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An Introduction to Texas Hold'em Bonus Poker
By Elliot Frome
(24 March 2006) Progressive Gaming announced this past week that their hot new table game Texas Hold'em Bonus Poker (THBP) has been approved in Nevada. The game has already been playing in numerous jurisdictions with much success, and adding the game to the Nevada scene should only give it that much more exposure. While I didn't work on THBP for Progressive, I did do the math behind Shuffle Master's Ultimate Texas Hold'em (UTH) that is just coming out of the gate. While the games are different in a number of ways, the math required to analyze these games is very similar and very complex.
Games against a Dealer are always more complex than 'paytable' games because of the number of cards dealt. Games with community cards against the Dealer can make you want to pull your hair out! When the cards belong solely to the Player, it's very easy to quantify the hand and come up with a strategy. When 3 to 5 of the cards also belong to the Dealer, the trick is coming up with a way to categorize the hand, taking into account the strength of the community cards. It's not enough to tell a Player to Raise if he has Three of a Kind. The Three of a Kind may be the three community cards. If the Player's cards are Ace/King, that's great. If they are a 2-3, then he's an almost sure loser. Doing all this analysis for UTH took me several weeks, so I've not yet had the time to complete my analysis of THBP. This article is meant as an introduction to the strategy to the game, and hopefully, in coming weeks, I will have the time to complete the strategy and report back.
First, let's cover how the game is played. Each Player makes an Ante bet and receives his two pocket cards. After looking at his cards, the Player has to make a decision to Fold, surrendering his original wager, or to make the 'Flop' bet, which must be twice the size of the Ante bet. Since all other wagers in the game are optional, the strategy at this point is based on whether the Player will win more (or lose less) by surrendering the 1 unit or by risking 2 additional units. To answer this, we also must realize the payout structure. If the Player beats the Dealer, he will win even money on his Flop bet. His Ante will push, unless the Player beats the Dealer AND has at least a Straight (in some jurisdictions, a Flush) or better, at which point, the Player will get even money for his Ante wager as well.
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