Editor's Note: Liam W. Daily and Bob Dancer immersed themselves in Double Double Bonus (DDB) a while back when finishing Volume 6 of their Winner's Guide series. This led to the following discussionBob Dancer is one of the world's foremost video poker experts. He is a regular columnist for Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and the Las Vegas Review-Journa land has written an autobiography and a novel about gambling. He provides advice for tens of thousands of casino enthusiasts looking to play video poker. Bob's website is www.bobdancer.com regarding the strategy of the players who tackle this game.

1. Double Double Bonus Poker Training
2. Double Double Bonus Poker Tips
3. Double Double Bonus Video Poker Tips

One of our problems in the game is that we don't believe that most DDB players care much about pay schedules or exact strategies. Seeing a player play a 10/6 game (where full houses return 10 for 1 and flushes return 6 for 1 and the game returns 100.07%) is no surprise. Our eyebrows go up a little when we see players play 9/6 games, returning only 98.98% because giving up over a percent to the house is a large amount. What is a shocker is that players flock to a 9/5 game (97.87%) and even an 8/5 game (96.79%). We have to conclude that many players are so enamored by the possibility of receiving four aces with a 2, 3, or 4 'kicker', than they ignore the returns on the far more frequent full houses and flushes.

Since it is conceivable that serious players are interested in both the 10/6 and the 9/6 games, we'll present four complete strategies for these games: Beginners, Recreational, Basic, and Advanced. As in all of our strategies, 'Basic' is as accurate as you can get without taking penalty cards into consideration. 'Advanced' strategy gives you all of the penalty cards, except in some games we need to add appendixes because of the complicatedness. For the 9/5 and 8/5 DDB games, however, 'Basic' strategy is as advanced as we go. We see no reason to explore these games to the nth degree simply because anyone capable of learning this game perfectly would be smart enough to avoid such a poor-playing game.

One interesting hand is Ac Qc Tc 5c 3d. How would you play it? It turns out that when flushes pay 6 for 1 (as in a 9/6 or 10/6 pay schedule), the proper play is AQT5. When flush return only 5 for 1 (as in a 9/5 or 8/5 pay schedule), the proper play is AQT. It's not obvious to many people why the relationship between these two combinations would change. After, a reduction in the value for the flush reduces BOTH the value of the 3-card royal and the 4-card flush.

There is a general principle at work here: The fewer cards required for completion of a combination, the more the value of that combination is affected by a change in pay tables. Since the 4-card flush needs only one card to complete a flush, it is affected far more than the RF3, which needs two cards to complete a flush.

When we examine the hand Ac Qc Tc 5c 3d as we go from 9/6 to 9/5, we see the value of AQT is reduced by 16¢ and the value of AQT5 is reduced by 96¢. The reason for this big difference is that ending up with a flush starting from AQT is a 1-in-31 times event and ending up with a flush starting from AQT5 is a 1-in-5.2 times event. Since a flush is six times as likely from AQT5 as it is from AQT, that's why the strategy changed.

1. Very popular for its enhanced bonus-pay schedule, Double Double Bonus has recently become available in a 10/6 full-pay version that returns 100%. Bob Dancer's A Winner's Guide to Double Double Bonus Poker covers the full-pay version, as well as the much more common lesser-return versions of this game, with the same exhaustive coverage that has.
2. Double Double Bonus Poker video poker attracts those players who love to gather big payouts in a single hand. By increasing the payouts for all four of a kind hands, it brings players closer to the payouts they can rarely get in common video poker.
3. One additional note – sometimes higher paying hands are listed beneath lower paying hands. The Double Double Bonus Poker pay table has the straight flush which pays 50 for 1 listed above all of the four of a kind hands. However, in Double Double Bonus Poker four of a.

The next variation in the ‘Bonus Poker‘ family is a bit different than the two we’ve looked at in the most recent articles–‘Double Double Bonus‘ and ‘Super Double Double Bonus‘. ‘Triple Double Bonus’ is well liked by many ‘sharp‘ video poker players even though its returns aren’t anything special.The most player-friendly pay table returns 99.58% and the most common. Beginner Double Bonus Strategy. If you're a new Double Bonus player, you're probably better off to stick with the beginner chart for now. It's much more simple and will help you make decisions quickly as you learn the game. This chart isn't as accurate as the full chart below, so if you're looking for the best possible strategy use the full.

