10-7 double bonus is a popular game, though difficult. At 100.17%, it is one of the few gambling games offering the player any advantage at all, so many people have learned to play it. Surprisingly, the pay table on this game depends upon the manufacturer.

International Gaming Technology, IGT, is the largest manufacturer of slot and video poker machines in the world. Most 10-7 double bonus games found in Las Vegas are on IGT machines. Bally’s is also a major manufacturer, although not nearly as large as IGT. One of its products is called the GameMaker, which is Bally’s name for it’s multi-game machine. Within the same machine, the player often has several choices of games to play. If you can find a 10-7 double bonus schedule on one of these machines, you may want to sit down. For you have struck gold.

The reason for this excitement is that the straight flush on these machines returns 400 coins (80 per coin in) rather than the normal 250 (50 per coin in). What’s the big deal, I hear you ask? It’s only an extra 150 coins, and straight flushes only come along once in a blue moon. Actually, when played appropriately, straight flushes come along every 8,500 hands or so --- about once every fifteen hours. This means you’ll receive an extra 10 coins per hour. Dollar players receive an extra $10 an hour to play this machine. An extra $10 per hour, on top of a game that was already worth playing, makes the game a treasure.

You’ll get most of this bonus whether you play for it or not. Using regular 10-7-50 strategy on the 10-7-80 game is worth 100.49%. Learning all of the strategy adjustments makes the game worth 100.52%. Frankly, learning all of the adjustments isn’t worth it to most people. Unless you spend a lot of time on this relatively rare game, it just doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time studying for so little gain.

Nevertheless, this article will be devoted to discussing these strategy variations. But my purpose isn’t to make you expert at this one particular game. I know many of you will never play either version of this game. My purpose is to point out a lot of interesting stuff about how strategies are developed.

First of all, what kind of hand do you think is most affected by this change in pay table? One obvious answer is “hands with a lot of straight flush potential”, and that is a correct answer, but what kind of hands?

The change has more effect on one-card draws than it does on two-card draws, and almost no affect at all on 3-card draws. Also, the fewer the gaps in a straight flush draw, the more the 150-coin bonus is worth. Let’s see why this is. Let’s assume we are playing for dollars.

Take the sequence 6h 7h 8h Th. There is one perfect card --- specifically the 9h --- which gives you the straight flush. This position in the 10-7-80 game is worth a full $3.19 more than the 10-7-50 game. The open-ended straight draw (i.e. 6c 7c 8c 9c) now has two perfect cards, and the Bally’s game is better by $6.38.

Now let’s look at two card draws. How much they are worth depends upon how many possible straight flushes are possible. From 6d 7d Td, only one straight flush is possible. The 10-7-80 game is worth 14¢ more. From 6d 7d 9d, two straight flushes are possible (9- and T-high), and now the games differ by 28¢. From 6d 7d 8d, three straight flushes are possible (8-, 9-, and T-high), and the games differ by 42¢.

Three card draws don’t differ by much. Starting from K♠ Q♠, the games differ by less than 1¢. Even from J♠ T♠ (from which three different straight flushes are possible), the games differ by only 2.8¢.

The effect of this change in straight flushes has nothing to do with high cards. Jacks or better still gets you your money back, and four aces is still a monster hand. But in considering changes in strategy, you need to take the number of high cards into effect. Let’s see why.

Let us compare the actual value of going for the straight flush in each of the two games.

	10-7-50	10-7-80	Diff
4♠ 5♠ 6♠ 7♠ 8♥	$18.51	$24.89	$6.38
9♦ T♦ J♦ Q♦ 8♣	$19.15	$25.53	$6.38

Drawing to QJT9 is 64¢ better than is drawing to 4567. This is not surprising. Any Q or any J gives us our money back. And the games differ by the same $6.38. Again, this is not surprising. A change in the value of the straight flush has nothing to do with high cards. So why bring it up at all? Bear with me.

In each case, we are trying to decide whether to keep the 5-card straight or to just keep the four cards to the straight flush. The critical factor to keep in mind here is that keeping the straight is worth an even $25.00. When we have no high cards (as in the first hand), going for the straight flush costs us. To be sure, it only costs 11¢ to go for it in the 10-7-80 game, but that’s far more than I would willingly give up on one hand.

When we include the high cards in the mix, however, we come up with a different play. Going for the straight flush from QJT9 is the better play by 53¢. It won’t come as a surprise that the open-ended draw with one high card (i.e. JT98) is worth 32¢ less than drawing to QJT9, but it is still a better play than keeping a dealt straight.

Here’s a puzzle for you. We’ve looked at Q♥ J♥ T♥ 9♥ 8♠. Now consider Q♥ J♥ T♥ 9♥ K♠. It seems to be the same straight flush draw versus a made straight choice, but now there is another high card involved. Does this matter?

Think about it. The made straight is worth $25, whether it is K-high or Q-high. And drawing from either QJT9, you get 6 high pairs, 5 straights, 7 flushes and 2 straight flushes. So there’s no difference at all. But most people aren’t sure until they sit down and think about it.

Here’s another puzzle for you. Q♦ J♦ T♦ 9♦ 3♦. Do you keep the flush or go for the straight flush? It may seem that you do not have enough information to answer this question, but actually you do. The “7” in the codes 10-7-50 or 10-7-80 refers to the 1-coin value of a flush. So for one coin, a flush returns $7, and for five coins, a flush returns $35. Earlier we saw that the QJT9 combination was worth $19.15 or $25.53, depending upon the schedule. These numbers will vary a little when the fifth card is a flush card rather than a straight card (actually they will both decrease by 22¢), but neither one is close to $35. Keeping the flush is the correct play by a mile.

What about hands such as Q♠ Q♣ 4♠ 4♣ 5♠? Does the difference in pay schedules affect this hand at all? The answer is no. Whether you hold two pair (the correct play by $1.53 in both games) or just the queens, the value of the straight flush is irrelevant.

There is one piece of information you need to compare strategies that we haven’t explicitly stated yet. And that is the comparative values of the various combinations. We learned earlier that from 3♥ 5♥ 7♥ 6♠ J♦, going for the straight flush is 14¢ better in the 10-7-80 game than it is in the 10-7-50 game. And good strategy charts for the 10-7-50 game will tell you that holding the J is the better play in that game. But to determine whether or not holding the J is the better play in the 10-7-80 game, we need to know by how much the J was preferred. It turns out that the J was preferred by 3¢ in the 10-7-50 game, so it is easy to figure that going for the straight flush is 11¢ better in the 10-7-80 game.

Getting these starting values isn’t easy. Nobody has published them. Basically you have to get on your computer and figure them out yourself. This is easy for some of you, and impossible for others.

But it isn’t critical that you use the perfect strategy. Even professional players sometimes use simplified strategies. For the vast majority of you who play for entertainment, just do the best you can.

That’s it for now. Until next time, go out and hit a royal flush.

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.