High Hand Bonuses

[lwestatbus]

Finally a follow-up to an idea I'd first posed in a previous post Vegas Trip Report in this forum. I wanted to report on my experiences with high hand bonuses and ask any of you mathematically otiented, opinionated, or just plain wacko players out there to express your opinion on the matter.

Played in seven poker sessions in five casinos and found that four of them had a formal high-hand bonus system. It basically works like this:

In addition to the house rake there is a second rake for the bonus pool. Each casino had bonuses for the following hands:

- Quads for each rank of cards (AAAA - KKKK) for 13 bonuses
- Straight flush by suit for 4 bonuses
- Royal flush by suit for 4 bonuses

So a total of 21 different bonus payouts.

At each casino where I asked the bonus for each possible win was initialized at $50. At the end of every day the bonus rake was allocated across each of the 21 bonuses so the pot would grow. Whenever a bonus was won it's value was reset to $50. So different bonuses would have values from $50 (recently won) to royal flush bonuses in the $3,500+ range.

At each casino the rules were fairly consistent. To win a bonus you had to use BOTH of your cards in the hand, there had to be four players to the flop, and the pot had to have $10 in it ($12 at one casino). The deck had to be verified (counted).

I made two quads--7777 at Suncoast for a $50 bonus (pot was more than that) and TTTT at Golden Nugget for $100.

PokerRoom used to have a Royal Flush bonus and the Seminole HardRock casino in Hollywood had a $500 RF bonus.

Bellagio was the only casino that did not have a bonus. When I asked about them the dealer sniffed like a snooty headwaiter who just found gum on the bottom of his shoe and said, "Sir, the Bellagio doesn't have to offer bonuses."

Here're the questions:

1. Do you like or dislike having bonuses available?

2. Do you play hands differently if the bonus is out there? (On one hand I didn't want to chase anyone out of a pot because we hadn't made the $10 min--I saw one poor guy with quad threes not get the bonus because he had no action. In another I called down with an inside straight flush draw even though I knew I was beat by anything but the one-outer.)

3. How does the bonus rake affect the math of playing?

4. Are bonuses a touristy come on or something you should legitimately manage as part of your play?

[groton]

i dont know the Luxor had a Bonus and taht game was juicy
the Orlenas im sure had a bonus and that game was fea bag ridding with old pro's and sucked
and the MGM had no bonus and one day it was good the next it was soso