Multi Strike Poker
- Multi Strike Poker Free
- 5 Play Multi Strike Poker
- Multi Strike Poker
- Multi Strike Poker Super Times Pay
- Multi Strike Poker Games
- Multi Strike Poker Deluxe
Multi Strike Poker Free
Exclusively from IGT, Multi-Strike Video Poker™ is the most fun way to play real casino video poker! Win 2x, 4x and 8x the credits as you make your way up with winning hands! Multi-Strike Poker™ has multiple variations, including Double Double Bonus Poker, Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild and more! Multi-Strike Video Poker™, Classic Video Poker and Multi-Play Video Poker all have their unique styles of play, their own advantages and their own fun! Multi-Strike Poker™ Games Multi-Strike Poker™ gives you 2x, 4x and 8x the winnings as you work your way up the board! Have a question? Search for answers. Multi-Strike Poker Ultra Deluxe takes the award-winning formula of climbing poker action and increases the thrills, payouts and fun! It's an entire package that includes the classic Multi-Strike Poker along with 4 variants and 2 other unique poker games to play when you're looking for something different. Jean Scott has another Multi-Strike Poker adventure. Part 1 of an article from Bob Dancer on the Ready, Bet, Go! Part 2 of Bob Dancer's article on the Ready, Bet, Go! Multi-Strike Poker Internet Resources. Multi-Strike Poker website at IGT. IGT press release regarding the 2003 Most Innovative Gaming Product award.
If you’ve read many of my blog posts, you know by now that I’m a fan of video poker. I like to stick with basic variations like Jacks or Better, but sometimes I’ll play Triple Play Poker or Bonus Poker. I tend to play for quarters — after all, you don’t get rich working as a gambling blogger.
One of the new games I’ve become interested in lately is Multi-Strike Poker, a game from Leading Edge Design and IGT.
Multi-Strike Poker has a traditional video poker game, like Bonus Poker, as its base game. It tricks things up by allowing you to bet on one to four lines instead of just betting on a single hand.
You can also bet five coins per line, and you should always bet the max to be eligible for the extra payout on the royal flush.
The gimmick is simple.
To get to the next hand, you must win the hand before it.
That sounds like a bad deal for the player, until you get to the second part of the gimmick.
If you DO advance to the next level, the payouts double.
The rest of this post explains Multi-Strike Poker in more detail.
How to Play Multi-Strike Poker
Here’s how Multi-Strike Poker works.
You play for whatever denomination you choose from the available options. Like I said before, I play for quarters. Then you play a normal video poker game, like Bonus Poker.
Instead of having a maximum bet of five coins, though, you have a maximum bet of 20 coins. If you lose a hand, you lose all 20 coins.
The excitement happens when you win a hand, though, because then you get a second hand.
And the pay table for that second hand DOUBLES.
If you win that second hand, you get a third hand, and the pay table doubles again — it’s four times the original pay table.
Win the third hand, and you get a fourth hand, and again, the pay table doubles. Now the payouts are eight times what they were on the original pay table.
The probability of getting the free ride card changes based on which level you’re playing. It’s easier to get a free ride from level 1 to level 2 than it is to get a free ride from level 2 to level 3, for example.
These probabilities are listed on the pay table screen. A common probability might be 8% on level 1, 7% on level 2, and 7% again on level 3.
This free ride increases the probability of “leveling up” to about 50%. This adds 0.2% to the payback percentage for the game — assuming you play with perfect strategy.
So if the base game has a payback percentage of 98%, it would increase to 98.2% on the Multi-Strike Poker version of that game.
It’s not hard to imagine how big the payouts can be playing this game. Let’s say you start with two pair and a ten-coin payout. On your second hand, you get a pair of jacks, which is a ten-coin payout. On your third hand, you get another pair of jacks, with a 20-coin payout. On your fourth hand, you get two pair again, this time winning 80 coins.
You’ve won a total of 120 coins over those four hands, but you never had anything better than two pair.
Multi-Strike Poker Strategy Changes
How does this affect strategy?
Since getting to the next level changes the payouts so much, it makes leveling up more important. You’ll adjust your strategy accordingly.
Here’s an example of such a strategy adjustment.
5 Play Multi Strike Poker
It’s your first hand, and you have four cards to a straight. One of those cards is a jack, but the rest of the cards are lower in ranking.
