In the last several months, I've often mentioned a video pokergame called Multi-Pay Poker. We have little high-quality quartervideo poker in the Chicago area, and casinos that offer Williamsmultiple-game machines at the quarter level move high on my list withthis game.
The Williams units are called Multi-Pay Plus - they offerMulti-Pay Poker plus several other games on the same machine. Otherofferings include an interesting twist on video poker called MoneyFever.
Money Fever players want flushes. Lots of 'em. Those in theknow do whatever they can to force a high flush rate.
Most of the time, Money Fever players are up against one of thetoughest pay tables in video poker. In the full-pay version,available in a few Las Vegas casinos, the payoffs per coin assumingfive coins played looks like this:
Royal flush, 800; straight flush, 150; four of a kind, 20; fullhouse, 9; flush, 6; straight, 5; three of a kind, 3; two pair, 1.
There are several other pay tables available. Some reduce fullhouse and flush paybacks to 8-5 instead of the full-pay 9-6; otherscut straights to 4-1 while increasing four of a kind to 25-for-1.All pay tables look nasty, with payoffs starting at two pair,instead of a pair of Jacks or better as is common in most videopoker games. Without those high-pair payoffs, the game is extremelyvolatile. Streaks with no winners at all are much longer than inmost video poker games.
Despite all that, Money Fever can be a high-paying game. DougReul, writing in the May-June issue of Dan Paymar's Video PokerTimes, reported that the full-pay version pays 100.5 percent withexpert play. The versions available in the Midwest are not 100.5percent games, but they're still better than they seem at a glance,paying experts between 97 percent and 98 percent.
Why? Because when the player hits a flush, Money Fever modekicks in. For the next seven hands, the player is paid on each cardof his flush suit. Say a player betting five coins at a time hits aflush in spades. On his next hand he has no winners against the paytable, but winds up with two spades. He receives a five-coin payoffon each spade.
That turns a nothing hand into a 10-coin winner. Do that forseven hands and the Money Fever player pads his bankroll fast.
Strategy for the game has to be broken into two parts - astrategy for when the game is not in Money Fever mode, when we try tomaximize our chances of hitting a flush, and a strategy for thosenext seven hands after a flush, when we try to maximize our Fevermode winnings.
During regular play, we never discard all five cards - astrategy that is unlike Jacks or Better-based games. All handsinclude at least two cards of the same suit. If we have no betteroptions, we keep two suited cards and hope for a three-card draw to aflush that will launch our seven-hand fever.
There are other strategy differences. In Money Fever, we breakup a straight to draw to a four-card straight flush. In Jacks orBetter, we would break up the straight only if we had four cards to aroyal flush.
Four cards to a flush is an important Money Fever hand. Wekeep four cards to a flush even if it includes three cards to aroyal. In Jacks or Better, we'd go for the royal flush.
We also draw to three-card flushes in Money Fever, which we'djust discard in Jacks or Better. In fact, we break up four-cardstraights and even discard pairs to draw to three-card flushes.
In Money Fever mode, our strategy is even more extreme. Wehold most hands that are winners on the regular pay table. But webreak up two pair to hold one or three cards in our bonus suit.
With two pair and two bonus cards, our play depends on whetherthe bonus cards are included in the two pair. If they are, wediscard the fifth card and try for a full house to go with the bonus.If one of our two bonus cards is the extra card, we hold all five.One exception: If the bonus cards form two parts of a straight flushor royal flush, we break up the two pair and just hold the bonuscards.
If we have a bonus card, we toss away pairs and three-cardstraight flushes if they're not in our bonus suit. We dump four-cardstraights even if the fifth card isn't in our bonus suit. We'rebetter off taking the chance that our draw will bring cards in ourfever suit.
If you hit another flush while you're in Fever mode, themachine stores the information until your first seven-hand run iscompleted. Then you start another seven hands of Money Fever.
That's a fever any player would be thrilled to catch.
In Sunday Showcase: nickel comparison.
Send gambling questions to: Casinos, WeekendPlus, ChicagoSun-Times, 401 N. Wabash, Chicago, IL 60611; fax (312) 321-2566; ore-mail (BetKol@aol.com). Check out John Grochowski's Casino Page at:members.aol.com/betkol/index.html
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