If you're not familiar with this variation of Video Poker, please read my original article ("Chase The Royal Video Poker"), which is archived here on this page. If you have read it, you may recall that various games are offered: Bonus Poker, Triple-Double Bonus Poker, Jacks or Better, etc. It appears to be up to the casino to choose which games are loaded on the machine, so I'm sure that the choices vary widely, so you'll just have to check out the games at your local, friendly casino.

The game I want to address here is Double Bonus Poker, which can be found in a 9/6/5 format and pays a dismal 97.8% when offered as a "regular" Video Poker game. But because of the bonuses available on a "Chase The Royal" (CTR) version of this game, the return is quite a bit higher if you play it properly. Just like any other VP game, the maximum return available can be attained only by using the proper playing strategy for each and every hand that's played.

In a 9/6/5 format, Double Bonus Poker becomes a very interesting game to play. Setting the poor return aside for the moment, I actually enjoy playing it. Some time ago I wrote about a 9/6/5 Double Bonus game that had progressives on various premium hands like the four Aces and so forth ("Making the Best of It", which is archived here) and my point then was that by changing the pay schedule from 9/7/5 (full-pay is 10/7/5), the casino was actually increasing the frequency of a Royal for the player that uses, I stress once again, the proper playing strategy. Naturally, it follows that a CTR version of the game, which produces a Royal far more frequently anyway, can have a much better long-term return percentage than the regular version of the game, trading off the short-term returns for the higher value of the less-frequent Royal. Speaking of long-term returns for this game and other variations of CTR, there was an excellent article on this done by our friend, The Wizard of Odds, which you can read here: http://www.wizardofodds.com/games/videopoker/vidpokapx4.html/

According to the Wiz, the 9/6/5 version of Double Bonus Poker in the Chase The Royal game returns 99.65% when played properly. I'll cover the playing strategy in a bit, but let's discuss the implications of that return, first. With a long-term return of 99.65%, this game is on the same level as "regular" 9/6 Jacks or Better; not over 100%, but so close as to make it worthwhile to consider playing when a decent cash-back program is available through a casino slot club. Obviously, it takes only an additional 0.35% to get it to100% so, particularly on double-point bonus days and other events like that, the total return can rival that of the 10/7/5 version of Double Bonus, which is 100.17%.

But, just like that game, the variance of the CTR version is quite a bit higher than Jacks or Better, which means you need a fairly large bankroll to play it successfully. Beside being available only in 3-play, 5-play and 10-play versions, the basis of Catch The Royal is to trade off the relatively common hand of a pair of Jacks, Queens or Kings for a three-card Royal, which causes you to give up a hand that "pushes" in return for one that will pay off only once in every 10,000 hands or so. That amounts to the variance being nearly tripled (from 31 to about 83), which means there will be a lot of "dry spells" as you're playing, thus the need for a large bankroll. Fortunately, most CTR games come in different denominations, so nickel and dime games, as well as quarters are available.

Okay, that's enough background, so let's talk about how this game should be played. First of all, you should always elect to "chase" whenever it's offered. Don't forget that when you're in the chase mode, Straights and Flushes pay extra, but because the play is automatic, you don't need to know any strategy changes to take advantage of that. The primary strategy for the play of the hands appears below and it wll return only 97.80% without a Chase The Royal feature. Because CTR requires you to play the maximum coins in order to get the bonuses, you'll do well to practice this before you commit any $$$. Fortunately, there's a free, play-money game available here: http://www.videopoker.com/games/chase/chase_preview/chase_royal.asp/

If you've played regular 10/7 or 9/7 Double Bonus before, you'll quickly see that the strategy for the 9/6/5 game has some differences, particularly when it comes to playing possible Flush hands. Because they pay only 6 for 1, the emphasis that you see on Flushes in the 10/7 or 9/7 games isn't here. That's also why a Royal will happen more frequently in the "regular" version of this game; you're not holding two suited high cards with a suited third card. If you haven't played a lot of Double Bonus, that may not mean a whole lot to you, but don't worry about it. Just follow this strategy chart below, where the hands are listed in descending order of preference, chase the Royal each time, bring plenty of $$$ and you'll do fine.

By the way, this strategy chart was generated by the fabulous software, "Video Poker Strategy Master", which is available at www.zamzone.com/

Note: "s" means suited As always, if you have any questions, e-mail me at Aceten1@mindspring.com/ Otherwise, I'll see you here next time.

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