Pay the Aces (No Faces) Game Info?

[knagl]

Originally posted by knagl on 1/7/2009:



Anyone have any info about a PE+ video poker game called "Pay The Aces (No Faces)"?  I've played it at Main Street Station casino in downtown Las Vegas.  It's not in the bible, but I know it existed on the PE+ platform.  Anyone know what chip numbers are needed to run it?  Anyone have it?

I found some info on the game from The Wizard of Odds site, but that's more info about the paytable and strategy of the game than technical details about it.

So... anyone?   :71-

Pay the Aces is a video poker game I have seen in a few casinos in Laughlin, Nevada. Strangely, I have never seen it anywhere else. The plays like double bonus, except there are bonuses for getting aces on the deal, with no face cards.

The following table shows the base game, before considering the bonuses.

Pay the Aces Base Game
Hand    Pays    Combinations    Probability    Return
Royal flush    800    539332812    0.000027    0.021646
Straight flush    50    2331337008    0.000117    0.005848
Four A    80    3886370616    0.000195    0.015598
Four 2-4    40    10449123324    0.000524    0.020968
Four 5-K    25    32039251668    0.001607    0.040183
Full house    8    226342165032    0.011355    0.090840
Flush    5    220691040360    0.011072    0.055358
Straight    4    292726917540    0.014685    0.058741
Three of a kind    2    1447582226256    0.072622    0.145243
Two pair    1    2515099494240    0.126176    0.126176
Pair    1    4172246949888    0.209311    0.209311
Nonpaying hand       11009296308456    0.552309    0.000000
Total       19933230517200    1.000000    0.789912

The next pay table shows the value of the bonuses on the deal.

Pay the Aces Bonuses
Hand    Pays    Combinations    Probability    Return
Four aces no faces dealt    500    36    0.000014    0.006926
Three aces no faces dealt    50    2520    0.000970    0.048481
Two aces no faces dealt    2    42840    0.016484    0.032967
One ace no faces dealt    1    235620    0.090659    0.090659
Other    0    2317944    0.891874    0.000000
Total    0    2598960    1.000000    0.179033

So the overall return of the game is 0.789912 + 0.179033 = 96.89%.


I always liked the game because, even when playing in "credit" mode, the game would spit quarters out at you after the deal if you were dealt a hand with ace(s) and no face cards.


For what it's worth, the "Pay The Aces" game is found at a handful of casinos in Nevada (and apparently a lot more of them pre-TITO) -- it sounds like a game that never got brought over to the Game King for whatever reason and has mostly died out due to PE+ being removed from casino floors.


Well, a small update.

At a casino to remain nameless (really), a tech was kind enough to turn the JP reset key for me to show me what chipset was in their "Pay The Aces" PE+ machine, which may perhaps help me in my quest to find this game for my machine at home.



X002287P
XP000057
CG:2325

Does anyone know of anyone who may have those chips stashed away somewhere collecting dust?  I'd sure like to buy a set for my PE+.


Also, oddly enough, at the Pioneer in Laughlin, I saw the same game, but on a Bally GameMaker.

[UNIMAN]

I have recently moved to Laughlin, NV.
Last week stopped at a local slot shop just to browse and saw PE+ machines for $199. Fella said they were from the AVI casino. I said, "Hey, AVI had a few Pay The Aces, you wouldn't happen to have any of those?" YEP!
So here is my first PE machine.

Did a little research. Pay the Aces was developed by Best Bet Products who holds two patents for mid-level bonus video poker games. They were or are from Vegas.

[BigB]

Can you please verify  (by turning your jackpot reset key) that your numbers match the known X002287P and CG2325 as shown above.

Thanks

[knagl]

Uniman,

Congrats on getting your first PE+ machine, and a nice rare title at that!  It's really interesting the developments that have happened with this game in the past couple of weeks.  In particular, I came across a nice amount of Best Bet Products documentation, including the PAR sheet for the Pay The Aces game, as well as PAR sheets for a number of their other games.  I'll send you a PM with some info.

[jay]

Uni,
Do we need to change your handle to IGTMan, PeMan, PlusMan ??
Given that we never met - no reference to size (Plus) or sexuality (man is an arrow, woman is plus) is implied by PlusMan.... 
Great steal on that machine for $199
Do you know if you have custom card backs on that theme ? or if the unnamed vendor had any machines with custom card backs ?
 

[UNIMAN]

Uni,
Do we need to change your handle to IGTMan, PeMan, PlusMan ??
Given that we never met - no reference to size (Plus) or sexuality (man is an arrow, woman is plus) is implied by PlusMan.... 
Great steal on that machine for $199
Do you know if you have custom card backs on that theme ? or if the unnamed vendor had any machines with custom card backs ?
 

Still the Uniman, Jay. No plus, no pe, no IGT please.
Unnamed vendor was the Slot Depot, Fort Mohave, AZ. They had at least one more Pay The Aces, not sure what other hard to find PE's they might have in storage??
Does not appear to be any custom card backs. Machine came from AVI Indian Casino in Laughlin.

[rokgpsman]

Still the Uniman, Jay. No plus, no pe, no IGT please.

I worked with a guy that they called "UniBrow", his eyebrows went almost together above his nose.

[jay]

We had a guy that was the spitting image of Captain Kangaroo ...
We called him the Captin. I don't think he ever made the connection

[UNIMAN]

You can call me The Uni-frown. Nothing but one big frown on my face this week!     