Another example where the play chances between games (because of the same general principle) is Ac 5h 6d 7d 9d. Most 'seat of the pants' players would either play the A by itself or the diamonds by themselves, whatever DDB pay schedule they were playing, but for a dollar player, keeping the diamonds is the better play in 9/6 DDB by 7.8¢ and the A by itself is the better play in 9/5 DDB by 9.7¢. As the return on a flush changed by 1 unit, the return on the diamonds (which become a flush once in 25 times) changes by 18.9¢ and the return on the A by itself (which becomes a flush once in 362 times) changes by 1.4¢.

Notice that this general principle doesn't tell you how to play any specific hand, but it does allow you to understand WHY the strategy changes from pay schedule to pay schedule. Take the hand Qc Jc 4d 5d 6d. Suppose you knew that the 456 was the better play in 9/6 DDB? What does that tell you about the correct play in 9/5 DDB? The answer is that the principle tells you that the diamonds would be reduced in value by MORE than the clubs, but it doesn't tell you 'by how much'. It turns out that in 9/5 DDB, the clubs ARE the better play. Knowing the principle helps you understand WHY.

Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker takes the concept of Double Double Bonus Poker to a new level. The payments for four of a kind hands are higher than you can find in most other games. And many different combinations of quad hands receive a boost on the game’s unique pay table.

Many gamblers are quite satisfied with the most basic version of video poker. This is known as Jacks or Better, and it takes Five-Card Draw play and replicates in the context of you versus the machine. If you can make winning poker hands, you will win money back based on the relatively scarcity of those hands.

If there’s a complaint with Jacks or Better, it’s that it’s a bit hard to come away with a jackpot-sized payback from a single hand. The royal flush provides it, but that’s an extremely rare hand in video poker. Other hands like the straight flush and four of a kind pay off well, but not so much that they really make a huge difference.

Video poker manufacturers responded to this criticism with Bonus Poker pay tables. Anytime you see the word “bonus” in the name of a video poker machine, you can expect to see significantly higher payments for four of a kind. These variations put more of the huge single-hand payoffs within reach.

Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker separates four of a kind payouts into more distinctive groups. That means that you have to consider which ranks of cards you have when thinking of trying to make them into four of a kind.

Like many of the Bonus Poker games, Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker compensates for the size of the four of a kind payoffs by reducing what you would get for some common winning hands. Most significantly, you’ll see that two pair returns only even money on the pay tables associated with these games.

What that means is that Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker makes for a volatile style of play. While you have a better chance of winning big in a hurry playing this game, you also have a better chance of quickly blowing through your bankroll as well.

In the following article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know to play Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker, either online or as part of a gambling website. We’ll explain how basic video poker works and what the unique pay tables of this game mean. And we’ll get into what you can expect in payback from this game while also talking about developing proper strategy to maximize your winnings.

Learning Basic Video Poker

For many people, video poker is the only gambling game that they choose to play. This is the case whether they’re in a casino or checking out a gambling website. Why mess with anything else, when they have an ideal game?

It’s easy to play. You can make excellent payback playing it. And it comes in a wide variety of options, such as Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker, so that play never has to become stale.

Double Double Bonus Poker Training

But you don’t have to just take our word for it. Take a look at all of the excellent advantages that come from playing video poker:

