How to Understand Some Aspects of Video Poker Strategy
About two weeks ago, we published an article about video poker strategy. We would like to return to the idea of video poker strategy and look at it from a slightly different point of view. We are doing this because among the large group of jackpot casinos, Jackpot Capital is one of the few that really tries to teach gamers how to play better and win more!
Video Poker Strategy Can be Basic or Advanced
We feel that advanced video poker strategy is a lot more complex, with many more nuances to remember, than basic strategy. With advanced strategy, your return to player rate will go up very fractionally. So, here we will assume that you are using basic video poker strategy.
Always Play 9-6 Video Poker
This should be obvious but a lot of gamers simply accept 8-5 or even 7-5 as the range of payouts for a full house and a flush. We cannot state this more emphatically: you will never (practically never) have a winning video poker session if you play 8-5 video poker.
Playing 9-6 video poker is more important than setting sound time and money budgets, as important it is to do so. It is more important than learning to be patient. It is even more important than learning some of the many subtleties of video poker.
There are a lot of 8-5 video poker terminals at land-based casinos. If you can’t find a terminal that pays out 9-6, we recommend that you not play the gane at that casino at all! At Jackpot Capital we pay 9-6. Land-based casinos have so much more overhead that they try to find ways, subtle ways, to squeeze a little more profit from players.
Always Bet the Maximum
If the maximum bet is too high for you, we suggest looking for a different casino if you are on land. At Jackpot Capital, the maximum number of coins is well within the reach of almost all gamers.
Betting the maximum is necessary to qualify for the extra payment for a Royal Flush. So much of basic strategy relates to going for the elusive Royal that we would need another article entirely to talk about strategy for gamers who don’t bet the maximum.
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Take a Deep Look at Video Poker Strategy
The first thing we are told is to keep four to a Royal Flush. This happens very rarely but there is a powerful morsel of truth in this strategy. If you have four to a Royal Flush and a low card of a different suit, it would be obvious that you keep the four to the Royal Flush. What happens if you have four to a Royal Flush and a flush? What happens if you also have a pair? What if you already have a straight?
Here we have arrived at a basic tenet in poker in general: counting outs.
Let’s say that you have four to a Royal Flush and a high pair. If you break up the pair, you might not get the Royal Flush. That’s true, but you could get a straight flush, another high pair, a regular straight, and a flush.
In this example, you have a jack, queen, king, and ace suited and another jack.
There are 11 cards that can still give you a winning pair. There is a suited 10 that will give you the Royal Flush. There are three other tens that will give you a straight. There are 8 cards that will give you a flush. All told, there are 23 cards that will give you a winning hand and one card that will give that rare Royal Flush.
The deck started with 52 cards and you have five so there are 47 cards left. This means that you have almost a 50-50 chance of at least getting a winning hand on the draw.
But why do we go for the Royal Flush when it is so rare? When the cards were dealt and before you saw them, the odds of getting a Royall Flush were about 40,000-1. Now that you have four to the Royal, the odds against your getting the Royal have come down to 47-1. In the rarified air of four to a Royal Flush, these are odds we are willing to take especially since the odds of getting a winning hand are so favorable as well.
You should get into the habit of counting outs on confusing hands. When you have grasped the math of counting outs, you will be far along in understanding the rest of basic video poker strategy.
Three Cards to a Royal Flush is Far Different than Four to the Royal
In this scenario, there are simply prohibitive odds against getting the Royal so there are strong winning hands that you will keep rather than go for the Royal Flush. These include a straight, a flush, three of a kind, two pair, and a straight flush.
It is Often Better to Trade in Low Cards
Let’s say that you have three to a flush or a straight but none of the cards is a jack or higher. Don’t go for the flush or straight because even if you pair one of the cards, you will still have a losing hand!
Don’t Keep a Kicker
This is obvious if you have a high pair and another high card. In that case, you discard the other high card, the kicker as it were. In regular poker, you might keep the high card as a kicker but in video poker, you go for the best hand you can get so by keeping just the pair, you increase the odds of getting four of a kind, there of a kind, two pair, and a full house.
However, if you have two high card s and no pair, the best strategy is to keep both high cards. In this case you will be happy with a pair so keeping the two high cards give you slightly better chances of getting a high pair than keeping just one high card.
Video Poker is a Deeply Rewarding Game
Our last bit of advice is to play slowly. Look over the cards you were dealt and try to understand the best strategy for those specific cards. Most of the time you will be correct! It is the odd holdings that make the difference between best strategy and okay strategy!
Jackpot Capital offers many variations of video poker. We invite all gamers to JOIN JACKPOT CAPITAL NOW!
