Page 6 - July 2003 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
An Easy Test For You by Bob Dancer
You are playing some sort of video poker game that doesn’t use a deuce as a wild card. It could be Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus, Triple Bonus Plus, Joker Wild or whatever. But it is not Deuces Wild, Deuces Bonus or one of their variants. In any of these games, I want you to evaluate three different straight ush draws, namely
2-3-4 2-3-5
To score perfectly on this test, all you have to do is to rank them from high to low. We haven’t specified how much two pair, straights, flushes or straight flushes receive in this game, so you only need to determine
“relative value” rather than “absolute value.” You need to determine which is highest in value, which is second highest and which is third highest — or perhaps there could be a tie.
Work out your answer before you read on. I’ll wait.
You should have known right away that 3-4-5 is in the highest position — or perhaps tied for the highest. There are no gaps. And it is far away enough from the top and bottom of the deck so that you can fit cards above it or below it. How many do you have to fit? Since there are five cards in a video poker hand and three cards in these combinations, you need to fit at least two cards above and below. There are actually three straight flushes you can get from this starting point: 7-6-5-4-3, 6-5-4-3-2, and 5-4-3-2-A.
Also knowable right away is that 2-3-5 is in the lowest position—or perhaps tied for the lowest. There is a gap, and every gap reduces the number of possible straight ushes. If you count them, you’ll see that there are two straight ushes you can get from this starting point: 6-5-4-3-2 and
5-4-3-2-A.
That leaves us with 2-3-4. If I tell you that 3-4-5 is worth $3.00 in
some game, and that 2-3-5 is worth $2.50, you should be able to tell me whether 2-3-4 is worth exactly $3.00, exactly $2.50, or somewhere in between. There are no gaps, but its proximity to the ace creates an
“inside” which has exactly the same value as a gap. Counting straight flushes leaves you with the same two we had with 2-3-5, namely 6-5-4-3-2 and 5-4-3-2-A, so the value of 2-3-4 is also $2.50.
So the answer to the test is that 3-4-5 is the most valuable, followed by 2-3-4 and 2-3-5 which have equal value to each other. And this is true in every game that doesn’t use the deuce as a wild card.
Is this just “ho hum” information, or is it important? I think it is critically important if you want to play hands correctly. In 9/6 Jacks or Better or 9/7 Double Bonus, for instance, on a hand such as 3♥ 4♥ 5♥ Q♠ J♠, you should hold 3-4-5 but on a hand such as
2♥ 3♥ 4♥ Q♠ J♠ or 2♥ 3♥ 5♥ Q♠ J♠, you should hold Q-J. If you thought that all three combinations had the same value, or perhaps that
3-4-5
2-3-4 had equal value to 3-4-5, then you would have gotten at least one of these plays wrong.
Memorizing the play of these hands and applying that knowledge to all games is an equally bad procedure. In 8/5 Bonus Poker, a game related to Jacks or Better and a game in which the correct play to most hands is identical to the correct play of the same hand in 9/6 Jacks, you hold the Q-J in all three of the hands listed above. Conversely, in all forms of Joker Wild, any of the straight flush hands would be preferable to Q-J.
So the correct way to play each hand is a lesson for another day, but the fact that 2-3-4 is equal in value to 2-3-5, and that they each are less in value than
3-4-5 is a lesson you should commit to memory.
For those of you who play mostly Deuces Wild, the exact same lesson can
be expressed in that game by looking at 4-5-6, 4-5-7, and 5-6-7. The first two combinations have the same value, which is less than the value of the third combination.
Bob Dancer is America’s best-known video poker writer and teacher. He has a variety of “how to play better video poker” products, including Winner’s Guides, strategy cards, videos, and the award-winning computer software, Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker, and a brand-new book Million Dollar Video Poker. Dancer’s products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com
Page 6 July 2003
Column: Video Poker with Bob Dancer