Magic Deal Poker Strategy for DDB Players

[alpax]

I dedicate this guide to Tedlark, a well known DreamCard player here and a long time member who was able to achieve 3 million club points on this site. On another thread, Ted has shown interest in this game so this one will be for you!

This month's new game at VideoPoker.com is Magic Draw Poker. Based on the vote projections for the next weekly contest, this game is leading by a wide margin and will likely be available for everyone to play for a week. I've read about this game on Mr. Dancer's article of new video poker games from the 2016 Global Gaming Expo at the CDC Gaming Reports website.

Bob Dancer CDC - New Video Poker Games at G2E 2016



The game is similar to Dreamcard in a way, but a quote from Mr. Dancer to describe the game in a nutshell

[QUOTE]
In general, I liked this game. It is similar to Dream Card poker, except
â–      Dream Card has one mystery card whose value is determined BEFORE the draw. You can change the dream card if you don’t like the card selected by the machine.
â–      Magic Deal has one, two, or three mystery cards who value is determined AFTER the draw. You cannot change this mystery card, although in no cases did I see a hand where the machine picked a less-than-max-value card.
â–      Dream Card has, in my opinion, obnoxious sound effects which are missing from this game.

[/QUOTE]

On the weekly column on Gambling With An Edge, Mr. Dancer offers perspective from a player standpoint.

[QUOTE]

For players who “test the waters” by playing a few hands to see how things are going, this game will very frequently cause your score to drop like a stone. For players who believe that today’s score matters, this game will cause many of you to go away muttering.
The correct plays when you receive one or more mystery cards aren’t always that obvious. Letting an M stand for a mystery card and assuming you were playing a game just like 9/6 Double Double Bonus (except for the 10-coin per line ante and the occasional mystery card(s)), how would you play this hand: K♠ Q♠ Q♦ M M?
Deuces Wild players who see the mystery cards as basically equivalent to wild cards will hold QQMM, which would be correct in Deuces Wild. This is the wrong play here. KQMM is a much better play. Why is the play in this game different from the way you’d play in Deuces Wild? Because if you draw one of the remaining three royal cards in Deuces Wild, you’ll get paid for a wild royal, frequently worth 125 coins. If you draw one of the same cards in Mystery Card, you’ll get paid for a 4,000-coin natural royal.

[/QUOTE]


Prepare to stomach losing for that big “Magic Draw” opportunity

This game requires a 5 credit bonus wager for a total of 10 credit wager to be eligible for the bonus.

The screenshot states that the Magic Draws occur at a rate of 9.50% for both 9/5 and 9/6 DDB on the HELP menu.



As a trade off to having to stomach double wagers for no feature triggered most of the time, the game does offer an increased return over the standard counterpart.



In order to play this game, there is a prerequisite to have standard 9/6 DDB strategy down pat since that is what the player will be playing most of the time (90.50% rate).

For those are lacking confidence in their ability to play standard DDB, there is valuable help available to those seeking to improve. I highly recommend the two options.

1.     Attending Mr. Dancer's VP Seminar at the SouthPoint on February 1 2017 for the Double Double Bonus if you can make it out to Las Vegas around then.
2.     The Winner’s Guide Vol 6 to Double Double Bonus by Mr. Dancer and the late Liam Daily.

http://bobdancer.com/product/winners-gu ... onus-poker

The pay schedule is unaffected if the Bonus is not triggered



The Value of the Bonus

The 10-coin game pays out a return of 99.398% for 9/6 DDB. But in a 5-coin return table, it must be multiplied by a factor of 2.

.99398 x 2 = 1.98796

According to the Help page, you will not get the Bonus 90.50% of the time and will play standard 9/6 DDB which has a 98.981% payoff.

Total Return from adding up Bonus and Non-Bonus situations
.9050 x .989808 + .095 x <Bonus Game Value> = 1.98796

Multiply out the value of Non-Bonus situation
0.89577624 + .095 x <Bonus Game Value> = 1.98796

Subtract 0.89577624 from both sides
.095 x <Bonus Game Value> = 1.09218376

Divide .095 from both sides
<Bonus Game Value> = 11.49667

The Bonus game has to return 1149.67% on average to meet the game’s expected return!

