What does horse handicapping have to do with video poker? At first blush, it’s a stretch to find ANYTHING in common, except they are both on a short list of games found in a casino that are beatable by a smart player. (Horse racing isn’t typically done AT the casino, although sometimes casinos are built around racetracks, but in many jurisdictions you can bet on horse races held elsewhere.)
A case can be made that I’m not a smart horse player. I do, however, have a winning record. I’ve made one $10 bet in my life in the Kentucky Derby in 1994. I bet on Strode’s Creek to show. I’m not sure why. I think I might have heard something on the radio. That means I’d collect if the horse came in first, second, or third. The horse came in second, so I’ve collected on every horse racing bet I’ve ever made. The horse paid $6 to show, which meant my profit was $20. I’m so smart! (I strongly believe that when I eventually die some day, my perfect horse betting record will still be intact. I do not anticipate making another bet on horses ever. But “ever” is a long time, so who knows?)
I read a quote by Steven Crist, both a horse handicapper and the publisher of “The Daily Racing Form.” According to Crist : “The issue is not which horse in the race is the most likely winner, but which horse or horses are offering odds that exceed their actual chances of victory . . . This may sound elementary, and many players may think that they are following this principle, but few actually do. Under this mindset, everything but the odds fades from view. There is no such thing as “liking” a horse to win a race, only an attractive discrepancy between his chances and his price.”
It appears obvious to me that Crist’s advice is valid --- rather like a “principle of investing.” I started to wonder whether there’s any way to apply this to video poker.
When you have two or more different plays at video poker, such as from 8h 8s 9d Tc Jh, Crist’s rule says to pick the play with the highest Expected Value (EV). Since this is already part of the mindset of most competent video poker players, Crist’s advice appears redundant here.
When I’ve given a hand like this in one of my classes, I’ve sometimes had people say something like, “when you hold 89TJ, there are eight chances for success --- namely four sevens and four queens. But when you hold the pair of eights there are only two chances to get another eight. Since eight chances are better than two, I’ll go with the straight.”
This is wrong on many levels, but I’ve heard this almost verbatim more than a dozen times, it seems appropriate to address it here.
When you draw one card to 89TJ, there are indeed eight chances to complete the straight --- out of the 47 possible draws you have. 8/47 means you have a 17% chance for success. Of course there are also 3/47 (6.4%) chances of drawing another jack and getting your money back. That gives us some non-zero score 23.4% of the time. (Today I’m limiting the discussion to games without wild cards where you get your money back for a pair of jacks, queens, kings, and aces. There are dozens of different games that meet these criteria in every casino.)
When you draw three cards to the pair of eights, there are actually 16,215 different draws you can make. It turns out that you’re going to end up with nothing at all 71% of the time, two pair 16% of the time, 3-of-a-kind 11% of the time, a full house 1% of the time and 4-of-a-kind about a quarter of 1%.
So going with the pair, it turns out that there is a 29% chance of getting at least your money back. This is better than the 23.4% chance at getting something when you go for the straight. What does this tell us?
These numbers add up to a discussion of the most likely winner, and according to Crist, this is not particularly relevant. What we need to include in this discussion is how much do we get paid when each of these events come in? This “how much do we get paid” is equivalent to what he calls “odds.”
How much we get paid varies rather widely from game to game. For the five coin $1 player, in all the games we are considering the pair of jacks pays $5. That’s a constant. But two pair can receive $5 or $10. 3-of-a-kinds usually return $15, but it can return $10. Straights give you $20 or $25. Full houses return $30, $35, $40, $45, or $50. 4-of-a-kinds receive $125, $250, or occasionally other numbers.
I suppose it’s possible to figure out which is the better play in your head, but you’d have to be much smarter than me to do so. Using computer software, such as “Video Poker for Winners,” this is an easy calculation.
Not surprisingly, the correct answer to “which way should we play the hand” depends on the pay schedule, although which part of the pay schedule frequently is a surprise. It turns out that when two pair returns $5, you should go for the straight. When two pair returns $10, you should hold the pair. Once you learn this rule, this is definitely something easily remembered, at least to many.
Did we need Steven Crist’s insight to solve this problem? No, probably not. But when smart people from different disciplines end up with the same answer, it gives us more confidence that our answer is correct.
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 the software "Video Poker for Winners," Winner's Guides, strategy cards, his autobiography Million Dollar Video Poker, and his two novels, including Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer's products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com or by telephone at 1-800-244-2224 M-F 9-5 Pacific Time.
