Sometimes you make decisions that you'll regret. Yesterday's
decision was not good. Once in a while, I enjoy playing Triple
Double at Fiesta because they have a good paytable. I have studied
this game and play it pretty well. With my first twenty in yesterday
I was dealt 6A2AA. I KNOW that I am supposed to hold the kicker with
the three aces. Wanting to increase my chances on getting the quad
aces I tossed the 2 and of course the cards that came up were A7. I
just gave up $800 for not playing right. This will not happen again.
Too bad that it was an $800 lesson though. It doesn't feel nearly as
bad to play right and lose as it does to play wrong and lose. I feel
stupid! Hopefully, some of you that don't play right will take
something from this example.
An Expensive Lesson
Like you, I enjoy this game; I used to play it at the Palms when they
had the sequential royal bonus 9/7 (fullpay) slant-tops. I also play
it in multi-liners at a few places in town now and again.
The rule of holding the kicker when dealt AAA2x is probably the single
most counterintuitive play in all of video poker. I follow it, and
always have, but if I hadn't drawn an A fairly early in my TDB-playing
career, I might not now.
I console myself with the following simplified view: by holding the
kicker, I reduce the overall number of 4 Aces resulting hands by half.
However, I ensure that when I DO make 4 Aces, it's the 4000-coin
version rather than the 800-coin one. What I have to ask myself is,
how often would I normally hit the kicker---and that's easy: out of 48
possible kickers, 12 (1/4) are 2,3,4's. So the average value of 4
Aces in this game is (800+800+800+4000)/4 or 1600 coins. So, would I
rather have four occurences of quad A's at 1600 a pop, or two at 4000
each? The answer is obvious. Doesn't make it any easier on a "gut"
level though, especially when you catch a 9 or something and would
like to back up and draw a second card so you could at least try for
the $200.
You tend to remember these ghastly consequences of "violating the
rules" for a long time. As a further consolation, the 4000-coin
jackpot you lost was only an EXPRESSION of the lost EV; ideally, we'd
rather see the machine deduct 19 credits (or whatever) any time we
make a similar error, and not play the hand out. You were somewhat
unlucky in that your refusal to follow the rule resulted in such a
huge loss. It was actually much more likely to result in a short-term
gain (making quad A'a with the second card drawn, which you otherwise
would not have done).
I was playing $1 FPDW a couple of years ago when I was dealt K-10 of
clubs, 8,4,3. Misreading the 8 as a penalty card for the K-10
combination (it would have had to be a 9 or higher), I drew all five
cards. The first three cards out were the 10-Q-A of clubs. Oh, happy
day. The mathematical cost of my error was about 1.5 cents; the ACTUAL
cost.......
ยทยทยท
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "staninnv" <arnot@c...> wrote:
Sometimes you make decisions that you'll regret. Yesterday's
decision was not good. Once in a while, I enjoy playing Triple
Double at Fiesta because they have a good paytable. I have studied
this game and play it pretty well. With my first twenty in yesterday
I was dealt 6A2AA. I KNOW that I am supposed to hold the kicker with
the three aces. Wanting to increase my chances on getting the quad
aces I tossed the 2 and of course the cards that came up were A7. I
just gave up $800 for not playing right. This will not happen again.
Too bad that it was an $800 lesson though. It doesn't feel nearly as
bad to play right and lose as it does to play wrong and lose. I feel
stupid! Hopefully, some of you that don't play right will take
something from this example.
The rule of holding the kicker when dealt AAA2x is probably the single
most counterintuitive play in all of video poker. I follow it, and
always have, but if I hadn't drawn an A fairly early in my TDB-playing
career, I might not now.
.
I'm a newbie to Video Poker ..... recently purchased the "WinPoker" software
by
Bob Dancer as well as a video tape and two books.
In the meantime however, I can't understand why to keep the 2 'kicker' with
three 'aces'. Is it because paring the 2 or the 'x' card for a full
house is more
likely than hitting the one remaining 'ace' ... ? But then, why the 2 and
not the 'x' card (which was a 6).
Thanks for any help,
Russell