The Help Pages state that 1 to 3 Magic cards may be drawn. Is it an equal probability that the player gets 1, 2, or 3 Magic Cards? From looking how much of a boost you get with 3 Magic Cards where the lowest possible hand is a quad, it is not, more on that later.

The Strategy for DDB Players When Magic Cards Appear

One Magic Cards Dealt Strategy

1.     4 Royal Flush Cards (4000)
2.     4 Aces (2000)
3.     3 Aces with 2, 3, 4 Kicker (2000)
4.     3 Aces (1125)
5.     4 2s, 3s, 4s (800)
6.     3 2s, 3s, 4s with Ace, 2, 3, 4 Kicker (800)
7.     3 2s, 3s, 4s (508.33)
8.     4 Straight Flush Cards (250)
9.     3 or 4 5s thru Kings (250)
10.     3 Royal Flush Cards (178.85 to 190.42)
11.     2 Aces (108.10)
12.     2 2s, 3s, 4s (57.39)
13.     2 Pairs 5s thru Kings [Forms a Full House] (45)
14.     2 5s thru Kings (36.13)
15.     3 Straight Flush Cards No Gaps (34.17)
16.     Flush [all 4 Suited] (30)
17.     3 Straight Flush Cards 1 Card Gaps including 234 (27.4)
18.     2 Royal Flush Cards (23.13)
19.     3 Straight Flush Cards 2 Card Gaps or Ace-Low Straight Flush (23.13)
20.     Straight (20)
21.     Single Ace Rank Card (19.98)
22.     2 Suited Kicker Cards [2, 3, 4] (15.27)
23.     Single 4 Rank Card (14.26)
24.     Single 3 Rank Card (13.97)
25.     Single 2 Rank Card (13.75)
26.     Two Card No Gap Straight Flush [Jack + 9 is the only exception with 1 gap] (13.3)
27.     Single Jack Rank Card (13.1)
28.     Single Queen Rank Card [Discard All if a same suited 9 or 2 suited cards are present] (12.85)
29.     Discard All (12.8)

Two Magic Cards Dealt Strategy

1.     3 Royal Flush Cards (4000)
2.     3 Aces (2000)
3.     2 Aces with 2, 3, 4 Kicker (2000)
4.     2 Aces (1142.86)
5.     3 2s, 3s, 4s (800)
6.     2 2s, 3s, 4s with Ace, 2, 3, 4 Kicker (800)
7.     2 2s, 3s, 4s (514.29)
8.     2 Royal Flush Cards (291.12 to 324.80)
9.     3 Straight Flush Cards (250)
10.     2 5s thru Kings (250)
11.     1 Ace with 2, 3, 4 Suited Kicker (202.35)
12.     Single Ace Rank Card (193.51)
13.     1 Ace with 2, 3, 4 Unsuited Kicker [Play ONLY with 2 Kickers are present] (185.71)
14.     2 Kicker Cards [2, 3, 4] (133.67)
15.     Single 4 Rank Card (106.76)
16.     Single 3 Rank Card (106)
17.     Single 2 Rank Card (105.26)
18.     Discard All (89.8)

Three Magic Cards Dealt Strategy

1.     2 Royal Flush Cards (4000)
2.     Ace with 2, 3, 4 Kicker (2000)
3.     2 Aces (2000)
4.     Single Ace Rank Card (1416)
5.     2 Kicker Cards [2, 3, 4] (800)
6.     Single Kicker Card [2, 3, 4] (616)
7.     Single Royal Rank Card [10, Jack, Queen, King] <6 and 7 are worth same EV> (616)
8.     Discard all (583.06)

Analyzing the payout returns when Magic cards appear to boost your return

One Magic Card - Two Pairs is not possible to achieve



Total Return with Correct Strategy - 634.54% or an average win of 31.73 credits per hand



