Pechanga Casino - Paradise for 9/6 Jacks Or Better

Who has your favorite video poker games? Who should have more?
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alpax
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Re: Pechanga Casino - Paradise for 9/6 Jacks Or Better

Post by alpax »

Update and Minor Trip Report for June 2015

I've reported VPFree prior to this post with the updates to the game inventory. Took two trips this month, last week and the week before.

First trip, as of late I was on a streak where I am getting less 4oaK than usual on Jacks or Better (average is 1 in 423 hands). I had this premonition that the quads were going to come that day and I took the risk of playing a higher variance Bonus Deluxe on the bartops at the high limit room (it is $1 minimum). My premonitions are not as good as Lucky Larry's and the decision did not payoff, got just 1 4oaK from the finite 1000 hands that I wanted to play, the quad streak continues. The trip ended up being a bigger loss.



I wanted to take maybe 2 hands at the $2 and 2 hands at the $5 denomination potshots at this game (ended up with 2 even money 2 pairs, 1 even money jack pair, and a loss), but I've noticed something different on the game listings when I pushed $2 and $5 denominations. An additional game appeared, something I thought I never see outside of the M Resort.

The game is ACE$ Bonus Poker, like the standard Bonus Poker, except the aces are assigned a letter. If the player lands quad aces in the first 4 cards or the last 4 cards, and the ordering of the letters spell out ACE$, they will win the Royal Flush payout. It is indeed full pay at 8/5, it improves the payout from 99.166% to 99.40%.



Turns out the high roller bartops have it too. This game is only available for $2/$5/$10/$25. I will be sticking to Jacks or Better.



I had to use up my free meal voucher and on the way to the Italian restaurant, I noticed another bank of Game King machines, and looking carefully it is another set of 5c/10c/25c/$1 machines, 14 more of them! It was occupied by some keno players. After lunch, I managed to find an empty seat at the bank. Since I was down from playing BDlx, I wanted to have fun and putting a $20 bill loaded up a good amount of ammunition to play with. I ended up going with nickels since I have not practiced much and wanted to have fun.

But on the second hand ... argh



A little bit later, something I wished that showed up while I was playing Bonus Deluxe, worth 20 folds less on this game. argh again



I've played until I doubled up that $20 and ended the day.

Second trip had my favorite promotion, spinning the wheel and get free play, earn 4000 points and get to spin the wheel. The minimum is $50 in free slot play, it landed on slightly above the minimum at $55. I just played that out in the end left.



Since the new games are set to $5 coin in per point, I switched back to Jacks or Better to accrue the points quicker. And now the quads come ...









Had my ups and downs, each time a quad hit, it brought things right back into the game. I tried double down the next bet if I got 3oaK or better. It did not work the last few visits, but this visit it did.





It has been a while since I walked out of the casino with something, I hope it could be the start of something good. If I continued to play Bonus Deluxe, it would have been a great day, but it was too risky to try to coin in 20k in a single session.

Tedlark
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Post by Tedlark »



  Really nice run of quads on the second trip alpax, congrats.

OTABILL
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Post by OTABILL »

Hope you are beginning a good streak.

alpax
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Post by alpax »


  Really nice run of quads on the second trip alpax, congrats.

Hope you are beginning a good streak.


I hope it is better late than never, I did not make a return trip in almost 2 months. I appreciate the congrats, was running on a losing streak and finally snapping out of it.

--update--

Something new to update as I was surprised for myself. The Super Times Pay Mega Progressive that debuted in
Nevada and New Jersey gaming jurisdictions earlier this year has made its way to this casino.

I was already planning on making a trip to play regardless and there was a smaller version of my favorite U-Spin
wheel promotion available in celebration of these machines by e-mail invitation only (since it passed already at the time of writing).



It took a while for me to spot as the casino floor is big, but here is a picture of the bank.



Unlike the ones available at the Golden Nugget (Las Vegas and Atlantic City) this one is only available for quarters,
no option for dollars. In order to win the progressive jackpot, you must trigger/proc the Super Times Pay
multiplier at 10x (1 in 15 chance on average to proc, and 1 in 25 chances to get a 10x multiplier when it procs,
an average of 1 in 375?) and hit a natural royal flush on one of the lines. The jackpot starts at $50,000.
I may have seen a representative from IGT present (in a business dress attire with a GUEST badge) talking to a casino executive, once they saw me playing,
they came and watched me play since they asked and wondered if I was invited to the promotion. I was not able to take more snapshots after that since they wanted to make sure the U-Spin wheel appeared. I did not bother asking questions.

Spot the VideoPoker.com logo to the bottom left!



I've browsed through the games available. The paytables are quite funky to a point where even I'd be surprised
if Vman knew the strategies to play them.

