Love those dealt 4 Aces w/234

[TripleTriple]

One way to avoid the sting is to not change games, short coin, drop denomination or play certain pay tables that short premium payouts.
Playing TDB exclusively I feel little sting, only denomination regret- which I do my best to minimize. Yes there is the reduced return of 2 pair and 3oak but someone has to fund the hand pays (and of course I get the bonus if dealt). I just never understood DW for a number of reasons. Worthless straights, pauper quads, deuces interfering with naturals, and complex strategies. I like deuces like a coworker or business associate. I love Aces like a girlfriend. And her three besties.

[atomic2025]

NSU returns 99.73%, and 9/7 TDB returns 99.58% - essentially the same in the long run. But when you break each game down by the easy hands, the picture changes.

On NSU (well, the basic strategy which pays about 99.71% is very easy to learn), if you strip out the two toughest hands - the Royal Flush and 4 Deuces - the game still returns about 94%.

On 9/7 TDB, if you remove the big drivers - RF, Straight Flush, Premium Quads, Aces, and Low Quads(234) - the return drops to around 80%.

During the time (most of the time) when you’re only getting regular or easy hands, if you’re playing a $5 game, then for every $100 bet (just 4 hands), you’ll average about $15 more on NSU than on TDB. That’s a huge difference in the “easy‑hand” portion of the pay table - but your brain won’t really register it, because those common hands aren’t nearly as exciting or memorable as the big ones.

[olds442jetaway]

Very hard for me to win on regular Deuces. Easier on Bonus Deuces as long as I get the bigger hands. Sometimes on that game, 5 Aces saves me if no Royal or quad deuces appears

[Tedlark]

On 9/7 TDB, if you remove the big drivers - RF, Straight Flush, Premium Quads, Aces, and Low Quads(234) - the return drops to around 80%.

Why do you consider a Straight Flush to be a big driver in TDB?

[New2vp]

Ted, I agree with Atomic's conclusion, but your question is relevant as well. In this thumbnail analysis, there are more than 4 times as many "big" hands eliminated from TDB as there were eliminated from NSUD. But even if we eliminate an equal number of TDB's big hands, the conclusion would be that on the "smaller" hands, the EV for NSUD is higher. Of course, most sort of already know that, as the reason to play TDB is that it is more exciting when you hit (or even think about) the more frequent huge payoffs, as Atomic indicated.

I don't think the TDB strategy is any harder than NSUD, but I play TDB much more frequently, so I may a bit biased in that assessment. Given the choice for a couple hours play, I would likely choose NSUD over 9/7 TDB. Alas, in my part of the country, neither is available in casinos.