A pack of cards looks the same in every South African home, so you'd expect the names on those cards to match in every language, right? Not quite! Afrikaans has its own word for the ace and for each of the three court cards, and two of those words have very little to do with royalty. Here at Springbok Casino, we have an online video poker title named after the ace and one other rank, and those two ranks are the stars of its paytable.
Which two ranks are we talking about? The clue is in the name. Aces & Eights is one of the single-hand titles in our online video poker lobby, and it's played with the deck, the hold and the single draw of Jacks or Better. The paytable is where the two titles differ, and the lekker part of that difference is in the four-of-a-kind lines. Which rank would you rather see four times over in a single hand… an Ace or an Eight?
Have You Heard the Afrikaans Names for the Cards in Your Deck?
In Afrikaans, the ace is an aas and the eight is an agt, so our Aces & Eights is an aas en agt game for any Afrikaans speaker who plays online video poker! The court cards have Afrikaans names of their own, which were all inherited from the Dutch language, and two of them have more than one. Klawerjas is a card game popular in Afrikaans communities in Cape Town, and these names are called out across the table whenever it's played:
- The king is a heer or a koning, and heer is the Afrikaans word for a gentleman or a lord.
- The queen is a vrou, a dame or a koningin, and vrou is the everyday word for a woman or a wife.
- The jack is a boer, which is also the Afrikaans word for a farmer.
The suits have Afrikaans names too – clubs are klawers, diamonds are ruitens, hearts are hartens and spades are skoppens. French card makers drew those four symbols around 1480 as simpler versions of the suits on German packs, and they called them trèfles, carreaux, cœurs and piques. The club probably came from the German acorn, and the spade from the German leaf. Who knew a pack of cards had such a leafy family tree?
In Aces & Eights itself, the aas and the agt are the two ranks paid most generously for four of a kind, and the Sevens have a line of their own below them. The heer, the vrou and the boer are paid at the ordinary four-of-a-kind rate, which is the rate for every other rank in the deck. Aces & Eights is therefore the one title in our online video poker lobby where a humble agt outranks a heer on the paytable. It does so by a fair margin, but we'll get back to that!
The Biggest Four of a Kind Wins Are Made with Aces or Eights
Four Aces or four Eights are paid at 80 coins for every coin you bet in Aces & Eights, and four Sevens are paid at 50 coins per coin. Every other four of a kind, whether it's made of Twos or Kings, is paid at 20 coins per coin. Our online video poker coins come in five denominations – R0.05, R0.25, R0.50, R1.00 and R5.00 – and you can bet one to five of them a hand. At a R1.00 coin with all five coins in play, your bet is R5, and the three lines come to this in rand:
- Four Aces or four Eights are paid at 400 coins, which is R400 on a R5 bet.
- Four Sevens are paid at 250 coins, so R250 is added to your balance.
- Every other four of a kind is paid at 100 coins, which comes to R100.
Is four of a kind made of Eights worth FOUR times as much as four Kings here? It most definitely is – R400 against R100 on the very same R5 bet! Put another way, one hand of four Eights at Springbok Online Casino is paid as much as four separate hands of four Kings put together – at any coin value you choose. Four Sevens at R250 are a lucrative prize as well, since that's two and a half times the ordinary rate. Sevens are the only other rank with a line of their own!
That's why a pair of Eights is a pair to keep in this online video poker title, even though only Jacks or better are paid as a pair. With three Eights in your hand, you're a single card away from the R400 line, and you're just as close with three Aces. The difference is that a pair of Aces is paid in its own right, so it's the stronger start of the two when the cards first appear. Mense, get that into your kop before your next hand of Aces & Eights!
Which Hands Are Worth More in Aces & Eights Than in Jacks or Better?
Four Aces, four Eights and four Sevens in Aces & Eights are each paid above any four of a kind in Jacks or Better. The Full House is also paid at 7 coins per coin here, against 6 in Jacks or Better. The Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Flush, Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair and a pair of Jacks or better match coin for coin in both titles. A Full House turns up far more often than four of a kind… so that extra coin on every coin you bet is a kiff little bonus!
In the table below, both online video poker titles are set at a R1.00 coin with five coins in play, so every figure is the rand amount on a R5 bet. At any other stake, each figure is multiplied by the coin value you pick, so at a R0.25 coin, four Eights come to R100. Aces & Eights is ahead in three of the rows, and the matching rows are proof of how closely the two titles are related. Compare the columns and decide which paytable you'd rather play to!
|
Hand (R5 bet) |
Aces & Eights |
Jacks or Better |
|
Royal Flush |
R4,000 |
R4,000 |
|
Four Aces or four Eights |
R400 |
R125 |
|
Four Sevens |
R250 |
R125 |
|
Full House |
R35 |
R30 |
|
Flush |
R25 |
R25 |
|
Two Pair |
R10 |
R10 |
Before you put real rand on either paytable, you can try both titles in practice mode here at Springbok Casino. The practice mode balance is a once-off R1,000 for online video poker. Once it's spent, it can't be refreshed or reset, so it's best used in the title you plan to play for real rand. The paytable, rules and coin denominations in practice mode match the real-money version, so the R400 line in practice is the one you'd play for with your own rand.
Vra Maar! We’ve Got Your Aces & Eights Answers at Springbok
With the heer, the vrou and the boer back in their places in the pack, our Afrikaans lesson is over, and the practical part of playing real-money online video poker begins. Our support team at Springbok Casino is on live chat 24/7 for any question we haven’t covered here, and all our live and personalised offers are sent straight to your account inbox. Siyabonga for staying with our little aas en agt lesson to the very end!
Q: Is Aces & Eights the same game as Jacks or Better?
A: Not quite! Both titles are played with a French-suited deck of 52 cards and a single draw on every hand, and a pair of Jacks or better is the lowest-paying hand in each. The difference is on the paytable, where four Aces, Eights or Sevens and a Full House are paid more in Aces & Eights, so the two titles are close cousins!
Q: How do I open Aces & Eights in practice mode?
A: You open practice mode from the same Log In panel you use for real-money play, and the balance is a once-off R1,000 for every game in our lobby at Springbok Casino. Since that balance can't be refreshed or reset, it's best kept for the titles you plan to play for real. You reach Aces & Eights in four steps:
- Open Springbok Casino in the browser on your phone or computer, and go to the Log In panel.
- Enter your username and password in the panel.
- Press the Practice Mode button in place of Log In.
- Open the Video Poker tab in our lobby and choose the Aces & Eights tile.
Q: Do I earn comp points when I play Aces & Eights at Springbok?
A: Ja, you do! You earn one comp point for every R10 you bet in our online video poker titles, which works out to one point for every two R5 hands of Aces & Eights. You can redeem your points in the Redeem Comps section of our cashier once you reach 100, and every 100 points are worth R1 in your balance.
Q: How do I withdraw my Aces & Eights winnings at Springbok?
A: Once your account is verified through the Account Verification link in our cashier, you can withdraw your online video poker winnings by wire transfer or Bitcoin, and both methods are free. Withdrawals are processed Monday to Friday, and the process begins 48 hours after your request.
Hold Those Aces & Eights – Play Online Video Poker at Springbok!
Are you ready to find out whether an aas or an agt turns up first in your hand? Open Aces & Eights in our online video poker lobby at Springbok Casino, where every bet and every payout is in rand. You can fund your balance from R35 with BetterEFT through any one of ten South African banks. Gooi five coins before you press Deal, and when a pair of Eights appears in your first five cards, hold them and go after that R400 line on the draw!