Note: All the Games were 3-lines

Bonus Poker - (Modified) 9 for 1 Full House, 6 for 1 Flush, but just 2 for 1 for 3oaK
Double Bonus - 8/5
Double Double Bonus - 6/5
Triple Double Bonus - 6/5
Bonus Poker Deluxe - 6/5 also the Straight is reduced from 4 for 1 to 3 for 1
Deuces Wild - 25-15-8-4-3-2-2-1
Bonus Deuces Wild - 20 for 1 Wild Royal, 9 for 1 Straight Flush, 4 for 1 4oaK, 3 for 1 Full House, 2 for 1
Flush, 1 for 1 3oaK and Straight

Screenshots for few of the games

Bonus Deluxe



8/5 DB



Deuces Wild



I played the minimum 50 points to get the promotion before heading off to play my usual games. I was
able to verify it is $2 coin in per point, while the other new machines were set to $5 coin in per point.
I played about 23 rounds at $4.50 a spin, since it requires 18 quarters to be eligible for the progressive.
I was able to spin, but it landed at the minimum $10 free play wedge, lost $55 in the process, no flushes/straights.
I got a shorted trips a good amount of times. I was able to get 2 STP multiplier trigger, but was able to snapshot
just the first one (played until I got a 2nd trigger but whiffed completely on all three hands on that), a 4x pair of jacks for 20 credits for a net positive 2 credit win...

Bonus Poker



I picked the Bonus Poker since I did not come prepared to play any of these strategies, and I presumed
that it would play out like 9/6 Jacks or Better since just the 3oaK was shorted. It turns out to be a worse game with
(93.97% return - after I played, I checked how bad a shorted 3oaK will be on the Wizard Of Odds paytable calculator, and it is indeed very bad) than 6/5 DDB (94.66% return) in which others played. But I had no interest in playing this long term.
When the IGT lady representative asked another lady who was playing on the bank, if she got the promotion, she was
visibly upset and shouted back "I lost $135 just to get $15 in free play?!?!?!?". I wonder how popular this game
will be ...

Trip Report

I've made two visits since the last posted visit. On the visit before, I did not have much bankroll to play with so
I played Florida Phil Cheap System in which I will write up on the recreational sction.

I played half the amount of Jacks or Better and half Deuces Wild for the day. I came away a small winner in
the end. I played the double shot next bet after 3 credit system again, and it feels slightly more interesting raising the variance slightly.

First time I seen it happened twice in a day where throw away all the cards and end up with Wild Royal.

Ended up with 4 Wild Royals and 3 Jacks or Better quads for the day.










Another 5 Aces Hit but not playing Bonus Deuces Wild ...


OTABILL
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Post by OTABILL »

Interesting report. Thanks

Vman96
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Post by Vman96 »

Bonus is similar to a crappy ACE$ Bonus game without the ACE$ payout. That is 95.36% at 10/6, and ACE$ is worth about 0.24%, so 9/6 being 93.97% sounds right. :( Strategy isn't that far off of Bonus though. You treat 3 to a Royal draws like 9/6 DDB though (I didn't know that offhand).

6/5 DDB looks to be the best choice, 94.66% before the progressive. And remember that the $50k payout for the 10X Royal only adds about 0.208%. Just pathetic. UNLESS, they decided to change the 10X multiplier probabilities, but I'm sorta doubting it. But then I see this and scratch my head a bit more
STP Mega Progressive Media Sheet

They say the max payback is 94.43%, which is impossible, unless 6/5 DDB shorts another payback (like 5-Ks are 40 instead of 50 or possibly the straight being lowered to 15), or the average multiplier value has been lowered to help possibly depress the return. Given the 8/5 Double Bonus paytable pictured, either they have lowered the multiplier value to be near neutral (maybe even negative), or someone screwed up the math. If they used the Double STP multiplier breakdown instead (average multiplier 4.01X), that would be really bad, because the progressive would be twice as hard to hit.

When you get back there, can you check the help screen and see what they write for the average multiplier? And double check ALL the paybacks for 6/5 DDB as well. It's not in a picture. I'd appreciate it.

You should have told the IGT representative that these paytables are horrible, and if you would actually offer paytables just a few percent higher, this game might actually have a good chance to spread. People would flock to this if it was 8/5 DDB, imo. 6/5...that I'm not sure of (especially if the straight was shorted).

alpax
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Post by alpax »

The next time I make another trip (it will probably be towards the end of the month) I will be sure to take a snapshot of the other three games I missed. Most of these phone camera snapshots were rushed even before the ladies spotted me. I did not bother looking at the Help screens at the time, so I will look at that too. I got the 1 in 15 for STP trigger and 1 in 25 for 10x multiplier information from the Wizard of Odds site, but you have a point in which the rate of the STP triggers might be different to meet the stated return on the pamphlet.

