Deck Poker

One of the games that have seen a flurry of interest over the last few months is Six Plus Hold’em, also referred to as Short Deck Poker. Six Plus Hold’em is an exciting and fun poker variant based on Texas Hold’em where the game is played with a deck of 36 cards as opposed to the usual 52 cards in traditional hold’em. This is the game where flushes beat full houses, you flop loads of sets, and say goodbye to pocket 3’s. It’s Short Deck Poker. This format is a favorite of both recreational players and high rollers alike. Arguably the most exciting variant of poker available, it’s proven to be a hit amongst the players who love thrilling games of chance.

  • Strategies
    • Jacks or Better
    • Deuces Wild
    • Quick Quads
    • Ultimate X

Introduction

No, Stack the Deck Poker is not video poker played using cards with 'stacked' naked ladies on them. The thrust of it is that if the player pays an extra two coins per hand in multi-play poker, then it enables a feature that adds extra cards to the deck you need in certain situations before the draw. For example, with four to a royal on the deal, the game adds five copies of whatever card you need to complete the royal to the deck. See the rules section for all the details.

Rules

  1. The game is based on conventional multi-play video poker, which I assume the reader is familiar with.
  2. For one to five coins bet per line, the game plays like conventional multi-play video poker.
  3. If the player bets seven coins per hand, two of those seven coins are used as a fee to enable the Stack the Deck feature. Wins are still based on five coins bet per hand.
  4. With the Stack the Deck feature, the game will add additional copies of needed cards to the remaining 47-card deck in the situations listed below.
  5. Two types of hands are added to the pay table. One is a five of a kind. The other is a 'baby royal,' which is a 9 to king straight flush.
  6. In addition to the extra cards feature, the game also bumps up the pays on some hands with the feature enabled.
Poker

Added cards in Deuces Wild and Deuces Wild Bonus

  • Four to a natural royal flush — Five extra of the missing card to the royal.
  • Two, three, or four deuces — Four extra deuces.

Added cards in Triple Double Bonus

Poker Deck Of Cards

  • Four to a natural royal flush — Five extra of the missing card to the royal.
  • Four of a kind — Five extra of the rank of the four of a kind.
  • Full house and three of a kind — Three extra of the rank of the three of a kind.

All Other Games

  • Four to a natural royal flush — Five extra of the missing card to the royal.
  • Four of a kind — Five extra of the rank of the four of a kind.
  • Full house and three of a kind — Five extra of the rank of the three of a kind.

Example

In the hand above I got three sixes on the deal, which qualifies for extra cards.

The game animation shows five extra sixes (in the missing suit) being added to the deck.

On the draw, one of my five hands improved to a four of a kind.

Analysis

The following return tables show the probability and contribution to the return for all games available at VideoPoker.com. These tend to be the most liberal pay tables available to the casinos. I'm sure other pay tables are available, but I don't know what they are at this time.

Jacks or Better

Deck Poker
EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Royal flush 800 0.000055 0.031193
Baby royal flush 400 0.000019 0.005524
Five aces 800 0.000021 0.012237
Five 2-4 320 0.000064 0.014684
Five 5-K 100 0.000181 0.012961
Straight Flush 50 0.000100 0.003572
Four of a Kind 25 0.005868 0.104787
Full House 12 0.010511 0.090096
Flush 11 0.017606 0.138331
Straight 7 0.015593 0.077963
Three of a kind 4 0.067646 0.193273
Two pair 2 0.122512 0.175017
Jacks or better 1 0.176260 0.125900
Nothing 0 0.583565 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.985536

Bonus Deluxe

EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Royal flush 800 0.000060 0.034064
Baby royal flush 400 0.000023 0.006488
Five aces 800 0.000021 0.012237
Five 2-4 320 0.000064 0.014684
Five 5-K 100 0.000193 0.013767
Straight Flush 50 0.000094 0.003354
Four of a Kind 80 0.006127 0.350135
Full House 10 0.009853 0.070376
Flush 6 0.011291 0.048392
Straight 4 0.012768 0.036481
Three of a kind 3 0.071349 0.152891
Two pair 1 0.128000 0.091428
Jacks or better 1 0.209690 0.149779
Nothing 0 0.550467 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.984076

Bonus Poker

EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Royal flush 800 0.000057 0.032665
Baby royal flush 400 0.000022 0.006308
Five aces 800 0.000021 0.012237
Five 2-4 320 0.000064 0.014684
Five 5-K 100 0.000181 0.012961
Straight Flush 50 0.000099 0.003531
Four aces 80 0.000482 0.027550
Four 2-4 40 0.001398 0.039929
Four 5-K 25 0.004014 0.071675
Full House 14 0.010636 0.106364
Flush 8 0.014871 0.084979
Straight 6 0.014873 0.063742
Three of a kind 4 0.068953 0.197008
Two pair 2 0.124759 0.178228
Jacks or better 1 0.190435 0.136025
Nothing 0 0.569133 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.987886

