Five Aces Poker is draw poker with one extra card in the deck: a second Ace of Spades, marked with a gold star. It is not a joker and it substitutes for nothing. It is simply a fifth Ace, and that one card changes the shape of the pay table. Five Aces becomes a real hand paying 800 per credit, four Aces pay 80, and to fund those the table trims the most common win in ordinary video poker: here two pair pays only 1 to 1.
How to play
- Bet 1 to 5 credits. Bet one adds a credit at a time; Bet max bets five and deals immediately.
- Five cards are dealt from a freshly shuffled 53-card deck.
- Hold the cards you want to keep by tapping them; each is marked Held.
- Draw. Every card you didn’t hold is replaced from the same deck.
- Your final hand is paid from the table below, and the next hand starts with a new shuffle.
Hint shows the hold with the highest average return for the cards in front of you. It is offered after a short ad.
Pay table (per credit bet)
| Hand | Pays |
|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 (800 per credit at 5 credits: 4,000) |
| Five Aces | 800 |
| Straight Flush | 50 |
| Four Aces | 80 |
| Four 2s, 3s or 4s | 40 |
| Four 5s through Kings | 25 |
| Full House | 9 |
| Flush | 7 |
| Straight | 4 |
| Three of a Kind | 3 |
| Two Pair | 1 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 |
With the best hold on every hand, the game returns 99.54% over the long run. That figure is exact, worked out over every possible deal and every possible draw from the 53-card deck.
What the extra Ace changes
There are five Aces, so they come up more. Any one card has a 5 in 53 chance of being an Ace instead of 4 in 52. A lone Ace in your hand has more partners left in the deck than usual.
Five Aces is the only five of a kind. No other rank has a fifth copy. You need both Aces of Spades plus the other three; it’s the biggest hand on the table at 800 per credit, the same as a max-bet royal flush.
Four Aces is a separate, big prize. At 80 per credit it pays more than three times ordinary four of a kind.
Two pair is cheap. Two pair returns your bet and no more, the same as a pair of jacks. In most video poker it pays 2 to 1, so the hand loses much of its value here. A lot of the return that two pair usually provides has been moved up into the Ace and low-quad prizes.
Both Aces of Spades can sit in one hand. Two Aces of Spades count as a pair of Aces. They can both belong to a spade flush, but they can’t make a straight together, because a straight needs five different ranks.
Full house and flush pay 9 and 7. These are the generous “9/7” levels, higher than many other games.
Strategy
The hint gives the exact best play for any hand, and following it is how the 99.54% is reached. A few principles explain most of its choices:
- Never break a made hand worth more than you could reasonably draw to, such as a straight, flush or full house. Straight flush draws are the exception worth checking with the hint.
- Three Aces or four Aces: hold them all. You are drawing at the fifth Ace (or the fourth) and at a full house. With four Aces, the fifth card is irrelevant to the 80 you already have, but drawing to it gives a shot at 800.
- Aces carry more weight than usual. Because of the extra Ace and the big Ace prizes, holding Aces is more attractive than holding other high cards.
- Pairs of 2s, 3s and 4s are worth keeping. Their four of a kind pays 40, well above the 25 for middle ranks.
- Bet the maximum if you play for the royal. Only a 5-credit bet gets 800 per credit for a royal flush; at fewer credits it pays 250 per credit. The 99.54% figure assumes the 5-credit royal.
Even with perfect play the game keeps a small edge, 0.46%. No holding pattern beats it; good play just keeps the edge at that minimum. For the standard 52-card game to compare, see Video Poker, or for heavier Ace bonuses on a normal deck, Super Aces.
If you enjoy Five Aces Poker, try Five Card Draw or Five-Card Omaha next.
