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Dancer's Answers

We publish a brand-new video poker article from Bob Dancer every Thursday in this section. These columns are called "Dancer's Answers". Click on any of the links below for more Dancer's Answers:

Bob Dancer Articles - Main Page
May 1, 2008

Vicksburg Video Poker - May 8, 2008

Vicksburg, MS Video Poker - Part 2 - May 15, 2008

Vicksburg Casino Video Poker - Part 3 - May 22, 2008

Common Deuces Wild Mistakes – Juan or the Other – May 29, 2008

Figuring Out Quick Quads - June 5, 2008

Breaking Full Houses in Quick Quads - June 12, 2008

A Quick Quads Puzzler - June 19, 2008

Let’s Go Scouting - June 26, 2008

When You're Not Sure of the Game - July 3, 2008

Can it be Right to Play Hunches - July 10, 2008

Good Hearted Woman in Love With a Good Timin’ Man - July 17, 2008

One-Way Versus Two-Way Straight Penalties - July 24, 2008

Effectual versus Ineffectual Straight Penalties - July 31, 2008

Unusual Dealt Royals - August 7, 2008

Learning from a Horse Handicapper - August 14, 2008

When Bad Is Good - August 21, 2008

I Live For These Moments - August 28, 2008

Las Vegas Do It Different - September 4, 2008

Figuring the worth when there are Multiple Progressives - September 11, 2008

Which is the Better Play? - September 18, 2008

How Much is Too Much? - September 25, 2008

Evaluating a Promotion - October 2, 2008

Sometimes the Jack, Sometimes Ace-Jack, Never the Ace by Itself - October 9, 2008

Why I Don't Play Poker - October 16, 2008

What is a Royal Flush Cycle? - October 23, 2008

A Logical Puzzler - October 30, 2008

Another Look at Changing Machines - November 6, 2008

Testing Matters - November 13, 2008

An Easy Yet Important Quick Quad Puzzler - November 20, 2008

Some Quick Quad Mathematics - November 27, 2008

Barona Improves its Video Poker - December 4, 2008

An Interesting Quick Quads Puzzle - December 11, 2008

Shirley Plays Suduku - December 18, 2008

How Often Does One Time in 360 Occur? - December 25, 2008

Earning a Free Cruise - January 1, 2008

Next Dancer's Answers column coming on January 8, 2009!

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Figuring the worth when there are Multiple Progressives

Sam’s Town Las Vegas has a $1 8/5 Bonus Poker game, with four different progressives: the royal (starting at $4,000), aces (starting at $400), 2s-4s (starting at $200), and 5s-Ks (starting at $125). You show up one day and these values are at $4,325, $430, $230, and $135 respectively. Is this a good game to play? How do you know?

While I will address the specifics of the Sam’s Town game, there are numerous casinos with this type of “opportunity.” The question of how to figure it out goes far beyond Sam’s Town.

The way to go about it is to develop a chart telling you how much changes in the progressives amount to. The assumption is that the change in value is close to linear. That is, whatever we find a 100-coin change worth, a 10-coin chance is worth 10% as much.

I will use “Video Poker for Winners” to figure this out. Other video poker trainers will give the same answer, and the process to derive the answer will be similar.

Let’s start with the royal flush. At baseline, 8/5 Bonus is worth 99.166%. I find this by clicking on the game and then clicking on ANALYZE  GAME and look at the top of the page.

Now I want to see what happens to this game with a royal flush worth 8,000 coins. I click on OPTIONS  CHANGE PAYTABLE and then I physically change the 4000 value for the 5-coin royal flush to 8000. I click on OK. It asks for a name and I choose “8-5 Bonus with 8000 royal.”

I see this game is worth 101.438%, which is an increase of 2.172% over 4,000 coins. If I divide this number by 40, I come up with 0.0543%, which means that every time the royal goes up by 100 coins, the EV goes up by this amount.