Double Bonus

EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Royal flush 800 0.000056 0.032143
Baby royal flush 400 0.000021 0.006061
Five aces 800 0.000021 0.012237
Five 2-4 320 0.000064 0.014684
Five 5-K 100 0.000193 0.013767
Straight Flush 50 0.000096 0.003425
Four aces 160 0.000485 0.055423
Four 2-4 80 0.001395 0.079713
Four 5-K 50 0.004205 0.150195
Full House 13 0.009612 0.089255
Flush 8 0.015580 0.089029
Straight 6 0.016605 0.071165
Three of a kind 3 0.068754 0.147329
Two pair 1 0.123010 0.087864
Jacks or better 1 0.183106 0.130790
Nothing 0 0.576796 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.983079

Double Double Bonus

EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Royal flush 800 0.000057 0.032785
Baby royal flush 400 0.000022 0.006363
Five aces 800 0.000021 0.011983
Five 2-4 320 0.000063 0.014380
Five 5-K 100 0.000193 0.013767
Straight Flush 50 0.000097 0.003462
4 aces + 2-4 400 0.000132 0.037641
4 2-4 + A-4 160 0.000361 0.041258
4 aces + 5-K 160 0.000383 0.043733
4 2-4 + 5-K 80 0.001038 0.059328
4 5-K 50 0.004218 0.150636
Full House 10 0.009179 0.065563
Flush 7 0.013935 0.069676
Straight 5 0.014803 0.052869
Three of a kind 3 0.070917 0.151965
Two pair 1 0.119827 0.085590
Jacks or better 1 0.198520 0.141800
Nothing 0 0.566235 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.982799

Planning Poker Deck

Triple Double Bonus

EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Royal flush 800 0.000057 0.032718
Baby royal flush 400 0.000021 0.006015
Five aces 800 0.000006 0.003475
Five 2-4 320 0.000018 0.004170
Five 5-K 100 0.000088 0.006259
Straight Flush 50 0.000102 0.003636
4 aces + 2-4 800 0.000140 0.079781
4 2-4 + A-4 400 0.000387 0.110635
4 aces + 5-K 160 0.000216 0.024677
4 2-4 + 5-K 80 0.000546 0.031206
4 5-K 50 0.003137 0.112034
Full House 12 0.010079 0.086389
Flush 8 0.015795 0.090259
Straight 6 0.016816 0.072070
Three of a kind 2 0.069992 0.099988
Two pair 1 0.116920 0.083515
Jacks or better 1 0.186093 0.132923
Nothing 0 0.579587 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.979750

Deuces Wild

EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Natural royal flush 800 0.000059 0.033685
Natural baby royal flush 400 0.000023 0.006521
Five deuces 800 0.000053 0.030182
Four deuces 200 0.001636 0.233718
Wild royal flush 36 0.001806 0.046438
Five of a kind 14 0.002896 0.028964
Straight Flush 12 0.005659 0.048502
Four of a kind 4 0.060547 0.172991
Full House 4 0.026021 0.074345
Flush 3 0.020648 0.044245
Straight 2 0.053559 0.076512
Three of a kind 1 0.266942 0.190673
Nothing 0 0.560153 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.986775

Bonus Deuces Wild

EventPaysProbabilityReturn
Natural royal flush 800 0.000059 0.033941
Natural baby royal flush 400 0.000022 0.006340
Five deuces 800 0.000052 0.029737
Four deuces plus ace 400 0.000137 0.039156
Four deuces 200 0.001480 0.211498
Wild royal flush 30 0.001864 0.039946
Five aces 80 0.000357 0.020380
Five 3-5 40 0.000747 0.021342
Five 6-K 20 0.001954 0.027907
Straight Flush 13 0.005630 0.052276
Four of a kind 4 0.063217 0.180621
Full House 3 0.021043 0.045093
Flush 3 0.021213 0.045456
Straight 1 0.040923 0.029231
Three of a kind 1 0.285593 0.203995
Nothing 0 0.555708 0.000000
Total 1.000000 0.986919

Strategy

I'm afraid you're on your own with that for now (don't you hate it when I say that?)

Deck Poker

Acknowledgements

Fresh Deck Poker On Facebook

  • A huge thanks to professor Gary Koehler for the return tables above.
  • VideoPoker.com for permission to publish the example screenshots above, which were taken from their practice game as well as their continued support with my many questions and requests.

Written by: Michael Shackleford