Two Magic Cards - Full House is not possible to achieve, a win is guaranteed as the minimum the player will get is a Three of a Kind

EDITED: Incorrect Flush Odds



Total Return with Correct Strategy - 3877.63% or an average win of 193.88 credits per hand


Three Magic Cards - The worst possible hand in this situation is a 5s thru Kings quad! Though it is legitimate to form Straight Flush with the Magic Cards, it would be irrelevant as it is valued the same as a quad. Just a single Ace, 2, 3, 4 appearing will make it greater than a Straight Flush so it will be negligible.



Total Return with Correct Strategy - 17140.96% or an average win of 857 credits per hand



From this, it can be deduced that:

If One Magic Card appears every time a Bonus is triggered, it will not be able to compensate for the other non-Bonus hands.

The rate of the Two Magic Cards appearing cannot exceed 29.18% of the time, so the even appearance rate of 33.33% if they were equal chance is disproved here.

The rate of the Three Magic Card appearing cannot exceed 6.707% of the time. It will be a very long time for the player to even get a chance to play with Three Magic Cards.

The Help page does not indicate how the Magic Cards are distributed. As long as one of the rates is known, the rates of the other two can be figured out.

In a perspective by using guesswork, if Three Magic Cards appearing was set at 1% frequency (1 out of every 100 Bonus events), the frequency of One Magic Card will need to be set at about 88.2% and Two Magic Cards will need to be set at about 10.8%

634.54 * 0.882 + 3877.63 * 0.108 + 17140.96 * 0.01 = 1149.85792 which is very near the Bonus Value of 1149.67

If you wish to play this at a live casino for real money wagers, explore the game on the site so that you can be fully mentally prepared to play. Maybe nickels will be the feasible denomination to play with.

[Vman96]

Seems like a variance disaster, but once again, hats off to you alpax for this analysis!

[Tedlark]

Yes, many thanks for your hard work alpax. My first week of playing this game here confirms both what alpax and Bob Dancer say: get ready for some big mood swings as this game has them.

As for strategy I also concur as occasionally a player will need to discard the obvious to go for the not so obvious. There have been several times that I was dealt a small card (2-4) along with a high card (J-K) and 3 Magic cards. Some players may look through the 3 and hold the high card,giving them 4OAK high cards but the difference between this game and Dream Card revolves around the Magic (mystery) cards. If a player holds the 3 along with the 3 magic cards and an ace pops up next to the 3 then the magic cards will automatically become aces and now you've got AWAK and not quad 3's with a kicker.

My overall impression of the game so far is positive and I too; like playing Deuces Wild Bonus too because those quad ducks will come out of thin air. But be ready because your credits can go into thin air quickly.

What I'm trying to stress though is that this is a game where you need to keep an eye out for the not so obvious.

Good luck everyone.

[asteroid]

Fantastic analysis Alpax - thank you very much for your hard work. So it looks like the subtlety that must be grasped by people who have not played this game yet like myself is that the value (rank and suit) of the magic cards are not necessarily tied to the value of the held cards only, but can also be tied to the cards replacing the discards. One thing that is still not clear to me though is, if more than one magic card is given for a hand can the 2nd or 3rd magic card take on a value based on the the value of the 1st magic card (and the 5 non-magic cards created as a result of holding or not) or are the magic card values only a function of the conventional (non-magic) 5 cards once the 5 card non-magic hand is resolved ?Thanks.

[Tedlark]

asteroid I believe that yes; that subsequent magic cards after the 1st can change in value relating to the 1st magic card that displayed.

And I too have found the appearance of the magic card feature to be a bit less frequent.

[asteroid]

Thanks Ted, I'll keep this in mind once the game becomes available for non-gold members like myself to play. asteroid I believe that yes; that subsequent magic cards after the 1st can change in value relating to the 1st magic card that displayed.

And I too have found the appearance of the magic card feature to be a bit less frequent.

