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Ask The Wizard #434

I believe two entries in your IGT Major Multipliers return tables are incorrect.

For NSU Deuces Wild with a 25-16-10-4-4-3 pay table, the base return is shown as about 99.72%, but the feature return is only 95.44%. The feature return should be much closer to the base return.

For Deuces Wild Bonus with a 13-4-3-3 pay table, you show a base return of 97.36%, although I believe it is 98.80% when the wild royal pays 25. That also makes the listed 97.39% feature return look too low. Can you check these figures?

Bill

You were right on both counts. We corrected the Major Multipliers return tables. The correct figures are:

Game Pay table Base return Feature return
NSU Deuces Wild 25-16-10-4-4-3 99.7283% 99.7838%
Deuces Wild Bonus 13-4-3-3 98.8025% 98.8841%

NSU Deuces Wild: The old 95.4439% feature return belonged to 6/5 Bonus Poker Deluxe and had been copied into the wrong row.

Deuces Wild Bonus: The old 97.3644% base return and 97.3986% feature return resulted from a misplaced pay-table row. A 10-4-4-3 row that is not offered on the game had been inserted, and the 13-4-3-3 figures had been omitted. The wild royal was not the cause; every return in that section uses a wild royal payout of 25.

The five Deuces Wild Bonus pay tables offered on Major Multipliers are 9-4-4-3, 13-4-3-3, 10-4-3-3, 12-4-3-2, and 10-4-3-2. All five now show the correct returns.

We confirmed the corrected figures with Action Gaming, which designed the game, and checked every base return with our own calculations. Thank you for catching these errors.

For the 8/5 Bonus Poker hand A♣ K♣ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥, your Hand Analyzer recommends holding 8♥ 7♥ 6♥, but the strategy guide appears to rank the suited A-K higher.

I was comparing difficult hand number 29 with the relevant entries in the strategy table. Is there an error, or am I interpreting the strategy incorrectly?

Chris

You read it correctly, and the Hand Analyzer is right. For A♣ K♣ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥:

  • Hold 8♥ 7♥ 6♥: Expected return of 0.591119 per unit bet.
  • Hold A♣ K♣: Expected return of 0.580204 per unit bet.

The straight-flush draw is better by 0.010915 per unit bet, or about 0.011.

The strategy page had ranked two suited high cards above every type 2 straight-flush draw. That ranking usually holds for K-Q, K-J, and Q-J, but a suited A-K, A-Q, or A-J must give way to certain straight-flush draws, including 4-5-6 through 6-7-8. Difficult hand number 29 uses K♣ J♣ 3♦ 4♦ 5♦, which was correct and therefore did not expose the problem with ace-containing holds.

Your report led us to check the entire 8/5 Bonus Poker strategy against a full computer analysis of every possible deal. We corrected this issue and several related exceptions. The updated 8/5 Bonus Poker strategy now lists the exceptions; following them gives the optimal return of approximately 99.17%.