PP gave me a £25 Blackjack friendly bonus last Sunday and I also deposited £75 for the Dec Platinum Club reload whilst I was there.
Unfortunately, this didn’t go well. I did about half the WR on Texas Bonus Holdem Players Suite, (a game I have always done well at in the past). Was down about £20 after £1,000 and decided to try “Jacks or Better” video poker.
I have always been put off this game in the past because of its high variance. But its return of 99.5% should mean that it is a better bet in the long run. However, I do have the bankroll to cope with this, so thought it was time for something new.
I used the intermediate strategy from “The Wizaed of Odds” as a guide and opened up the “Lucky Draw Jacks or Better” game. This plays 4 lines at once. They have a single line version but it isn’t Full Pay.
I actually quite enjoyed playing this and could picture myself in Vegas getting free drinks and hitting a massive Royal Flush jackpot.
At 20 coins of 5p you are playing for £1/spin so you get the the WR quite quickly.
Although I was new to the game I made too many mistakes. Twice I hit the “DRAW” button when I meant to hit “HOLD”. Both times I had three of a kind so ended up holding a small pair instead. This was very expensive because I missed out on the chance of quads or a full house which pays backs a significant pot.
For some reason I also found myself not playing correctly when I should have held QJs or JTs. I don’t know why, I just wasn’t thinking. Probably smaller sessions is the answer here, to keep my concentration going.
The intermediate strategy has a yield of 99.42% rather than 99.52% of the advanced one, not a significant difference but I finished down overall -£19. So a bit disappointing but I didn’t hit any Royals or Straight Flushes.
In fact towards the end I was down an alarming amount when I had a nice spell including this for £25:
Looking at this image makes me realise just how bad my misclicks on those “Three of a Kind”s were. I lost as a minimum 8 sets of trips. Some of those would have boated up and some may even have turned into quads. If I had played these hands properly I may have escaped level.
So, an expensive lesson but I will try again next month. If you are disciplined this is a good weapon in any bonus hunters armoury.
One other feature to note is that PP’s casino has just undergone a major software upgrade. I am used to PP instantly crediting my a/c when I have finished the WR. That is the account balance in the game window goes up when the WR is finished. So I sometimes don’t bother to track my play here. This time my bonus got added to my casino a/c, not the “in play” balance. So I played more than necessary without realising.
I will leave it a couple of days before clearing the outstanding BJ bonus.