TRIPLE BONUS PLUS VIDEO POKER STRATEGY

Bonus Poker variations. You can find it on the wildly popular ‘Game King‘ multigame machines all over Nevada and in land-based casinos all across North America and that alone means it can’t qualify for obscurity. For whatever reason, however, it’s just not a game you hear talked about much by either ‘sharp’ video poker players or recreational gamblers. It could be that it’s too similar to the basic ‘Bonus Poker‘–devotees of that game have no reason to seek it out, while players that want more ‘action‘ look for some of the more esoteric variations. At the same time, it’s not a favorite of ‘sharp‘ players due to a mediocre return of 98.7% for the most common pay table. For the sake of completeness, we’ll go over the rules and strategy. Who knows—this might end up being a game that you really enjoy.

The basic premise of all of the ‘Bonus Poker‘ variations is that a player receives a ‘bonus‘ for certain four of a kind draws. The difference between the various types of ‘Bonus Poker‘ is the specific rules surrounding how these bonuses are awarded. ‘Triple Bonus Plus‘ offers a pay table that is very similar to the basic ‘Bonus Poker‘. So similar, as a matter of fact, that all of the winning hands are identical. The only difference is in the payout for each hands. As the name suggests, the payout for Four of a Kind with Aces and the Four of a Kind (2-4) hands are tripled while the payout for every other ‘Four of a Kind‘ hand is doubled as is the payout for a Straight Flush (I assume these hands are the ‘plus‘). The payout for ‘Two Pair‘ is reduced from 2/4/6/8/10 on basic ‘Bonus Poker‘ to 1/2/3/4/5, or the same as Jacks or Better.

As we noted above, the return on ‘Triple Bonus Plus‘ is nothing special. The best available pay table returns 99.8% which isn’t bad but the most common pay table pays back just 98.7%. You can find pay tables returning as little as 96.6%. The pay table we’re reproducing below is the most common (98.7% return) pay table.

Let’s take a look at the Triple Bonus Plus pay table:

TRIPLE BONUS PLUS VIDEO POKER PAY TABLE

TRIPLE BONUS PLUS VIDEO POKER STRATEGY

The strategy for ‘Triple Bonus Plus‘ is essentially the same as ‘Bonus Poker‘. There are some minor differences that we’ll address at the end of this article:

• Royal Flush
• Straight Flush
• Any Four of a Kind
• 4 to a Royal Flush
• Full House
• Flush
• Straight
• Three of a Kind
• 4 to a Straight Flush
• Two Pair
• High Pair
• 3 to a Royal Flush
• 4 to a Flush
• KQJ10 Unsuited
• Low pair
• 4 to an outside straight
• 3 to a straight flush
• AKQJ Unsuited
• 4 to an inside straight w/ three high cards
• Unsuited JQK
• Unsuited JQ
• KQ, KJ Unsuited
• J10 Suited
• AK, AQ, AJ Unsuited
• Ace
• KT, QT Suited
• Jack, King or Queen
• Discard Everything

FINAL NOTE ABOUT STRATEGY

Since a high pair pays the same as two pair there’s no reason to hold a two pair including a pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings, or Aces. You can just hold the high pair and draw three—that way you’re still alive for a 4 of a Kind and if you don’t hit anything you’ll get the same 5 coin return with max bet.