front page
blackjack
poker
secrets
archive
video
gm store
resources
advertising
contact us

GameMasters Secret's Page
The GameMaster's Secrets Video Poker Tournaments

Recently, I took part in a Video Poker tournament that was held by the local Harrah's Casino, so I thought I'd tell you about a few things I learned in case you've ever played in one yourself or are considering it. At Harrah's St. Louis, they're holding a series of tournaments (every other Wednesday), the entry fee is $25 per player and the guaranteed first prize is $1500. They say that 100% of the entry fees are returned as prizes, so what 2nd place through 5th place are paid depends upon how many entries they get. Those who place 6th through 12th get their entry fee back, so it's not a bad deal at all. The tournament consists of a series qualifying rounds of 16 players (one winner from each moves forward) and then a "championship" round, which is composed of all the winners of the qualifying rounds and a few "wild card" players whose names are drawn from the pool of non-qualifying players. How you place in the final round determines your prize.

The machines used are IGT 7/5 Bonus Poker machines (98.01% long-term return) that are set up in a special tournament mode. What happens is that you're assigned a machine and it's already loaded with 5000 no-cash-value credits. The machine has a built-in timer and, for this event we had 15 minutes to play. The machine plays much like any other Video Poker game, in that you hit a "Max Bet" button, you are dealt five cards and may hold any, all or none. You then hit the "Draw" button and you're dealt the replacement cards. At this point, the game varies somewhat from a "regular" VP game. If you get a hand that pays something, instead of the credits being added back to the 5000 you started with, there's a meter called "Winner Paid" which is credited. In other words, every hand that pays something is counted separately and the 5000 credits are basically ignored, beyond using them to bet on the next hand. So, one meter (Credits) is going down, while the other (Winner Paid) is going up and only the Winner Paid meter scores you. Consequently, you are not penalized if you play quickly and you're having a bad run at the time. Understand, you probably won't win anything if that happens, but you'll at least hit some paying hands in 15 minutes of play, so no one is going to be embarrassed by having a negative score or anything like that.

Unlike slot tournaments, Video Poker tournaments reward skill, but there's still a lot of luck involved. If you've ever played in a slot tournament, you know it's really just a matter of playing quickly and hoping that you hit some nice jackpots. Speed still counts in a Video Poker tournament because you want to play as many hands as possible in the time allotted, but how you play the cards dealt to you can have a major impact on your results. That said, the luck factor cannot be ignored, because in 15 minutes you can get in maybe 275-300 hands of play, so it's not reasonable to expect you'll get a Royal Flush. However, someone might get one and you can be sure if they do, they'll win that round of the competition. Getting a Royal in 300 hands of play definitely falls in the category of "lucky". But it's still possible to get one and that's where the strategy part comes in.

As you know, you often have several choices when it comes to holding the cards you've been dealt in a hand of Video Poker. If one is trying to hit a Royal, the strategy used will be quite a bit different than a strategy where one is trying to accumulate credits on a more consistent basis. A perfect example of that is a hand like this: Jc,Qc,Kc, Jh, 2s. Should you hold the three suited high cards or the pair of Jacks? The answer is, of course: it depends. A lot of people will hold the 3-card Royal, regardless if they're in a tournament or not. Those of us who are obsessed with getting the last penny of "expected value" out of each hand will hold the two Jacks. But we aren't playing for the "long-term" in a 300-hand tournament round, so should we just go for the Royal? That seems to make sense, but let's look at the odds that are involved before we make a decision.

Yes, a Royal will probably win the match for you, but in the tournament I played, there was a qualifying round and a final round, which determines your prize and the totals from both rounds are not added together. So, if you hit a Royal in the qualifying round, you're virtually guaranteed to make it to the final round, but it doesn't really get you any prizes at this point. However, a Royal in the final round will probably make you the overall winner, so it has a much higher expected value then.

Anytime you draw to a three-card Royal, there's a 1 in 1081 chance that you'll get it. Naturally, you may also get a lower hand, such as a Straight or Flush, a high pair, etc., so it's not all or nothing. However, in those 1081 attempts, fully 660 of them will result in a no-pay hand. That cannot happen when you hold a pair of Jacks, because you're assured of getting at least 5 credits and you could get Trips or a 4K or Full House and so on. From a strictly mathematical point of view, holding a pair of Jacks in a 7/5 Bonus Poker game has an expected value of 7.58 credits and a three-card Royal has an expected value of 7.24 credits. Needless to say, the difference, which is 0.34 credits, isn't going to win or lose a tournament like this. But holding the pair guarantees you 5 credits, whereas holding the 3-card Royal guarantees nothing. Sure, you might still get a high pair that pays 5 credits (318 times out of 1081 tries) or an even better hand, including a Royal, but most of the time you'll get nothing.

That brings up a good question: What is the "average" hand worth in a game like this? It's pretty easy to answer, because we know the total return for the game, which is based upon the frequency of each type of hand that will occur (Straights, Full Houses, etc.) and how much you're paid for getting it, assuming one plays the game correctly. Multiply that by the average bet size (it's always five coins in the tournament) and you get 98% times 5 credits = 4.9 credits, so the cumulative total is what we expect to show up on the "Winner Paid" meter when the game is set up in tournament mode. Now, just multiply that times the number of hands played (let's use 300) and you can see that the average works out to be 1470 credits. I won my qualifying round with a total of over 1700, by the way. Most qualifying rounds were won with scores in the 1300-1800 range.

However, averages are just something invented by mathematicians to compare a series of events with a different series of events, so not everyone is going to have an "average" result. Some will do better than the average, some will do worse and we obviously want to put ourselves in the "better" category. That can be done in three ways that I know of. The first is to play more hands than average. If most people play 300 hands in 15 minutes, it stands to reason that we'll do better than most people if we can play 400 hands in 15 minutes. I don't know if that's possible or not, but I'm going to work on it. Just so you know, the tournament machines have their speed set to maximum, so they deal very quickly, much quicker than most of the other VP machines in the casino. Plus, because your wins are recorded on a different meter than the playing credits, there's no waiting for the payoff. That kind of surprised me on the first few hands I played, but I quickly got used to it and found my "rhythm". You can really play quickly on these machines, so a rate of 1200 hands per hour is easily attained and I think 1600 hands per hour is possible, which works out to 400 hands in 15 minutes.

The other way to do better than average is to play the game better than most people. As I mentioned above, the expected return is 98%, but that's only if one is using the proper playing strategy. I saw some players breaking up a hand of two-pair to draw to just one side of it, in an attempt to get a 4K and, while moves like that might work out in the end, it's usually a costly mistake. I'm going to work on some strategy changes, however, for hands where the Aces are involved, because four Aces pay 400 in this game, so just hitting them once in a round of play can put you out in front. I know that's true because I won my qualifying round when I hit a set of Aces. I'd be willing to give up some expected return in exchange for hitting a "jackpot" hand, but I don't want to give up too much in the process, so that's going to take some study.

The third way to get an above-average result is to be lucky. Well, I'm not a lucky person, so I think I'll work on the first two. By the way, I didn't win the tournament, but at least I got my entry fee back and certainly learned something about Video Poker tournaments. I hope you did, too.

I'll see you here next time.

  

2006 Articles


2005 Articles


2004 Articles


2003 Articles


2002 Articles


2001 Articles


1999 Articles


1997 Articles