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Feature
by
Nat Royal
Flush
Attack
In
the winter of 1996, I became a serious student of video poker. Among
the machines that caught my attention were the Sigma Game Flush
Attacks, referred to hereafter as FAs. The three pay schedules
for FAs are as follows:
RF,
SF, 4K (2-4, 5-K, A), FH, FL, ST, 3K, 2P, HP:
1)
800, 50, [80, 40, 160], 8, [20/5]*, 4, 3, 1, 1
2) 800, 50, [80, 40, 160], 8, [25/5]*, 3, 3, 1, 1
3) 800, 50, [80, 40, 160], 7, [25/5]*, 4, 3, 1, 1
Flush
Attacks are interesting because they are cyclical machines, hence
the * by the value of the flush. For those familiar
with the Las Vegas version, all FAs in Atlantic City are unlinked.
How
Flush Attack Works
Even though FAs are cyclical, often you will not know where
in the cycle you are. Assuming we start from the beginning, the
flush has a value of 5 and we say the machine is in OFF mode. Playing
max coin, you need to hit a total of three flushes before the words
FLUSH ATTACK appear on the screen. At this point, we say that the
machine is in ON mode. When the machine is in ON mode, the value
of the flush increases four or five fold, depending on the pay schedule.
Once the ON mode flush is hit, then the machine goes back into OFF
mode and the cycle begins anew.
Continuous
Play
Chances are you will walk up to a machine that is in OFF mode. (We
will handle the most favorable scenario of walking up to an ON mode
a bit later.) There are four flushes in a cycle, so the best (and
most practical) thing to do is to take the average value of the
flush during the cycle, and use that when coming up with a strategy.
Let
me warn you that when the flush values get high, the strategy gets
unorthodox. If you are serious about learning this game, you will
need to desensitize yourself from patterns found in other games.
I would also limit your repertoire to one other game at the most.
For
the first pay schedule, the average value of the flush is (5 + 5
+ 5 + 20) / 4 = 8.75. For the next two, the average value of the
flush is (5 + 5 + 5 + 25) / 4 = 10. The former number may be a bit
hard to work with, but it can be used to formulate a strategy in
a program such as Tomskis Video Poker Strategy Master.
This
gives pay schedule #1 a drab return of 98.01%. Pay schedule # 2
has a more respectable return of 99.24%. Pay schedule # 3 has a
slightly lower return of 99.19%. On the surface, the last two returns
hardly rate as Atlantic Citys bestand that is the beauty
of this game.
What
Happens When Someone Has Already Hit A Flush (Or Two)
Just as a blackjack player back-counts a deck, a Flush Attack player
should make it his business to watch the other playerswhile
they are playing.
(NOTE:
Standing behind other players, staring at them or engaging in any
other kind of behavior for the purpose of making someone leave is
not an option. If someone complains, then you will be considered
loitering and asked to leave.)
Keeping
a glancing eye on other players is beneficial. That is because if
someone has hit a flush or two and abandons the machine, the odds
become very favorable.
The
nice thing about the 25 (i.e., flush pays 25-for-1)
ON flush machines is that they become extremely positive if someone
has only hit one, five-coin flush. That is because the cycle has
been reduced and the value of the average flush increases from 10
to 11 2/3. At 11 2/3, the return on the game jumps to 102.37% for
the second pay schedule and 102.31% for the third pay schedule.
If someone were to get two flushes and walk away without putting
the machine into ON mode, the return increases to a whopping 109.14%
and 109.06%, as the flush has an average value of 15.
On
the 20 (20-for-1 on flush) ON flush machines, this play
and watch technique is not recommended. Your best bet here
is to play abandoned machines where you are certain the player has
hit at least one OFF flush.
What
Happens When The Flush Attack Is On
From my vast experience playing this game, approximately one
out of every 35 times, I was fortunate enough to encounter a game
that was already in ON mode. For this scenario, you need to have
alternate strategies when the flushes have values of 25 or 20. Although
I should have had strategies for the flush at 15, I chose not to
because it slowed me down and they did not come up all that often.
Your
time spent at the machine when you encounter one already ON will
be short, about 42 hands. The strategy is so radical that you never
redraw, you can hold hands such as K-2 suited, and you never hold
two high cards of different suits together. The return on a 25-for-1
machine in ON mode is 132.69% (132.57% for pay schedule 3) and 121.62%
for the 20-for-1 machines.
Harvesting
Flush Attacks
There used to be a lot more of these machines in Atlantic City,
but when Trump Worlds Fair closed in 1998 the inventory dropped.
As
you can tell, randomly playing the 25 FAs can easily be a
positive-expectation activity. The occasional machine already in
ON mode, the back watching, and playing a bank of machines in the
early hours can lead to an off-flush count between 2
and 2.5. This is accomplished by abandoning the machine once you
have hit on the ON flush. Your goal is to play as many different
machines as possible, in hopes that it will not take three OFF flushes
to get to the ON flush.
With
cashback, comps, and a lower dependency on hitting a royal flush,
these games can be quite juicy. I had a 2.5% margin on these games
not including any cashback for over two years without being all
that picky. Even the casual player who plays the 25-for-1 machines
continuously can play these games over or very close to positive
with the few tidbits in this article.
And
thats the dirt on Atlantic Citys best quarter
video poker gamea game few people knew about until now.
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