Fast CPU Software ReviewFast CPU software is the cheapest ripoff of Microgaming software you'll ever find. The functionality of the games is spotty, the paytables are horrible (and often bizarre), and the randomness of the games is highly questionable. To the best of my knowledge, this software is currently only used by the French company Partouche. Most or all of the game preview images are in French. The King cards are even marked with an R (Roi) instead of a K (King). This software has several irregular games which cannot be analyzed without additional information. Nearly all of the games have obvious problems which clearly demonstrate that whoever designed them doesn't know anything about video poker. The games which I did analyze were done under the assumption that the cards are dealt randomly, which is not what I believe is happening for most (if not all) of their games. Let's start with Jacks or Better, which they call "Jack or Better". How many things can you find wrong with this picture?  Judging by the 1-Coin column, it looks like the game uses the 1-2-3-4-5-6-25-50 paytable. But now look at the 2-Coin column. Every hand pays twice the 1-Coin column amount, except for Four of a Kind. In fact, looking at all of the Four of a Kind payouts, it appears that the 1-Coin payout is incorrect and should be 20 instead of 25. A proper paytable would show 20-40-60-80-100 or 25-50-75-100-125, not a hybrid of the two. Now look at the payouts for a "Flush Same Suit", which is what they call a Flush. The first three values are "normal", but the 4-Coin payout is only 1 coin less than the 5-Coin payout. Now look at Full House and you will see another anomaly with the 4-Coin and 5-Coin payouts. A Full House pays 6-for-1 when betting 1 to 3 coins, 7.5-for-1 when betting 4 coins, and 7-for-1 when betting 5 coins. When I ran this bizarre paytable through my analyzer, what I discovered is that playing 4 coins gives you the highest long-term return, 95.4679%. Now let's take a look at Deuces Wild, which they call "Deuce Wild" (pluralization must be troublesome for their graphic designer):  I had to create a new analyzer for their version of the game because the starting hand is Two Pair instead of Three of a Kind. This adds almost 8% to the game's overall return. However, even if their version did not pay for Two Pair, the game would still return 142.9449% (assuming randomly-dealt cards). With the Two Pair taken into consideration, the game returns a theoretical 150.6271%. Obviously the cards cannot be dealt randomly with a paytable that has a 50% player advantage. The following table lists the long-term return percentages for each game I was able to analyze, assuming random cards and perfect play: Video Poker Games
I have strong reason to believe that the cards are not dealt randomly in at least some of their games. I played several hands of "Joker Poker Big Beer" (stupid name, like most of their games) and "Joker Poker Wheel of Fortune". In every single hand where a Joker was dealt in the initial hand, the hand was already a winner. The majority of the time the Joker was dealt with an Ace (making a Pair of Aces, which is the lowest paying hand), and the rest of the time the Joker was dealt with four cards that formed a Straight. Not once - out of over 50 hands where the Joker was dealt on the deal - was a Joker ever dealt as part of a losing hand or a different type of winning hand. I didn't bother taking the time to determine the odds of this happening in a fair game, since it was very obvious that something fishy was going on. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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