Jacks Or Better Strategy / Info thread

[Cloverleaves]

Hope someone can give me some info on Jacks or Better.

I'm pretty much a newbie to that game, but having played a bit I can see that the variance is very high (as all the guides etc warn you). However, the house edge at, for example, Beating Bonuses, seems to be approx 0.5%, which makes it seem quite attactive.

So my question relates to the payout relating to a Royal Flush:

The 0.5% house edge must include that payout, which seems to be 800 x bet (if using five coins).

It must be very rare indeed to get a Royal Flush, otherwise the payout wouldn't be so good.

So do people actually get Royal Flushes from time to time, or is it one of those things, like a slots Jackpot, that other people get, but never you?

And does anyone know (or is clever enough to calculate) the estimated house edge without the Royal Flush payout? I figure that would be a helpful thing to know when working out whether a particular offer is worth the risk to me.

Thanks for any help. Much appreciated!

[munk]

Hope someone can give me some info on Jacks or Better.

I'm pretty much a newbie to that game, but having played a bit I can see that the variance is very high (as all the guides etc warn you). However, the house edge at, for example, Beating Bonuses, seems to be approx 0.5%, which makes it seem quite attactive.

So my question relates to the payout relating to a Royal Flush:

The 0.5% house edge must include that payout, which seems to be 800 x bet (if using five coins).

It must be very rare indeed to get a Royal Flush, otherwise the payout wouldn't be so good.

So do people actually get Royal Flushes from time to time, or is it one of those things, like a slots Jackpot, that other people get, but never you?

And does anyone know (or is clever enough to calculate) the estimated house edge without the Royal Flush payout? I figure that would be a helpful thing to know when working out whether a particular offer is worth the risk to me.

Thanks for any help. Much appreciated!

I think I read somewhere else someone say pretty much what you did, that the royal flush makes a significant contribution to that very small 0.5% HA and the chances of hitting that nut are pretty slim. I've not played a massive amount of JoB, I did play it to get through a 1400eur wr at gamebookers when they did a bait and switch job on their offer last month (removed BJ after I started playing) and I didn't hit a royal flush once.

Re your question - you could ask the wizard of odds - I had a quick scan of his site but couldn't see an answer to your question.
Scratch that, you can work it out (I think?) using the analyzer here:

♠Video Poker Analyzer — by The Wizard of Odds

As I read it the royal flush accounts for 0.019807 of the house advantage which takes the return from 99.5% down to 98% if you take the royal flush out? I could be wrong though. When I played it last over 1400 hands or so I didn't get anything like 2%, more like 10% loss!

If you're doing JoB I don't know if you've seen this:

Jacks or Better Strategy Guide, Analyzer, Simulator and Programming Information

someone posted it on the forum the other day, it's a tool for working out what hands to play based on the optimal strategy.

When I played last I ended up just using the 'simple' strategy here:

♠Jacks or Better Simple Strategy by The Wizard of Odds

[AlTeRnAtEcApSmAn]

I always choose to play JOB over BJ- have hit a few royals in the past which is why I like it more a 1k win for £1.25 stake does that I suppose

[Cloverleaves]

Thanks Munk, that's very helpful. That Video Poker Analyzer is pretty cunning!

Yes, I think you'd have to wait a long time for that Royal Flush, so maybe the best thing to do is assess whether you want to take any particular offer based on the probability that you won't hit it, and if you do, boy what a bonus!!

[Cloverleaves]

I always choose to play JOB over BJ- have hit a few royals in the past which is why I like it more a 1k win for £1.25 stake does that I suppose

Thanks Alternate. It's nice to know they're out there!

Given that JOB does have high variance, do you just have a much larger float and then plough on and wait to hit the big one?

[munk]

I've just noticed something else which I have a feeling someone else might have mentioned in the past:

If you play JoB on NetEnt software, the pay table for the 5x bet level seems to pay out more per unit than all the other levels. Does seem odd but for some reason on bet level 5, the payout for a royal straight flush is 4000x when it should really only be 1250x (if you compare the payout to the other bet levels). No idea why that is at all, anyone see something I missed?

I'm playing at Betclick right now who have that software. You can play for as little as 5c as well, so on a 5x bet level multiplier your min stake is just 25c (though I'm playing on 1EUR at the moment after having doubled up a bonus there and trying to grind it out). The point is you don't have to play massive stakes playing at bet level 5.

[AlTeRnAtEcApSmAn]

Thanks Alternate. It's nice to know they're out there!

Given that JOB does have high variance, do you just have a much larger float and then plough on and wait to hit the big one?

I don't really consider JOB to be higher variance than BJ, and I don't really play expecting to get a royal -but 4 of a kinds and flushes are a lot more common. I prefer mutli hand JOB which really cuts down on the variance. And the beats on JOB are easier than on BJ- which always leaves me feeling the casino is cheating.

[Cloverleaves]

If you play JoB on NetEnt software, the pay table for the 5x bet level seems to pay out more per unit than all the other levels. Does seem odd but for some reason on bet level 5, the payout for a royal straight flush is 4000x when it should really only be 1250x (if you compare the payout to the other bet levels). No idea why that is at all, anyone see something I missed?

I've noticed several types of software have this - maybe all?? So it makes sense to have a small coin value but play five coins. Seems a little odd to me, but what the heck!

[munk]

I've noticed several types of software have this - maybe all?? So it makes sense to have a small coin value but play five coins. Seems a little odd to me, but what the heck!

Looking into it a bit more and comparing a couple of different pay tables, I think that's all it comes down to, just differing pay tables. I compared Betfair Arcade's JoB pay table (chartwell?) with Betclick's (netent) and they are different. Actually looks like Betfair's is a bit more generous but there's not a lot in it.

I suppose the only thing to do is to check the pay table at the particular place you're at to see if there's any advantage to increasing the bet level if the payout is more generous at a higher level.

[Cloverleaves]

I did some wagering tonight on a SUB I had going, and it did seem to me (although obviously this is only a small sample) that doing multi-hand (in this case 4-hand) JOB did seem to bring the variance down a great deal. Useful!