Normally, you’d draw to the straight to try to get the higher payout, but in Multi-Strike Poker, it makes sense to try to get to the next level, even if it means accepting a lower payout on this hand. So you’d hold onto the jack and hope for a pair of jacks.
Your goal is to make the big money on the subsequent hands.
This might be obvious, but it’s so important that I must mention it.
You should always play for the full 20 coins. Don’t bother with Multi-Strike Poker if you can’t afford the leveling up, because the paybacks are so good at the higher levels that you need to be able to access them to get the full potential of the game.
If you’re really serious about video poker, you probably use some kind of software to generate your video poker strategy. Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker is probably the most popular of these programs.
You can account for the extra value of winning and going to the next level by inputting that into the software. This will give you the correspondingly higher conservative plays.
If you’re like me, though, you probably play more by the seat of your pants than most. As long as you remember that it’s important to get to the next level, you’ll probably do fine. You won’t see the payback percentage listed for the game unless you play with perfect strategy, though. When you wing it, like I do, you give up 1% or 2% in expected value. If you’re really bad at video poker, you might be giving up even more than that.
Multi-Strike Poker Variations
Multi-Strike Poker isn’t a video poker variation itself. It’s a feature that rides on top of an existing video poker variation. For example, you can find Jacks or Better in a Multi-Strike Poker version, but you can also play Deuces Wild in a Multi-Strike Poker version.
Your basic strategy for the Multi-Strike Poker will be based on which video poker variation the game is based on, but you’ll play more conservatively than you would otherwise. Like we already discussed, your goal is to get to the next level so that you can go for the bigger payouts on the later levels.
Multi-Strike versions of the following video poker games are available:
- Jacks or Better
- Bonus Poker
- Bonus Poker Deluxe
- Deuces Wild
- Double Bonus Deuces Wild
- Double Bonus Poker
- Double Double Bonus Poker
- Super Double Bonus Poker
- Triple Double Bonus Poker
- Super Aces Bonus Poker
- Joker Poker
- White Hot Aces
Each of these comes with multiple pay tables, too. For example, a Multi-Strike Jacks or Better game might come in 9/6, 9/5, 8/5, 75, or 6/5 versions.
In Jacks or Better, these two numbers refer to the payouts for the full house and flush hands, respectively. A 9/6 Jacks or Better game pays out 9 for 1 for a full house and 6 for 1 for a flush.
The higher these two numbers are, the better the payback percentage is for the game. For example, a 9/6 Jacks or Better game offers a 99.54% payback percentage when played with perfect strategy.
An 8/5 Jacks or Better game, on the other hand, has a payback percentage of 97.3%.
Multi Strike Poker
This payback percentage is before accounting for the Multi-Strike feature, though. With the doubling of the pay tables and the free ride opportunities to get to the next level, the payback percentage goes up about 0.2%, depending on the game.
I touched on that briefly earlier in this post, but I want to provide a more specific example here.
- The 9/6 Jacks or Better version of Multi-Strike Poker has a payback percentage of 99.79% when played on the Multi-Strike version. That’s an improvement of 0.25% over the standard game.
- The 8/5 Jacks or Better version of Multi-Strike Poker has a payback percentage of 97.63%, which is 0.33% better than the standard payback percentage of 97.3%.
Multi-Strike Poker Review
When Multi-Strike Poker debuted several years ago, there was a lot of buzz. That buzz was justifiable because the game is a lot of fun. All the versions I’ve seen had excellent production values, too — great graphics and sound effects.
Once you include all the pay tables and variations, there are at least 60 different versions of Multi-Strike Poker available. These games are worth seeking out, but you do need a larger bankroll to participate in Multi-Strike Poker than you might for some other video poker variations.
Even if you’re a quarter player, you’re looking at a significantly larger bet size on each hand. You’d risk $1.25 per hand on a standard game, but on that same game in Multi-Strike mode, you’d need $5 per hand.
Multi Strike Poker Super Times Pay
The best thing about those times when you get the extra hands is the bigger payout for your wins.
Conclusion
Multi Strike Poker Games
Multi-Strike Poker works like a regular video poker game with a sort of video game-based level progression added to it. It’s not a complicated addition to the game, and you should try it if you haven’t already.
The ability to get double payouts on the later levels of the game has interesting implications for your strategy. Mostly it just means playing more conservatively than you would normally.
Multi-Strike Poker even has an official website where you can try the game for free online before playing in a casino. This is a good idea because it will give you a better idea of if you’ll enjoy this variation.