I do normally ask questions, but for some reason I just wanted to play out the promotion and get out quick. I should have asked if the progressive was a state-wide or just the casino, I think it was me and the lady who lost $135 were playing and the progressive went up at least $5 in a few minutes. There have been million dollar slot progressive winners (Gold Series and The Walking Dead) at the casino, but I do not know if Bally's or Aristocrat pays out the winners. The pamphlet does say "First interstate Wide Area Progressive for video poker players" so this might also compete against the Golden Nugget locations.

The standard All Star Poker games were removed in favor of this STP progressive and a newer multi game variant machine (there are more of these). You are right about that people will be willing to play 8/5 DDB and there is a demand for it; I see many people play STP and Double STP (even a guy pictured behind the bank snapshot) at 8/5 DDB and for $5 coin in per point. I will probably try to send Action Gaming an e-mail with regards to the 6/5 DDB payout for this game. The only other time I heard of the existence of 6/5 DDB was on the cruise ship stories here.

Vman96
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Post by Vman96 »

The next time I make another trip (it will probably be towards the end of the month) I will be sure to take a snapshot of the other three games I missed. Most of these phone camera snapshots were rushed even before the ladies spotted me. I did not bother looking at the Help screens at the time, so I will look at that too. I got the 1 in 15 for STP trigger and 1 in 25 for 10x multiplier information from the Wizard of Odds site, but you have a point in which the rate of the STP triggers might be different to meet the stated return on the pamphlet.

I do normally ask questions, but for some reason I just wanted to play out the promotion and get out quick. I should have asked if the progressive was a state-wide or just the casino, I think it was me and the lady who lost $135 were playing and the progressive went up at least $5 in a few minutes. There have been million dollar slot progressive winners (Gold Series and The Walking Dead) at the casino, but I do not know if Bally's or Aristocrat pays out the winners. The pamphlet does say "First interstate Wide Area Progressive for video poker players" so this might also compete against the Golden Nugget locations.

The standard All Star Poker games were removed in favor of this STP progressive and a newer multi game variant machine (there are more of these). You are right about that people will be willing to play 8/5 DDB and there is a demand for it; I see many people play STP and Double STP (even a guy pictured behind the bank snapshot) at 8/5 DDB and for $5 coin in per point. I will probably try to send Action Gaming an e-mail with regards to the 6/5 DDB payout for this game. The only other time I heard of the existence of 6/5 DDB was on the cruise ship stories here.

The meter could be decent, they definitely have plenty of room to work with...lol It might be networked, otherwise the meter might take a longgggggggg time to go up. But then again, if you went later in the day and the machine had been hooked up a week or two earlier (they are probably doing this promo to point out to people..."Here! Play this!"), the meter could be up $682 from base I guess without a network. Assuming a 0.25% meter (puke) that's $272,800 coin-in (60,622 rounds of play). That requires about 200 machine-hours at a slowish pace. But unless I've bungled the math badly, the jackpot needs to be massive to catch up to even standard 8/5 DDB. The jackpot will likely never get that high before this gets yanked off the floor in its current state.

I can't blame you for wanting to play the +EV promo and get out of there, but I would have loved to ask more detailed questions to them, but they probably would then ask, "how do you know all this?"

And as for 6/5 DDB, it's around on Game Kings unfortunately. Ameristar St. Louis's bartop upstairs has it with some terrible progressive meter (0.05% maybe? So dumb.) Venetian Sports Book bar is also 6/5 DDB for quarters/50c. I think most IGT "gimmick games" are not allowed to have 6/5 DDB. This is the only one I'm currently aware of that allows 6/5 DDB.

Vman96
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Post by Vman96 »

Update: I saw the game at Golden Nugget. DDB is 6/5/3 instead of 6/5/4.

In my haste and forgetfulness, I was short on time that night, I didn't check the help screen for average multiplier value though. :( I'm guessing they shaved it down a little given the IGT media sheet as 8/5/4 DB without a progressive would pay 94.45% in standard STP.

alpax
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Post by alpax »

I forgot about posting an update (I will edit this post), I did stop by this past weekend and took the snapshots. I did not have a noteworthy trip as I played cheap strategy again on Bonus Deuces Wild.

I also noticed on the DDB the Straight is shorted from 4 for 1 to 3 for 1 as you've noticed.

6/5/3 DDB



Bonus Deuces Wild



6/5 TDB



Help Page 1

The multiplier still says it happens 1 in 15 games. Average multiplier value of 4.05x. Remains the same as the usual STP?



Help Page 2

The one paragraph explaining what it takes to win the jackpot



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