I then tackle the aces. When I get back to the CHANGE PAYTABLE section, I click on SET TO DEFAULT (which changes the 8000 back to 4000) and then I change the value of the aces from 400 to 500. It will ask for a new name. Since I’m not planning on saving this, I click on REPLACE EXISTING GAME. It still has the title of “8-5 Bonus with 8000 royal” but I know what it really is.

This is worth 99.558%, which is an increase of 0.392%. This means that every time the value of the aces goes up by 10 coins, it adds 0.0392% to the value of the game.

I use the same process for 2s-4s. This comes out to be 100.220%, for a change of 1.054%. This means every 10-coin increase in this is worth 0.1054%.

Finally I do it one more time for 5s-Ks, and for a 100-coin increase I come up with 102.446%. This translates to a 2.280% change for the full 100-coin range, or 0.228% per 10 coins, or 0.114% for 5 coins.

We can use these values as they are, but I prefer to simplify them. I use:

For 100-coin change in royal --- 0.05%
For 10-coin change in aces --- 0.04%
For 5-coin change in 2s-4s --- 0.05%
For 5-coin change in 5s-Ks --- 0.11%

While these numbers are rounded, they are “close enough,” and fairly easily remembered. At the start we posited numbers of $4,325, $430, $230, and $135. I suggest you use the shortcuts above to verify the numbers below.

Base Game	99.17%
Aces	0.12%
2-4s	0.30%
5s-Ks	0.22%

Total	99.81%

Since the casino has dollar 10/7 Double Bonus (100.17%) it turns out in that the Bonus Poker game isn’t such a good deal this time. But maybe next time. The point of this exercise was to develop a technology so we can evaluate games in the future.

These shortcut numbers are suitable for 8-5 Bonus Poker games at any casino. Some casinos might also have a progressive for the straight flush, and that’s now easy for you to add to your list of shortcuts. If the casino only has a progressive on the royal flush, you can use that part of the list --- i.e. every 100 coins adds 0.05%.

If you also play at casinos with progressives on Double Bonus or Double Double Bonus, it’s easy to add them to your list. Once you have this list, I suggest you laminate it and carry it with you to casinos. You never know when will be the next time you’re in a casino and want to evaluate one of these games.

To be sure, there are small strategy changes that go along with the progressives. If the royal goes up high enough, you will hold a suited ‘AT’, for example. For now I am neglecting these modifications because I want to limit today’s discussion to a bite-sized lesson.

But using these shortcuts and neglecting strategy changes, I recommend you include a margin for error. In my opinion you should wait until a progressive is at least 0.2% higher than an otherwise suitable game without a progressive, simply because it’s basically impossible to play a game with multiple progressives nearly as accurate as it’s possible to play a game with fixed parameters.
Also, each play can be very short. If you sit down when aces are worth $500, for example, when you or somebody else finally connects on the aces the game immediately becomes worth 0.40% less than it did --- which may well reduce it to being under the relevant threshold. You therefore need other games in the casino as a “fallback” position in case this isn’t juicy enough.

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.

Click here to visit River Belle Casino and play video poker games, including Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild.

Classic Dancer

We republish a classic Bob Dancer article every Sunday - often these articles are updated with new insights from Bob Dancer, the master of video poker writing.

Video Poker Questions and Answers - May 4, 2008

More Answers to Questions About Video Poker Machines - May 11, 2008

Losing is a Major Part of Winning at Video Poker - May 18, 2008

Video Poker VS Blackjack - May 25, 2008

The Art of Tipping Slot Personnel - Part 1 - June 1, 2008

The Art of Tipping Slot Personnel - Part 2 - June 8, 2008

Putting Your Ducks In a Row - June 15, 2008

Luck and Skill in Video Poker - June 22, 2008

Strategy Adjustments in Video Poker - June 29, 2008

One Coin vs Five Coin - July 6, 2008

Video Poker Progressives - July 13, 2008

High Pairs versus Three Cards to a Rolal in Kings or Better Joker Wild - July 20, 2008