Posting a 99.5% RTP is pretty misleading when forcing unsolicited advice to the player every hand which, if followed, would significantly reduce the RTP.
Just how bad is the advice?
http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/basics/#toc-PlayingStrategy lists three strategies for video poker:
* Jacks or Better simple strategy (return of 99.46%)
* Jacks or Better intermediate strategy (return of 99.52%)
* Jacks or Better optimal strategy (return of 99.54%)
The optimal strategy is a list of 36 rules which would take considerable effort to memorise, for not much gain over the intermediate strategy, which is a list of 25 rules. And that doesn't give you much gain over the simple strategy, which is a relatively simple, mostly intuitive list of 16 rules.
So are we talking "worse than this simple strategy" bad?
Edit:
In the example I gave:
As Ks Js Tc 6h
The obvious right play is holding As Ks Js
EV = 1.4
Software advises holding As Ks Js Tc
EV = 0.5
As Ks Js Tc 6h
The obvious right play is holding As Ks Js
EV = 1.4
Software advises holding As Ks Js Tc
EV = 0.5
OK, so that is horrible advice. Even the simple strategy recommends holding 3 to a royal (rule 7). "Chase the gutshot" isn't even in the list:
I think it is reasonable to have the computer recommend simple strategy, which isn't perfect, but is close enough. But to have it give really bad advice doesn't seem acceptable.
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