Page 12 - March 2006 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
An Unusual Way of Thinking About a Deuces Wild Hand by Bob Dancer
There are many versions of Deuces Wild—some of them good, some of them not. Consider the following two hands, taken from a particular Deuces Wild game. I don’t want to get into a pay schedule discussion because that’s not the point of this column.
Q♥ J♥ T♥ 8♥ 5♣: hold Q-J-T
K♦ Q♦ J♦ 9♦ 5♠: hold K-Q-J-9
In both hands the choice is between a 3-card royal ush and a 4-card straight ush—and notice that in the rst hand it is correct to go for the royal and in the second it is correct to go for the straight ush. (Even though you don’t know which speci c game I’m talking about, just take the information presented so far as gospel truth and go on reading the column. ere is a useful lesson to consider even if this is not your main game.)
Let’s assume I tell you the max-coin value of the Q-J-T-8 is 6.9 coins—which it is, with rounding. Here’s my question. Is the value of K-Q-J-9 higher than 6.9 coins, lower than 6.9, coins or equal to 6.9 coins? Keep in mind that
amount (which they are), then how come we hold one of them and do not hold the other? A combination worth 6.9 coins should either be worth holding, or not worth holding. How can the answer sometimes
combination is worth more than K-Q-J. After all, in both cases you need to draw two perfect cards to connect on the royal. e answer to this deals with the number of straight ushes and straights. K-Q-J can be part of a royal and an A-high straight (as can Q-J- T), and also a K-high straight or straight ush (as can Q-J-T). But Q-J-T can be part of a Q-high straight or straight ush and K-Q-J cannot. at is why Q-J-T is worth more than K-Q-J.
In games which give you your money back for “jacks or better”, sometimes K-Q-J is worth more than Q- J-T and sometimes not. After all, K-Q-J has three high cards but only one straight ush possibility and Q-J-T has only two high cards, but two straight ush possibilities. So depending on how much straight ushes are worth, either one could be worth more than the other. But in Deuces Wild, where high cards are meaningless because you need 3-of-a-kind to get your money back, the extra straight and straight ush possibilities with Q-J-T make it a clear choice.
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, his autobiography Million
we hold K-Q-J-9, but we do not hold Q-J-T-8.
e correct answer is that K-Q-J-9 is also worth 6.9 coins. In both hands, there are
47 di erent cards we could draw. Five of those cards give us a straight ush (including the four deuces), 7 cards give us a regular ush, 3 cards give us a regular straight and the other 32 cards give us nothing at all. Count them up on your ngers and you’ll see that I am correct. So if the Q-J-T-8 is worth 6.9 coins, so must be K-Q-J-9.
“So now the question becomes: If the two combinations are both worth exactly the same amount (which they are), then how come we hold one of them and do not hold the other? A combination worth 6.9 coins should either be worth holding, or not worth holding. How can the answer sometimes be ‘hold’ and
sometimes be ‘don’t hold’?”
players, it is not at all
be “hold” and sometimes be “don’t hold”?
e answer is that there are more cards in the hand. In the rst hand, the value of Q-J-T is 7.0 coins. And since 7.0 is greater than 6.9, we go for the royal. In the second hand, K-Q-J is worth 6.6 coins, which is less than 6.9, so now we go for the straight ush. In both cases, we hold the highest combination. And in both hands, keeping either the 3-card royal or the 4-card straight ush is much better than drawing ve new cards (which is worth about 1.6 coins in this game).
To some beginning obvious why the Q-J-T
So now the question
becomes: If the two
combinations are both worth exactly the same
Page 12 March 2006
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