DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0022] The present invention includes an electronic video poker game. Each electronic video poker game is designed to be played by having the poker hand displayed on a video screen to a player. By manipulating the buttons on the gaming device or by using conventional touch screen technology, the player selects how much he wishes to wager, which poker hand formats the player wishes to use for that play of the game and which cards the player wishes to hold and which cards the player wishes to discard.

[0023] FIG. 1 shows a gaming machine upon which the method of the present invention can be carried out. The gaming machine 10 includes a video screen display 20 on which is shown the playing cards that will be used during the play of the method of the present invention. The video screen display 20 also includes other information and data presented to the player to allow the player to understand the play of the game and to effect the operation of the method.

[0024] In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the video screen display shows a credit meter 22 and a display of the total number of credits 24 wagered for a particular round of play of the game. The video screen display also has touch screen locations to allow the player to DEAL 47 the initial display of cards which comprise the initial hand dealt to the player. Other touch screen locations allow the player to make his initial wager, which can be made one credit at a time using the BET ONE location 26 or which can be made by wagering the maximum number of credits allowed by the gaming machine using the BET MAX location 28. The screen display 20 also displays the playing cards 60 dealt to the player and the player can effect his hold of the cards by pressing each card location on the screen display. When the player has selected which cards he wishes to hold, the player can cause the replacement cards to be dealt by pressing the DRAW 47 location on the screen display 20. The DEAL/DRAW location 47 toggles between a DEAL symbol and a DRAW symbol depending on whether the deal step is active or the draw step is active, as is conventional.

[0025] Finally, yet another touch screen location allows the player to determine the poker formats the player wishes to play. POKER FORMAT location 31 is used by the player to select the first poker hand format that the player wishes to play. POKER FORMAT location 33 is used by the player to select the second poker hand format that the player wishes to play.

[0026] The gaming machine 10 also has a button panel 40 which includes typical buttons that the player may press to activate various actions during the play of the method of the present invention. A CASH OUT button 41 is provided to allow the player to collect any credits which the player has accrued on the credit meter 22. A BET MAX button 42 and a BET ONE button 44 are provided to allow the player to wager either the maximum amount of credits or to wager one credit at a time on the play of the game as desired by the player. A DEAL/DRAW button 46 is provided to allow the player to effect the initial deal step of the method of play as desired should the player prefer to use the button panel instead of the DEAL/DRAW screen location 47 on the video screen display 20.

[0027] The gaming machine 10 also includes a coin head 50 to allow the player to insert coins or gaming tokens as wagers to allow play of the gaming machine 10. A bill acceptor slot 52 is also provided on the gaming machine 10. In order to accrue credits that may be used to play the gaming machine 10, the player inserts paper currency or other suitable script or gaming coupons into the bill acceptor slot 52 behind which, on the interior of the gaming machine, is mounted a bill acceptor which takes in and validates the currency. The monetary value of the inserted currency is then applied to the credit meter 22, the credits on which the player may use to play the gaming machine. As is conventional in video poker gaming machines, the player may effect a wager by inserting coins or gaming tokens or the player may effect a wager by using credits accrued on the credit meter 22.

[0028] Any other conventional and suitable equipment can be included in the gaming machine.

[0029] The preferred embodiment of the present invention uses a standard fifty-two card deck, and may add one or more Jokers as wild cards when a Joker wild card format is selected by the player. A player makes an initial wager to activate the game and the player selects the two poker hand formats that the player wishes to play during that round of the game. The player also determines the amount of the wager that is to be allocated to each poker hand format that the player will play.

[0030] In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the amount wagered by the player will be equally divided between each poker hand format. Alternatively, the computer controls of the gaming machine can be configured to allow the player to wager different amounts on each poker hand format. As shown in FIG. 1, the player has elected to wager five credits on each poker hand format that the player will play.

[0031] In order to select the first poker format to be used during the round of play, the player presses the POKER FORMAT 1 screen location and a second screen display 100, see FIG. 2, is shown to the player. This second screen display 100 can display in any suitable manner the various poker formats available to the player to select from. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, each of the available poker formats can be shown in a touch screen location on the screen display 100—Draw Poker 102, Bonus Poker 104, Double Bonus Poker 106, Double Double Bonus Poker 108, Deuces Wild Poker 110 and Joker Poker 112. The player simply touches the screen location associated with the poker format the player wishes to select. The method of the present invention requires that the poker formats be different—the player may not select the same poker format for both plays in the same round of play of the game.

[0032] As shown in FIG. 3, the player has chosen Draw Poker as the first poker format and Deuces Wild Poker as the second format.

[0033] After the wager has been made and after the player has selected his desired poker hand formats for that round of play of the game, an initial hand of five cards is randomly dealt (after the playing cards have been randomly shuffled electronically as is conventional) and displayed to the player on the screen display. A representative initial deal is shown in FIG. 3 and the player has been dealt the Two of Spades 61, the Queen of Clubs 62, the Four of Hearts 63, the Two of Clubs 64 and the Seven of Diamonds 65.