• You can learn to play in a jiffy. Many table games have all kinds of rules and conditions that make them confusing, while slot machines, with their bells and whistles, sometimes make it tough to tell whether you’re winning or losing. Video poker is easy to understand, especially once you’ve played a few hands.
• You don’t have to worry about anybody else. It’s easy to be intimidated by table games if you don’t know the etiquette or protocol behind playing them. But with video poker, it’s just you and the machine.
• You have the ability to impact your outcome with strategy. Playing slot machines requires you to mindlessly spin the reels without any chance to help your chances. Video poker allows you to make important decisions on each hand you play.
• You can use the probability of video poker to your advantage. For example, you can estimate your chances of making a winning hand both before and after the deal. And you can estimate how much a certain machine will pay back based on those probabilities and pay tables.
• You can get good money in return. The payback for video poker, on average, easily outdistances slot machine. And it’s pretty much on the same level with the top table games as well.
• You can play online and not miss a thing. Not all casino games easily translate to online play. But video poker looks pretty much the same in the casino and on a small computer screen.
• You can match your preferred style of play to the video poker game that you choose. Whether you’re a conservative type that likes to grind it out or a thrill-seeker looking for jackpots, video poker has a game for you. And, if you’re adventurous, you can even try a game with special features and extra wagers.

These are just some of the reasons why video poker games like Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker are so enjoyable and beneficial for gamblers. If you already know how to play the basic game, you can move onto the section about pay tables. But if not, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to play.

Step 1: Creating a Bankroll

You can’t win money playing video poker unless you put some money at stake. In the case of a video poker machine, that money can be inserted into the slot to provide your bankroll. When playing online, you’ll have to establish your bankroll through an account at a gambling website
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Once you have your bankroll in place, you’ll see that the money is translated on a video poker screen in coins or credits. Each coin or credit that you have will be worth one unit of the specific denomination for the game you’ve chosen. For example, one coin on a quarter machine will be worth 25 cents.

Step 2: Making a Bet

You might not realize it, but the amount you bet is actually part of your video poker strategy. While you can bet anywhere from one to five coins in a game like Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker, the ideal bet is five coins.

This is also known as the “Max Bet.” Many video poker machines even have a “Max Bet” button that you can push specifically to make this wager and speed up the process.

Most winning hands in video poker pay off in exact proportion to how much you bet. For example, a three of a kind hand pays off at 3 to 1 on most pay tables. As a result, you’ll get three coins back for a one-coin bet, six coins back for a two-coin bet, and so on, all the way through 15 coins back on a five-coin wager.

But there’s one exception to that, and it’s an important one. When you make a royal flush, the rarest and most lucrative hand in the game, on a wager of one through four coins, the payback is 250 to 1. But if you make that hand with a five-coin bet, the payback jumps to 800 to 1.

Passing up the opportunity to get this potential payback would be a mistake. Royal flushes are indeed rare. If you get one and haven’t wagered the max bet, you might not get a chance at one for another for a long time to come.

Step 3: Playing a Hand

As we mentioned above, video poker is reminiscent of a computerized version of the game known as Five-Card Draw Poker. In both cases, you get a five-card deal, then a draw round which includes discards and new cards drawn into your hand. In both cases, you’re trying to form the highest-ranking poker hand possible.

But there are differences. In Five-Card Draw, you have to worry about the hands of everyone else at the table, not just yours. The only way you walk away with the pot is if you have the best hand of all or get everybody else to fold.

In video poker, the only thing you have to worry about is making one of the winning hands on the pay table. If you do, you’ll end up with some money in return for your original bet.

Here are the winning hands you’ll be trying to form in Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker:

• Pair of jacks or better
• Two pair
• Three of a kind
• Straight (five cards of consecutive rank, like 3-4-5-6-7)
• Flush (five cards of same suit)
• Full house (three of a kind and two pair in the same hand)
• Four of a kind
• Straight flush (straight with five cards of same suit)
• Royal flush (ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of the same suit)

The hands at the top of this list are the easiest to make and also pay the least. As you move down the list, you’ll encounter hands that won’t come up often in gameplay. These are the hands that pay the most.

Once you make your bet and hit the “Deal” button, five cards will appear on your screen. These five cards will come from a simulation of a standard 52-card deck. Your chances of receiving any specific card are the same from deal to deal.

This is an important concept to understand. Many people succumb to the old video poker mistake in believing that certain cards are “due” to show up because they haven’t been seen on the machine for a while. Video poker, which includes a random number generator in its software, just doesn’t work like that.

