July Contest: Ultimate X Poker

[Webman]

Dear VideoPoker.com members,
It's time for our Free July Contest featuring Ultimate X Poker.
If
you haven’t played it Ultimate X Poker yet - either on the Web site or
in a casino – you’ll love the bonus multiplier that’s awarded based on
your previous hand. This game can really produce some high scores.
The Grand Prize winner will receive the following:
$500 Visa Gift Card VideoPoker.com Merchandise Package Free 1 year subscription to both Casino Player and Strictly Slots magazines

Four runners-up will also receive gift cards and a VideoPoker.com merchandise package full of goodies.
For our Bonus award this month we're giving away 3 months of GOLD membership to the top five bonus winners.
Bonus scores will based on the sum of all your multiplier values earned in a single session.
To start playing, click here any time after noon Pacific today or visit the home page.

[king_aevil]

Using a program like WinPoker, it's pretty easy to develop a strategy for maximizing the multiplier values (irrespective of the credit score).  For the Jacks or Better games, the optimal strategy is surprisingly similar to regular 6/9 Jacks or Better, with a few startling exceptions.  For example, if four 5s and a 6 are dealt, the proper move is to discard one of the 5s and keep the 6!I calculated that using optimal strategy, the expected multiplier total over 199 hands of Triple Play is 878 (hand 200 doesn't count since the multipliers for that hand aren't available).Because the individual hand in each set of three are correlated, it's not easy to calculate the standard deviation (SD) of the total.  If we assume all 600 individual hands in a contest round are independent, the SD is about 53.  The true SD is somewhat larger.Good luck, everybody!

[New2vp]

Good info, Dr. Aevil, You actually do get credit for multipliers earned in the 200th hand in the "Bonus award" even though those multipliers do not figure into the regular credits earned because they would be applied to a non-existent 201st hand.So, if you're playing Jacks or Better (or Bonus Poker Deluxe), the expected multiplier total would move up to 881.30.  When figuring in the covariance (or correlation, depending on what formula you use) to account for the non-independence of the 3 hands, the standard deviation for the total is about 66.86.  You're right that WinPoker has no facility for helping with this calculation.If you are trying to get the highest EV for the multiplier total, you might want to choose a different game to squeeze another 8 points out of the EV with a slightly larger standard deviation.  The relevant numbers are 889.23 and 68.13.I'll leave it to another poster to suggest why another game might be better for this endeavor. 

[faygo]

One thought. JOB because you hold all two pair. Or maybe BP because you hold for flushes more. Or maybe just hit draw on any game and take your chances.

[New2vp]

One thought. JOB because you hold all two pair. Or maybe BP because you hold for flushes more. Or maybe just hit draw on any game and take your chances. Good thoughts!  Both JOB and BP have the best return in actual credits when playing a strategy to maximize multiplier totals.  And since the multiplier is greater for 2 pair than for a high pair, the correlation between actual credit payoffs and multiplier totals for two pairs may have something to do with that.Two pair is one of the best non-pat hands that you can get when trying to maximize multipliers; it is better than a dealt royal flush!  With a dealt royal flush, the proper play, which goes against every bit of experience that a vp player has, would be to forego the 2 multiplier points for each royal by tossing the ace and hoping for flushes or straights, which are both better than the 2 points you would get if you got the suited 9 for a straight flush.BP is the answer to my question, but there is a different reason that it has a better return (and a slightly different strategy) than JOB when trying to maximize expected multiplier totals.  DB and DDB are also slightly better than JOB, but the reasoning there is not quite as clear-cut.The best thought above was: "Or maybe just hit draw on any game and take your chances."  No strategy is likely to beat someone who just happens to hit 3 or 4 more dealt full houses!

[Eduardo]

In a contest, going for those multipliers is good for another reason, besides the bonus score: Better odds of having a 12x up if you get lucky with a dealt royal on the next hand. You don't want to cost yourself too many points with this approach and end up 6th, but to win you'll need some big multiplied royals to start with.