| Video Poker for the Blackjack Player | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DP on VP by Dan Paymar |
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Why would a winning blackjack player want to bother with video poker? How about as a form of camouflage that has a positive expectancy instead of zero or negative expectancy? Some players will leave the table and return with a keno ticket (probably someone else’s discarded loser) or with a non-alcoholic drink that looks like booze. Others might go to the crap table (within sight of the 21 pit boss) and make a few $1 bets in spite of the 1.4% house edge. The object, of course, is to appear to be just another tourist. Instead, when you need a break from the table, why not play some video poker within view of the pit boss? He or she isn’t likely to know that the slot machine is offering at least 99.5% and perhaps over 100% payback. You get to relax while waiting out a negative shoe or just to take a break, and you convince the pit boss you’re just a gambler, all while continuing to enjoy a positive expectation. Video poker and blackjack are entirely different games, yet there are some similarities, which will be examined in this column. For our purposes, “J-or-B” will refer to the classic “Jacks-or-Better” draw poker game with this payoff schedule:
This is the “full pay” version, also called a “6/9” machine for the payoffs of 6-for-1 for a flush and 9-for-1 for a full house. As a BJF reader, you are obviously familiar with blackjack, so we now have a basis for comparison. Let’s see how the various characteristics of the games match up. Basic strategy: Just as any professional blackjack player starts out by learning basic strategy, the easiest way to become a winner at video poker is to learn optimum play. Payback: According to the experts, using accurate basic strategy in a blackjack game with typical Las Vegas rules yields a player a (dis)advantage of about –0.5%. I would express this as 99.5% payback, which is about the same as for full pay J-or-B. Affect of rule changes: Blackjack rule variations may raise the expected payback. More frequently, however, they will lower the payback, and the cuts are generally more drastic than the increases. The same is true of changes in the J-orB payoff schedule. The most common change is to reduce the 6/9 payoffs to 5/8 (i.e., 5-for-1 for a flush and 8-for-1 for a full house) thus cutting the payback by 2.23%. Another variation, paying only 20-for-1 for four-of-a-kind, costs 1.18%. However, there are sometimes enhancements such as paying double on four sevens (+0.43), 10-for-1 on a full house (+1.15%), 7-for-1 on a flush (+1.08%), or 4700-for-5 for a royal flush (+0.35%). As you can see, the payoff schedule in video poker is even more important than the rules, penetration, etc. in blackjack, but it has the advantage of being visible at a glance. Generic strategy: To make it as easy as possible when just starting to learn winning strategies, many players use the same “generic” basic strategy for all blackjack games. Similarly, you can use the same strategy for all variations on J-or-B. Moving to a different kind of game, however, such as Deuces Wild or Joker Wild, requires an entirely new strategy, analogous to moving to double exposure blackjack or California 22. Loss when using a generic strategy: For any particular game there is only one completely accurate strategy, and failing to adjust for rules or payoff variations will result in a loss of potential payback. The best strategy for J-or-B is unchanged for some variations, but a bit more can be gained by adjustments for certain enhancements. Progressive jackpots and major variations such as Double Bonus Poker often cause even bigger changes in the strategy. Counting cards: Counting cards would be of no value if every casino dealt blackjack face-down, the dealer shuffled after every hand, and you always had to sit at first base. You might make slight strategy adjustments according to the cards you already hold, but that is not the same as counting cards. If this sounds like a blackjack slot machine, you’re right. The situation in video poker is identical since the simulated deck is shuffled after every hand, and you see only five cards before having to make your decision. Your only real option in either case is to look for better rules. In the case of video poker, that means a more attractive payoff schedule and/or a better slot club. Maximum payback: It’s rare to find a blackjack game that has favorable enough rules to offer a positive expectancy under the conditions described above. It has happened, and it probably will again, but such opportunities are generally very short-lived. Hence a blackjack player can’t make a long-term profit with basic strategy alone, and here is where video poker shines. Although the vast majority of machines are short pay, there are many that are very attractive. For example, there are hundreds of full pay Deuces Wild machines in Las Vegas offering over 100.7% payback (with optimum play). If you want to make the extra effort to learn a complete hand rank table, these same machines will yield 100.75%, and there are some offering bonuses that push this to 101.2% or even higher. A few issues back, The Video Poker Times identified some flat-top (non-progressive) 25 cent Joker Wilds offering 101.65% payback. At a typical 600 hands per hour, that translates to an expected win rate of $15 per hour, but these machines have been modified to end the opportunity. For $1 players, the January VPT identifies a game worth about $25 per hour plus an additional $20 per hour in comps, and this is still available. Camouflage: Here is the big difference. Even though many players openly use cue cards, I have yet to hear of anyone being 86’d because they were too good at video poker. So next time you want a break from the tough grind of playing winning blackjack, why not try video poker? |
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| DP on VP by Dan Paymar Blackjack Forum Vol. XV, #2, June 1995 |
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| In the last issue I compared blackjack to video poker and suggested a few reasons why a blackjack player might want to consider video poker as a second game. Some readers may have thought: “That’s probably a good idea. Playing a slot machine within view of the pit might help convince them that I’m just a tourist. However, it would take too much effort to memorize those video poker strategy tables with the cryptic abbreviations that I’ve seen. When I’m away from the tables I’d rather relax by doing something that requires little or no effort. I can play $2 craps at an expected cost of less than 3 cents per roll with no need to think at all, so why bother with video poker?” As a wannabe professional blackjack player I can relate to that viewpoint. After working at it for over a year, I decided it was too much work to be a long-term winner, and subsequently gave up the game except for recreational and comp purposes. So, for those of you who are putting in the effort to win at blackjack and want an easy-to-use diversion to convince the pit boss you are just another gambler, I herewith present the “Basic Strategy” for the most widely available game of video poker. Of course, that’s the plain, old, vanilla Jacks-or-Better Draw Poker, hereinafter “J-or-B.” The full pay J-or-B is easy to play at 99.5% payback by following the rules given below. The first problem, however, is to recognize this game among the wide variety of video poker available. That’s relatively easy, since there are no wild cards and no grandiose adjectives such as “bonus” or “deluxe” in the name. It’s usually called “Draw Poker,” and it pays 2-for-1 for two pairs. The full pay J-or-B has a “6/9” payoff schedule, referring to the 6-for-1 payoff for a flush and 9-for-1 payoff for a full house. Also, it is a “flat top,” referring to its fixed 4000-coin jackpot for a royal flush. More common is the 5/8 variety which pays back only 97.3%, but there may be a progressive jackpot which adds back one percent for each 2000-coin increase over the basic 4000-coin reset value (on a 25-cent machine, that’s a one percent gain for each $500 increase over the basic $1000 jackpot). Many other variations and their cost or value are described in my book, Video Poker æ Precision Play, but there isn’t space to cover them here. Now, as promised, here are the Precision Play rules (the “Basic Strategy”) for J-or-B Draw Poker. For ease of learning, these rules have been simplified slightly form those published in my book, but they are still accurate for the basic 4000-coin flat-top game described above. Follow the first rule that applies to the hand you’ve been dealt.
If you are to be playing video poker primarily for camouflage, you might want to simplify the strategy even further by omitting rules 6 and 7. These decisions occur infrequently, and the gain is small, so the long-term cost of ignoring these rules is quite small. When you are comfortable with the other eight rules, then learn number 7, and finally rule 6. |