When you see the five cards you’ve received, you’ll start looking for cards that could conceivably be included in one of the winning combinations listed above. You might have a winning hand right off the bat with the deal. Or you could be in a situation where you’ll need the draw to improve your hand.

On the draw, you can discard the cards from your hand that you don’t think are helping. In return, you’ll receive cards drawn from the top of that same simulated deck that was responsible for your deal.

The deck, at the time of the draw, will have 47 cards left in it. Remember that five will already have been used on the deal.

You will make your decisions about holds and discards based on a couple of factors. First of all, what are your chances of attaining a certain winning hand? How many cards do you need to draw to achieve these hands, and what are your chances of drawing them?

Next, how much does each of these winning hands pay? In some cases, it might be wiser to try to attain a rarer hand if it means the payoff would be significantly more than a common hand that would be easier to make. It’s the old risk-versus-reward scenario that comes up so often in the realm of gambling.

Let’s take a sample hand to see how this works. Imagine that you received the following deal in Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker.

This deal provides you with many different possibilities. You could hold the pair of kings, which is a winning hand as it is, even though it only pays off modestly. But it could always be improved on the draw with more kings or other matched cards.

Another possibility is the flush that can be achieved if you drop the king of hearts. All you need is another club, and you know that there are nine still remaining left in the deck of 47. You can work out the math quite easily and decide if the mid-priced payout for the flush is worth taking that chance.

Finally, you have three clubs of consecutive rank with the four, five, and six. That puts you two cards away from a straight flush, an extremely high-paying hand. But it would take an extremely lucky draw to get it, although you could also end up with a regular flush with two clubs of any kind.

Many hands of Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker won’t provide you with such a tough decision. You’ll be able to tell right away which cards are the best to hold. But this example illustrates why it’s important to learn proper strategy, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

Whatever you decide, you will complete the hand by pressing the buttons below the cards that you wish to hold. When you hit the “Draw” button, there’s no turning back. The computer will replace the cards that have been discarded and the hand will be complete.

If you wish, you can continue playing video poker as long as there are credits left to bet. Or you can cash out at any point and take your winnings from the machine. In an online setting, you would have to check the site’s conditions about withdrawing from your account.

As you can see, video poker is a relatively easy game once you get the rhythm of play down pat. Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker uses the same rhythm of play. But it separates itself through a unique set of pay tables.

Super Double Double Bonus Poker Video Poker Pay Tables

The pay table of a video poker machine tells you everything you need to know. It will show you not just how much each winning hand pays but also what your strategy should be. And by plugging the numbers on a pay table into a video poker calculator, you can tell what the payback percentage for that game is.

The Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker pay tables take the concept of Double Double Bonus Poker and build upon it aggressively. Let’s take a look at a full-pay Double Double Bonus table. By full pay, we mean the table that offers the highest payback percentage.

Double Double Bonus Pay Table

Now, let’s move on to the Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker full-pay table:

Super Double Double Bonus Pay Table

There are a lot of similarities. Both reward four aces with a two, three of four kicker more than any other four of a kind hand. What’s a kicker? Take a look at this hand:

In this hand, the four of clubs is the kicker. It is the card not involved in the four of a kind.

You’ll also notice that there are special pay table lines on the Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker for both four aces with a jack, queen, or king kicker, and four jacks through kings with a face card or ace kicker.

As a result, a big portion of the overall payback for Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker is allotted to four of a kind hands. Much more so, in fact, than in most other Bonus Poker variations.

You might be able to guess then that the payback is a little lower for some of the common hands. For example, you won’t be able to find a full house payment higher than 8 to 1. And, unsurprisingly, the payback for two pair sits at even money, which is the same as what you would get for a simple pair of jacks or better.

As we stated above, these low payouts for the common hands cause Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker to be a particularly volatile brand of video poker. You’ll need to build up a pretty significant bankroll if you wish to stay afloat for a long time playing this game.