First I missed a 4-game college football parlay worth $300++ by 1/2 point on Saturday, and now THIS!!!

Aces on the draw deal with a FACE CARD!!! 

[knagl]

On the deal!  Ouch!

We were playing the heck out of Pay The Aces at Main Street Station this past week and I said I'd throw a fit if I were dealt that hand.  It hurt enough to get dealt three aces with a face twice in one session.

[Paul]

I guess I don't know how to play that card game.
I thought 4 aces was good.

 

[rokgpsman]

I guess I don't know how to play that card game.
I thought 4 aces was good.

 

It is, but you get a bonus win when dealt 4 aces and no facecard on the remaining card.

[knagl]

I guess I don't know how to play that card game.
I thought 4 aces was good. 

As rokgpsman mentioned, the big payout in that game is getting four aces dealt with no face card.  It's a difference of 7,500 coins between dealt aces with a face and dealt aces with no face.


(Click to enlarge)

[rokgpsman]

That's the top award, even higher than a royal flush!

Now that's an out-of-the-ordinary pay table.

When that happens on the deal does the machine lockup, or can someone discard the non-ace by mistake and mess things up?

[knagl]

When that happens on the deal does the machine lockup, or can someone discard the non-ace by mistake and mess things up?

The payouts for the dealt aces (with no face cards) happen immediately after the deal, before the player is given the opportunity to hold/discard and draw.  In the casino environment at Main Street Station in downtown Las Vegas, the awards for one, two, and three aces (no faces) are immediately paid out by the hopper.  Once the hopper payout is complete, the player is then given the opportunity to hold cards (as in traditional video poker), and then draw replacement cards.  In the case of four aces dealt with no face, the machine would lock up mid-hand in a handpay. 

It is possible to mess up and discard your dealt aces after the deal, as they're not held automatically.  I presume the attendants remind customers of that, so they get the additional 400 credits for holding the dealt quad aces (for a grand total of 7,900 coins).  I saw a lady nearly throw away her dealt three aces, as the hopper ran out during the 250 coin mid-game payout, and by the time it was refilled she forgot that she was still in the middle of a hand.

[UNIMAN]

 

Aces with faces??, NOT THIS TIME!!! Four Aces-no-Faces on Turkey Day!!!
Had the hopper set at 451 max payout and it spit out the 451 and then locked up. Made sure I held the aces after the jackpot reset to get the 400 credits!!!

Last year on Turkey Day I hit a royal on the deal playing triple play at the REAL casino. Maybe I need to go today!!!

[knagl]

Wow, it can be done! Nice deal there. How many hands have you played before you hit that?  (If you turn the jackpot reset key with the door closed it will bring you through some statistical screens with every turn of the key.)

[UNIMAN]

How many hands? I cannot tell from the stats. I have been playing it about 6 nights a week, less than an hour each day. Believe I've been lucky as I can only recall two other 4k's on the deal other than aces.

The records still have casino history on them. (no clear has been done)

Over 14 million games played. (14,244,982 to be exact)
Credits Bet 56594534
Credits Won 47539161
That is only 83.99% Missing hand pays???

For Royal Flush's there have been five on the deal with one hit when playing 1 coin. (That poor soul!!)
For 4-Aces w/n faces on the deal there have been 105 hit. 94 hit on max play, 2 with three coins, 6 with two coins, and 3 with one coin played. (I will never, NEVER, play less than 5 coins after seeing this!)
Total Royal's are 177. With 5-coins played the total is 150. With 1-coin there are 17 Royals, 2-coin has 6, 3-coin has 2, and 4-coin has 2. 

So, one Royal Flush every 80480 games. That's below average I would think!
Four Aces W/O Faces on the deal every 135,666 games. Not so good either!

Wow, these numbers seem a bit low.

[UNIMAN]

Interesting, looking at the probabilities in the beginning of this thread there should be more total royal flushes and aces w/o faces on the deal.
And 14,244,982 games played I would think it should be pretty close to the probability.

But.... there should be around 385 royals hit. Only 177.
There should be around 199 aces w/o faces on the deal. But only 105.

A bit of deviation there!

On the royals, maybe a lot of bad players not playing correctly? Hmmm. But the aces require no skill.

[knagl]

Okay, it took some noodling in MAME and looking at these numbers to figure out how they all work together.

Yield is the coins the house has won.  Coins In minus Coins Out minus Jackpots (reported in coins) = Yield

We want to know, the yield is what percentage of the coins in?

Thankfully, there are online calculators that can do the heavy lifting for me. 



So, assuming I'm reading that correctly, the lifetime hold of the machine is 3.84% (96.16% payback), which seems to me to be in the realm of possibility on a game with a theoretical perfect-play payback of 98.4%, especially factoring in that I'm sure many people were not playing the game perfectly.

I agree with you that the number of Royal Flushes should be around 385 for that many games played.  177 is very low.  I also agree that the number of dealt quad aces (no face) should be around 199 and that 105 seems nearly suspiciously low.  As you said, the player can screw up the Royal Flush holds, but the dealt aces should just be a random roll of the dice.

I'd be really curious to see other Pay The Aces machines after millions of hands have been played to see if yours is just a real anomaly, or if there's a problem with the randomness of the game.