EV for the player and the house edge for the casino, but not the likelihood of a particular hand being dealt.

I just altered the payout for one hand in the pay table for one particular game in the analyzer, and confirmed that the number of combinations changed for that particular hand. How exactly does that work? Is there some kind of formula for the number of combinations for each hand that depends on the amounts in the pay table?

If 4 of a kind paid a million dollars and every other hand paid 1 cent, what would you hold if dealt KhQhJhThTd?

If straights paid a million dollars and every other hand paid 1 cent, what would you hold if dealt 44445?

Do you think overall you'd end up with more 4 of a kinds on paytable 1?
Do you think overall you'd end up with more straights on paytable 2?

Ah, now I get it. Player choices matter, and the pay table affects those choices.