[Chicagoan]

I am a fairly decent player with lots of experience. That said, I think this game is the ultimate slot machine experience. I played it 3 times for a total of roughly 17,000 hands +/-. In those roughly 17,000 hands +/- I received 3 magic cards once, and 2 magic cards 11 times. All of the remaining bonus situations were with 1 magic card. Obviously, the 3 magic card hand was a heck of a hit but it did not come even close to overcoming the massive loss that I encountered during the 3 sessions. The only way to win at this game is to play it like a slot --- hope for an early big hit and then grab the cash and go home. I predict that it will prove to be a very big profit item for the casinos for a short period of time until the players get wise.

[alpax]

I appreciate the gratitude and comments, all great opinions. The player should be cautious about playing the game for a stretch (an increased return should be a motivating factor), but this game is an outstanding choice for hit and run.

The Magic card should be treated like a Wild card by the player since it will turn into a card that yields the best possible result after the player holds and draws new cards. This game will be on an IGT unit with modern computing power and a nice looking LED screen, which will be powerful enough exhaust all possible combinations in a small fraction of a second.

With 1 Magic Card slot, it leaves 4 cards are displayed face up to the player after they get dealt cards, hold the cards, and draw new ones. There are 48 other cards and it will go through all 48 cards to see what yields the best possible 5 card hand.

With 2 Magic Card slots, it leaves 3 cards are displayed face up to the player after they get dealt cards, hold the cards, and draw new ones. There are 49 other cards.

49 choose 2 (you could type this on a Google search) to get 1176

It will go through all 1176 possible 2 card combinations to see what yields the best possible 5 card hand.

With 3 Magic Card slots, it leaves 2 cards are displayed face up to the player after they get dealt cards, hold the cards, and draw new ones. There are 50 other cards.

50 choose 3 (you could type this on a Google search) to get 19600

It will go through all 19600 possible 3 card combinations to see what yields the best possible 5 card hand. Yes even this is all evaluated in a fraction of a second!

Keep in mind that the rate of Magic Cards appearing on Triple Double Bonus (TDB) is 4.05% which is far less often than the other games, probably going to be the game played by most on next week's contest.

Bonus Poker is at 13%
Double Bonus is at 10.75%
Jacks or Better is at 13.65%
Bonus Poker Deluxe is at 10.41%
Bonus DW is at 13.8%
Deuces Wild is at 14.6%

I forgot to mention that the 2 or 3 Magic Card frequency differs by the pay table as well.

9/6 DDB gets about a 0.4% boost in return from its standard counterpart (98.981% vs 99.398%).

9/5 DDB gets about a 0.9% boost in return from its standard counter part (97.787% vs 98.778%).

Both have 9.50% frequencies, so the bigger boost seen in 9/5 DDB can only be compensated through higher 2 or 3 card Magic Card rates than 9/6 DDB.

I can also recommend this game for those looking for a 4000 credit royal flush payout much quicker than grinding it out on a single line game.

[Vman96]

Both have 9.50% frequencies, so the bigger boost seen in 9/5 DDB can only be compensated through higher 2 or 3 card Magic Card rates than 9/6 DDB.


I wouldnt expect this to be the case. I think bigger boost in 9/5 DDB is seen due to the base game simply contributing less to the overall return. The same phenomenon exists in dream card.

For example, X = Magic Card return

9/6 DDB:
0.98981*0.905 + X*0.095 = 0.99398*2

X=11.49665

Now plug into 9/5 DDB...you had a typo in this number:
0.97873*0.905 + 11.49665*0.095 = 1.9779326

1.9779326/2 = 0.9890 which is higher than the 98.77% claimed for 9/5 DDB. But this also makes sense because sometimes the magic card will make a flush the best possible deal, or you back into one on the draw. And you'll get paid less on that with the 9/5 paytable.

I see players screwing this up a lot by going for regular flush or straight draws with the magic card. Probably won't take off like dream card.

[Tedlark]

The game is growing on me.