[0034] As is conventional in video poker gaming machines, the player selects which cards he player wishes to hold be pressing the “Hold” button under each card or by touching the card on the touch screen display. In the example shown in FIG. 3, the player would most likely hold the Two of Spades 61 and the Two of Clubs 64 since this is a Pair in Draw Poker and two wild cards in Deuces Wild Poker.

[0035] The player then presses the “Draw” button to discard the unwanted non-held cards and replacement cards from the original deck of playing cards are dealt and displayed to the player. The resulting five card hand is the player's final hand. In the example as shown in FIG. 4, the player was dealt as replacement cards the Two of Diamonds 66, the Seven of Hearts 67 and the Seven of Spades 68.

[0036] The final hand is analyzed by the computer controls to determine the poker hand ranking. The poker hand ranking of the final hand is compared to the pay table for each poker hand format to determine whether a winning hand combination has been achieved.

[0037] With reference to the example shown in FIG. 4, the player has a Full House relative to the Draw Poker format. Using any suitable pay table for the Draw Poker format, such as the one shown in Table 1, the player would be awarded nine credits for each credit wagered for a Full House achieved in Draw Poker.

[0038] The player also has five Sevens relative to the Deuces Wild Poker format. Using any suitable pay table for the Deuces Wild Poker format, such as the one shown in Table 2, the player would be awarded fifteen credits for each credit wagered for a Five-of-a-Kind achieved in Deuces Wild Poker.

[0039] Any suitable pay table may be devised for each of the poker formats that can be used in the method of the present invention. The selection of the appropriate pay table is based on the mathematical probability of video poker and the desired game return to be offered to the player.

[0040] As discussed above, any of the myriad of poker formats that have been devised may be used and the method of the present invention can be easily adapted to any new poker formats that may be devised in the future.

[0041] Following are examples of pay tables that can be used with some well-known poker formats, but these examples should be considered as illustrative and the method of the present invention is not intended to be limited to any particular pay table or groups of pay tables.

[0042] A typical pay table for Bonus Poker is shown in Table 3: 3

[0043] A typical pay table for Double Bonus Poker is shown in Table 4: 4

[0044] A typical pay table for Double Double Bonus Poker is shown in Table 5: 5

[0045] A typical pay table for Joker Poker is shown in Table 6: 6

[0046] A typical pay table for Joker Poker is shown in Table 6: 7

[0047] In another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the player cannot select which two poker formats the player may play during any round of the game. Instead the gaming machine is programmed to offer the player two preselected poker formats and those two preselected poker formats are the two that the player will use during each round of play of the game.

[0048] For example, the two preselected poker formats could be Double Double Bonus Poker and Deuces Wild Poker. The pay table for each of these preselected poker formats can be set to have a game return in excess of 100%. However, the overall game return will be less than 100% because the optimal hold and draw strategy for one poker format would not be the optimal hold and draw strategy for the other format.

[0049] For example, in this preferred embodiment of the present invention, the Double Double Bonus Poker format pay table is shown in Table 8 and has a theoretical game return of 103.1179%: 8

[0050] The Deuces Wild Poker format pay table is shown in Table 9 and has a theoretical game return of 103.8111%: 9

[0051] The overall game return when Double Double Bonus Poker and Deuces Wild Poker are the two preselected poker formats would be 98.2134% because the optimal play for each initially dealt hand may not be the same for each poker format. For example, if a player is initially dealt three Deuces, a King of Spades and an Ace of Spades, the player on the deal would have a Wild Royal Flush in the Deuces Wild Poker format but only a Three-of-a-Kind in the Double Double Bonus Poker format. If the player holds all five initially dealt cards, the player would win the payout for a Wild Royal in the Deuces Wild Poker format and the payout for Three-of-a-Kind in the Double Double Bonus Poker format. But the player would give up the opportunity to achieve four Deuces (with or without the kicker) in the Double Double Bonus Poker format which has a very high payout. Likewise, if the player only holds the three Deuces and tries to achieve a higher payout in the Double Double Bonus Poker format, the player would be giving up a guaranteed payout for the Wild Royal Flush in the Deuces Wild Poker format.

[0052] Other preselected poker format combinations can be used, particularly those that combine a wild card poker format with another wild card poker format. For example, the Joker Poker format can be combined with the Deuces Joker Poker format.

[0053] Another variation of the present invention can use three or more poker formats played from a single player poker hand. The player would make a wager that would be allocated among the three or more poker formats and the final five card hand is then analyzed relative to each of the three or more poker formats to determine winning and losing hands.

[0054] While the invention has been illustrated with respect to several specific embodiments thereof, these embodiments should be considered as illustrative rather than limiting. Various modifications and additions may be made and will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the invention should not be limited by the foregoing description, but rather should be defined only by the following claims.