The pay table above is the full-pay version of Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker. Here are some of the other pay table variations you might find at casinos or online gambling sites:

Payback Percentage for Super Double Double Bonus Poker Video Poker

If you’re planning on playing video poker on a regular basis in an attempt to make a solid profit, you’ll need to keep an eye on the payback percentage. It’s computed by combining the pay table amounts with the probabilities of making a winning hand.

You don’t have to do the computing yourself. Most major games like Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker will have their payback percentages listed somewhere on the internet. Or you can use a video poker calculator.

Payback percentage is an average, meaning that it might not relate to your session exactly. You can get lucky and win a lot in a hurry, or you can lose a bunch right off the bat. Your payback percentage will be skewed, in those cases, by a short sample size.

But if you play Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker over a long period of time, you can expect your results to hew closely to the quoted percentage. And the good news is that, for the full-pay version of the game, that percentage is outstanding.

If you find a full-pay version of Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker, you can expect a percentage of 100.8%. To put in that perspective, the breakeven mark is 100%. In other words, you can expect to win money with this pay table over the long haul of play.

Double Double Bonus Poker Tips

It is very rare to find any gambling game with a payback over 100%. Such games remove the so-called “house edge.” As a matter of fact, if all gambling games came in at over 100%, casinos would be out of business in a hurry.

The trick is finding a full-pay version of Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker. Most likely, you won’t find it online, and it’s somewhat of a rarity in brick and mortar casinos as well.

You will likely have to settle for one of the lesser pay tables. And your payback percentage will suffer as a result. Still, several of the pay tables above come in above 99% payback. That’s a solid number. Even though you might lose playing a pay table like that over time, your bonuses from casino and top online gambling sites could easily push you over 100%.

Always check the pay table and its corresponding payback percentage before you commit to playing any video poker game long-term. That will give you the best chance to maximize your winnings.

Strategy for Super Double Double Bonus Poker Video Poker

The only way to achieve the quoted payback percentage with any pay table on Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker is to play with perfect strategy. This means you have to make the right decision on every single deal about what to hold and what to discard.

This is no easy feat. Figuring out the math for complex hands like the one we showed you above isn’t simple. Doing so in the heat of a fast-paced game of video poker is even harder.

You also have to be aware of the quirks of the Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker pay table. What works in a Jacks or Better game on a specific deal might be the wrong play in Super Double Double Bonus Poker.

Double Double Bonus Video Poker Tips

This is especially true when you consider the low pay for two pair. And you also have to take into account the extremely high pay for all kinds of four of a kind in the latter game.

Your best bet is to find some help in learning perfect play. Since the math is difficult, have someone (or something) do the math for you and learn from them. Here are two methods of video poker instruction we can highly recommend.

Strategy Charts

A strategy chart lists all of the possible combinations of cards you might receive on the deal, ranking them from best to worst. You can then look at your own hand and compare it to the list. When you see how your cards stack up, you’ll know which ones should be held and which ones should be discarded.

The best way to use a strategy chart is to memorize it. If you bring one into a casino, you might anger the management. Even if you could, you would take such a long time consulting it on every hand that you would slow down your play considerably.

Video Poker Training Software

With training software, you can simulate any pay table you like, including Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker. You can then play hands just as if you were plating for real. This practice will come in handy when playing the game for actual money down the road.

But training software really comes in handy when you’re dealing with tricky hands like the example above. The software will alert you when you’ve made the wrong play based on math. Learning from these mistakes will eventually lead you to perfect play.

Pros & Cons of Super Double Double Bonus Poker Video Poker

Pros of Super Double Double Bonus Poker Video Poker

• Extremely high payouts for four of a kind
• Excellent payback percentage for many of the available pay tables
• Game play is basic and easy to learn

Cons of Super Double Double Bonus Poker Video Poker

• One of the most volatile games with a basic video poker format
• Bankroll will suffer if you only get common hands
• Lesser payout on full house compared to many Double Double Bonus pay tables

Conclusion on Super Double Double Bonus Poker Video Poker

Super Double Double Bonus Poker video poker boasts a long name and an exciting style of play. At any minute, your bankroll can skyrocket when you pick up four of a kind. Failing to attain the quads, however, it can leave your bankroll hurting in a hurry.