Video Poker DDBP

While playing Bob Dancer's VP simulator DDBP, it says to hold a single ace when you have an unsuited king, queen or jack with it, can someone explain why you don't want to hold an additional pay card when you draw

 

You're holding the single ace in hopes of getting three more on the draw, one of the DDBP bonus hands.

 

Because four Aces have an extremely high payout on DDB.

 

This is indeed the reason.
Assume the hand you are dealt is: A of spades, J of hearts, 6 of diamonds, 3 of clubs, 2 of spades.
In this scenario, holding only the Ace is the best hold at 46.3%. Holding the Ace plus the unsuited King is the second best hold at 44.4%.
If you hold the unsuited King, you completely eliminate your chances of making a hand of four Aces.

 

You also break up a 2 pair if one of the pair is A's. When I first started playing DDB those were the two biggest strategy differences I noticed right away.

 

And break a full house with three Aces.

As for the single Ace thing, it's not a super big error individually (4% relative to optimal - often considered "low" by training software) to hold the offsuit high card with it. But the problem is the situation comes up a LOT!!!

If you treat offsuit high cards like you normally would in Jacks or Better, it costs you 0.29% at 9/6 DDB overall, WAY more than I guessed!

It's almost as big of an error as the most common error I see. Not holding 2 pair with a pair of face cards in DDB, which costs you 0.43% overall at 9/6 DDB.

And of course, hitting 4 Aces from just one is a LOT of fun!!!

You sure about that? Ignore that this one was AK suited...



But yeah, you reduce your chances of making 4 Aces by a factor of 4 by holding an offsuit face card.

 

This is why:

 

I'm positive. If you are dealt an Ace and a King, and you only hold the King, you completely eliminate your chances of making a hand of four aces.

 

Haha you're right. missed that you didn't say to hold the Ace too. [emoji5]

 

Always break the Aces full and you're guaranteed quads! :evillaugh





Too bad it was only BP and not DDB!

 

Actually, on BP you're not supposed to...but looks like you got really lucky!
Kinda like ATs aye Doug? hahahaha

 

Actually at 6/5 Bonus it's correct to break Aces full, I've done it a few times with no success.

Also at 6/5 Bonus Deluxe, it's correct to break any full house since any quad is 80 for 1 and break any high two pair since two pair is only 1 for 1. BeeeJay really needs to stop playing that game...:evillaugh