Video Poker Forum

I'm off to good start this year playing the same game as I always have $2 DDB, I was reading a post a while ago concerning ClassII and ClassIII video poker. I believe it may have been Shadowman who said the way to tell the difference was to throw away a winning hand and if it was ClassII you would get the same return. Over the years I've always thrown away certain full houses off the deal such as trip Aces with whatever and on occasions even trip 2's, 3's and 4's, over the years of playing at Harrah's I never noticed anything odd, sometimes it worked out great and other times not so good. Just last week I tossed away a dealt full house there, A-A-A-10-10, got A-2 on the draw $4K. What I began to think of was the "other casino" where I took many a beating over the years and questioned as to whether or not it was truly legit, it appeared to be on the surface and was said to be ClassIII video poker but I still wasn't convinced because it was bad beyond belief for me there. For whatever reason I had never converted a tossed full house for a better hand/handpay. I could hit the Royal but Aces and everything else lagged far below statistics every year I played there. I hadn't really tried what Shadowman suggested so I thought I'd go by and give it a shot, I decided I would only try it on dealt full houses that had the chance of being converted to a handpay or quad 2,3 and 4's because it's tough enough there playing by the rules. My first trip there I got zero chances and ended up losing $800, I played for about 4 hours thx to 3 small quads and 2 straight flushes. I stopped by there again to give it a shot, my first opportunity came with A-A-A-9-9 off the deal, tossed the 9's and got back 9-9, huh. Second opportunity 2-2-2-K-K off the deal, tssed the K's and got back 9-9, wow. Third chance came with A-A-A-J-J off the deal, tossed the J's and got back 6-6, now I'm pissed and ready to go because I got this crap finally figured out. I'm down to 20 credits, might as well play it out and hit the road, next hand I'm dealt total crap, hold a 2 and hit draw, 2-2-2-8, $800, I can't help but laugh. Maybe I'd found the secret to hitting those type of quads, you gotta sneak up on them. Anyway I decided I'll knock the other few credits out take the $800 to limit my losses for my little experiment, down to my last hand and hit a royal $8K, that makes 4 this year. So what did I learn from my experiment, nothing really, I'm just as confused as ever.   

Way to go on the last few hands. Why did you hold just a 2? What is the name and where is this "other casino?" That may go a long way to figuring out if it's class II or III.

We pretty much figured it out the video poker was Class III quite a while back, for me it was the place that damaged my belief in the fairness of the game which had stood for many, many years. I used to hear people who played very little complain about the game and sometimes would take the time explain the odds according to the amount of hands played but all that went out the door with the extended beating I was taking at that casino. It drove me nuts trying to figure out why I could hit the royals but the other stuff was like spotting a unicorn in my case, for 4 years running I hit royals equal to or above the average for hands played but fell far short on everything else. I always thought it was crazy that I played $2 DDB and every year I would hit more royals than Aces w/kicker. I pretty much just accepted it wasn't them just my bad luck and moved on, I think everyone has a favorite casino where they do better, mine just happens to be Harrah's. Oh by the way, I held the 2 out of frustration, I think I had 2-7-9-4-8 off the deal and said what the heck. Sometimes stupid pays.