It goes without saying that for most of us, hitting a Royal Flush is a big thrill. The "big banana" is what I call it and collecting on one makes all the pain of losing in your last two or three (or 5 or 10) playing sessions go away, quickly. Would it be that Royals show whenever we wanted one, but of course if they did, there wouldn't be any Video Poker machines in any casinos anywhere.

The game manufacturers are aware of our lust for Royals and have responded by creating machines that have Royal "equivalents" (or nearly so), like various four-of-a-kind hands with "kickers" (the fifth card) that pay 2000 coins, such as Double Double Bonus Poker with its four Aces with a 2,3 or 4, that pays 2000 for 5 and Double Double Jackpot Poker where four Aces with a Jack, Queen or King kicker pays 1600 for 5. Now, I realize that 2000 coins isn't the equivalent of a Royal, which pays 4000 coins, but four Aces with a kicker at Double Double Bonus Poker will occur, on average, once every 16,000 hands or so and a Royal will occur once every 40,800 hands or so. You can see that the four Aces with a kicker pays half of what a Royal pays, but it will occur (again, on average), about twice as often, even a bit more. That, to me, is a Royal equivalent.

The only problem is that most Double Double Bonus Poker games have a long-term return of only about 99%, so you're paying a price for those bonuses. If full-pay (10/7/5) Double Bonus is available, the return for perfect play is over 100%, however there are no "super" bonuses available beyond four Aces, which pay 800 for 5. What's a player to do when s/he feels the need for a Royal? There are several approaches one can take in this situation and each has its own price tag.

The most obvious is to make a mad play for the Royal by holding all types of suited high-card hands at the expense of making the proper play. For example, you might be dealt 10s, Js, 2s, 4s, 9d and, instead of holding the four spades, go with just the 10 and Jack. It's an expensive play: In a 9/6 Jacks or better game, it'll cost you about 3.6 coins (90 cents in a quarter game and $3.60 in a dollar game), but you have improved your chances for a Royal. In case you don't know, the odds of getting a Royal when holding two suited high cards is 1 in 16,215, but there are some Straight Flushes you'll get to mitigate the pain (about a 1 in 5400 shot) and a lot of ways to get another Jack, to at least get your bet back. This "Royal-at-any-cost" strategy will reduce the number of hands it takes to get one from roughly 40,000 to about 28,000. The 28,000 figure is an educated guess and would depend upon how aggressive you were in this strategy. For example, breaking up a Full House to keep just two suited high cards is pretty aggressive and it might reduce that 28,000 figure some, but at a horrific cost. Before we move on, let me show you the odds of getting a Royal when holding various hands in a game with no wild cards (the "xRF" notation means one or two, etc. cards to a Royal):

Now understand that these, too, are "long-term" odds. You won't necessarily get a Royal every 47 times you hold four to a Royal, but that's the average. A more meaningful way of stating that may be, the odds against getting a Royal, when holding four suited high cards, is 46 to 1 against.

The other day, I ventured off to my local, friendly casino and told myself that I was going to settle for nothing less than a Royal or its equivalent. Because of the numbers above, I knew I wasn't going to play a "Royal or die" strategy, because I play the game far too often to toss off the long-term implications of that strategy. But, I was up for a little gambling and was willing to blow $300 in my effort to hit a $1000 jackpot. Basically, I had set a goal of making a $700 net profit on the day, so I really had a lot of options. I could play quarter, half-dollar or dollar machines (even a $5 machine for that matter, but I wanted a fighting chance), yet I wanted to keep the "long-term" in mind as I played, so I ruled out attacking any of the low-paying games with the super bonuses.

