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Video Poker emerged in the 70s, instantly became a hit in the world of casino and remains popular to this present day. It has fairly easy rules to follow and simple to understand in terms of learning how to play. The essence of the game is that a player pays 1 to 5 coins and receives 5 cards, then chooses which cards to hold and which ones to exchange. And he wins or loses depending on whether he managed to collect a winning Poker combination. Simple, isn't it?
The completion / exchange strategy of a Poker combination
A basic principle of the strategy is to select a card you can keep or that can be replaced. This is the only decision that is up to the player to make in a Video Poker game.
The most common type of Video Poker is the version of 'Jacks or Higher' where a jack is the lowest card possible. In order to get a good chance to win in Video Poker, the player has to evaluate his opening combination in hand and replace the cards that don't fit into a potential combination. In this case, it's necessary to choose the most senior card out of the possible combinations.
The list of starter combinations:
- Full House and up
- Draw with a Royal Flush (four cards of a Royal Flush with the possibility of completion by replacing the fifth card)
- Straight, Flush or Set (Triple)
- A Pair of high cards (jacks and from above)
- Draw with a Royal Flush with three cards
- Flush Draw (four cards of a Flash)
- A Pair of low cards
- Straight Draw (four cards to a Straight on the possible completion by replacing the fifth card)
- Two cards of the same suit
- Draw a Straight Flush with three cards
- Two high cards of a different suit
- Pairs like ten + jack, queen + dozen, etc.
- One card higher
How to apply the strategy?
Imagine a situation where in your opening hand there are four cards of the same suit (three, five, jack and queen of clubs) and the lowest card (three hearts). And now you have three possible courses of action in a situation like this:
- Leave a couple of low cards, that is three and replace the remaining cards;
- Leave the Flush Draw and try to collect a missing combination by replacing your three of hearts;
- Leave two cards of the same suit that is a queen and a jack and replace the remaining three cards.
According to the basic principle of the strategy, you should choose the most senior combination of the list provided above. Therefore, in this situation, the best solution is to keep a flush draw and try to finish combination by replacing the three of hearts.
The optimal strategy in Video Poker
Basically this strategy is almost the same. All you need to do is to analyse the starting combination in hand with the list of favourable combinations. Remember that you need to leave in the hand the combination that is higher on the list. If you see that your starting combination doesn't look good and doesn't contain anything worthwhile from that list, the only option is to fold immediately.
The List of Possible Combinations for Starting Hands:
- Royal Flush
- Straight Flush
- Quads (Four Of A Kind)
- Full House
- Flush
- Set (triple)
- Straight
- Draw with a Straight Flush (four cards to a Straight Flush)
- Two Pairs
- Pair of high cards (two jacks and higher)
- Draw with a Royal Flush (three cards to a Royal Flush)
- Ace, jack, queen, king of all stripes
- Pair of low cards
- Draw (4 of 5 cards complete combination) and one or two high cards
- Draw with a Straight Flush (3 out of 5 cards complete combination)
- Queen and jack of the same suit
- Suited ace + high card (king, queen or jack)
- Unsuited high cards (jack, queen and king)
- Unsuited high cards (diamonds and spades)
- Two high cards of different suits (excluding an ace that is the oldest in this combination, a king)
- Suited dozen + jack
- Suited dozen + queen
- Two high cards of different suits with the ace (the highest card, respectively, ace)
- Jack
- Suited dozen + king
- Queen
- King
- Ace
How to apply this strategy?
Imagine the following: you have four cards of spades (three, nine, and jack of spades) and a nine of hearts. One of the two possible starting hand combinations is a Flush Draw (four cards to a peak with a chance to get a Flush fifth card spade by replacing dozens of hearts) and a pair of low cards (nines). You have a choice to make: either to sacrifice a possible Flush and save the guaranteed pair of low cards or try to collect the Flush after all. The choice here is obvious really: a Flush Draw is mentioned in the list above, so you should totally go for it without second guessing.
