Gather round children, and let me lay a little science on this game we call
"Ultimate X." Specifically, regarding why the 4 of a kind multipliers are
different for 3 play, 5 play and 10 play.
In case you haven't heard, Ultimate X is ungodly difficult to calculate.
There's a lot of fancy schmancy clever tricks used to explicitly calculate
the payback.
The math behind Ultimate X can't be calculated on a hand-by-hand basis. The
vast majority of other games, this is no problem. 3 play 9/6 jacks can be
analyzed as a single hand. Since each hand is independent, it doesn't matter
if you are playing 3 play or if you are playing 100 play.
Ultimate X is different. On a given hand, your strategy for optimal play
depends on (1) the cards you are dealt and (2) the multipliers you have.
This is where hands lose their independence from each other.
Now, there's a little mathematical oddity that arises. The more hands you
play, given the same paytable, your payback percentage actually goes down
(slightly). Why? It has to do with the number of different multiplier
states, and the possible ways you get into other multiplier states.
Obviously 10 play has more multiplier states than 5 play, and 5 play has
more than 3 play, and 3 play has more than single line. As it turns out,
it's "easier" to get into a state with a slightly less average or sum
multiplier in 10 play than on 3 play.
So now we have a game where 10 play pays back less than 3 play. Is there
anything wrong with that? No, there's not. But if someone is playing 100
credits, it seems like bad form to gyp them slightly compared to someone who
is only playing 30 credits. So IGT must have taken an improbable hand or
hands, and slightly increased the multiplier to prevent the descending
payback.
On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 8:23 PM, tomflush <tomflush@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> **
>
>
> Hey mitch
> the multipliers are always best on 10 play, worst on 3 play.
> I have never seen those super full pay versions of ULT-X.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mitchell" <tsai@cs.ucla.edu>
> To: <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2011 5:02 PM
> Subject: [vpFREE] Ultimate X: Has anyone else seen 9/6 Jacks, 8/5 Bonus,
> and
> 10/6/5 DB?
>
>
> > Normally 8/6 Jacks, 7/5 Bonus, and 9/6/5 DB are full-pay for Ultimate.
> > The multipliers have been dropped a little to keep the percentages under
> > 100%.
> >
> > Only time I've seen variants on the Ultimate multipliers.
> > Has anyone else seen this before?
> >
>
>
>
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