Could I really "have my cake and eat it too"? In a way, yes. The game I chose was good, old $1 9/6 Jacks or Better, but one that has the double-up option. This game has a 99.5% return and, since I was getting double slot-club points, my total long-term return would be in the 100% range. But that wasn't the important part. The important part was the double-up option. I have written about this before and you're likely familiar with it, even though you may never use it. Aside from the odds bet at craps, this is just about the only bet in a casino with no house edge. It's simply a straight 50-50 bet that you can pick a card to beat the "dealer" and thus double your win. For example, if you get a Straight that pays 20, the machine will ask you if you want to double to 40. If you're successful at that, it will ask you if you want to want to double the 40 to 80 and so on. Most machines that have this option will allow you to double up to 10 times (assuming you're that lucky) or up to a maximum of 10,000 coins. I don't really know how the machines here work, because I have never gotten that far. Naturally, you may choose to accept your winnings at any time, including those on the original hand by just declining the double-up option.

Here was my plan: Play $1 Jacks or Better and double every Full House until I hit my goal. With a Full House paying 45 coins, I'd have to double it to 90, then 180, then 360 and then to 720. At that point, I'd take an accounting of the $$$ I had. If most or all of my original $300 was left, I'd cash it out. If, however, most of it had been eaten by the machine, I'd go for another double to $1440. So what it all boiled down to was that I'd have to double a Full House four or five times, depending.

Just what are the odds of that, you wonder? The math is simple: it's 0.5 to the power of however many times you want to double it. Consequently, the probability of doubling four times is .5 x .5 x .5 x .5 = .0625 or a one in 16 shot, so you can see that the probability of doubling five times is a 1 in 32 proposition. Again, we have to deal with averages here, but what this means is that I would try to double a Full House 16 times and only one would work. It might happen the first time I tried, but on average, I'll lose at 15 different attempts before one hits. Since I can expect to get a Full House once every 88 hands (yes, that's also an average figure), I'll need to play 16 x 88 = 1408 hands for this to happen. Hey, that's not so bad! It represents something under three hours of play and, from an "expected return" point of view, I'll be betting $7040 and will lose 0.5% of that or $35, but the slot club cash rebate will make most of it back.

Okay, that's the theoretical math of the situation, but the reality is that, in such a short period of play, I probably won't hit a Straight Flush, nor a Royal (it would be cool if I did, though), so the short-term return of the game will be more like 97%, and I could easily lose $200 or more. Plus, I'll be "throwing away" a lot of Full House payoffs in my quest and those of you who play the game know that Full Houses and 4K's are what keep you in action. By the same token, I might also double the Full House four times on my first try if the VP gods are smiling on me and you can't be successful at anything if all you think about are the "what ifs". I had $300 to risk and I was going to do my best to turn it into $1000 and I have no lack of confidence in myself.

I'll make a long story short, because I want to cover a few more ideas on this topic before I go. It took me 6 tries to double a Full House to $720 and I still had $235 in credits in the machine, plus $100 of my original $300 in my pocket, so I didn't go for a fifth double. The mortgage got paid, the car payment was made, God is in His heaven and I had some fun. What more do you want out of life?

The title of this is, "I Want a Royal Today", so let me give you some thoughts on how to "speed up" your Royals without giving up too much to the casino. If there are some quarter 9/6 Jacks or Better games available to you, what you can do is double a Four-of-a-Kind hand (125 for 5 payoff) five times and, ta da!, that's worth 4000 coins. On average, you'll get a 4K once every 425 hands and, since you'll be sucessful in doubling 5 times once every 32 attempts, you should on average, achieve that lofty goal every 32 x 425 = 13,600 hands. That's about a third of the time it would take you to hit a Royal through "regular" play. What's the catch? Well, there are several. First of all, it might take you 40 or 50 4Ks before you double it 5 times. Secondly, the slot club may not count your doubling activities toward the cash rebate and third, because you're throwing away the 125-coin return of a 4K, it may temporarily increase your losses as you're trying this. The upside is that your doubling will *eventually* work and you're not playing some game with a horrible long-term return in the process.

If you haven't seen the double-up option on your favorite VP game, ask a slot host if it can be turned on for you, because many machines already have the program loaded. Also, there are a lot of VP games at Internet casinos with this feature, so if you believe they're dealing an honest game, the same numbers I gave you here will apply. Be forewarned, though, that I have seen some games on the 'Net where the dealer wins ties in double-up play and you definitely want to avoid those.

I'll see you here next time.