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  BEST ONLINE CASINO VIDEO POKER

PLAY VIDEO POKER ONLINE!
(Information and strategy provided by Arnold Snyder's Blackjack Forum Online)

THE BASICS OF VIDEO POKER

If you are familiar with the video poker offered in live casinos, you’ll find the online casino versions of the game just about identical. The only real difference is that you’ll use your mouse to press the buttons for betting, dealing, holding, and drawing cards. If you are not familiar with casino video poker, here’s a quick and easy primer on the game.

If you'd rather not memorize the strategies for video poker, here is an even easier Slot Secrets video poker tip:

Slotty's Video Poker Tip #25   Microgaming Viper online casino software automatically tells you the perfect way to play each video poker hand, on any game. All you have to do is decide whether to take their advice or not!

 

HOW TO PLAY VIDEO POKER

Technically, video poker is not a traditional poker game in any sense. You do not play your hand against any other player’s hand, so it is a form of poker without an opponent. You win at video poker simply by making five-card hands that pay roughly according to the traditional ranking of poker hands. The amount you are paid on your wins is based on the size of your bet and the ranking of the hand you make.

Video poker is a highly simplified “draw” poker game. You are dealt five cards, with an option to discard any number of them from one card to all, in order to draw new cards in an attempt to make a poker hand that pays.

The typical poker hand rankings are used, but it is unlike a normal poker game because the rankings are very broad. In one common form of video poker, called Jacks or Better, the minimum paying hand is a pair of Jacks. A pair of Tens pays nothing. But unlike traditional poker, a pair of Aces is worth the same as a pair of Jacks. Likewise, if you make two pair, it does not matter which two pair you make. Twos and Threes pay the same as Kings and Aces. This same broad payout structure is used for all paying hands. Three of a kinds all pay alike. Any straight pays the same as any other straight, etc.

All forms of video poker accept one to five “coins” for the bet on each hand. If you do not play five coins, the Royal Flush payout is usually substantially underpaid, so the only intelligent way to play is with maximum coins.

Slotty's Slot Tip #26   Always play the maximum number of coins at video poker. To keep to your budget, make the coin size itself smaller.

Online casino video poker games typically accept 5-cent, 10-cent, 25-cent, 50-cent, $1, and $5 “coins.” After you select your coin value, you hit the “Bet Max” button, and five cards appear face up. You may then use your mouse to point and click on the cards you want to keep, hit the “Draw” button, and the cards not held will be replaced with new cards. If your five-card hand is a winner, your account will be credited with the amount won.

That’s the entire game in a nutshell.

With online casino video poker you can usually play for very low stakes, 5 cents or 10 cents, and you can usually find software that will play multiple hands, even as many as 50 to 100 hands simultaneously. With these programs you are dealt multiple hands with identical cards. You then make your hold decisions, and all hands will hold those cards. Each of the hands is then dealt new cards, with each hand dealt from a separate deck.

If you want to play longer, you will have many fewer up and down streaks on a multiple-line game than you would with a single-line game. That is because you will have many more chances to hit some of the higher paying hands.

The House Advantage at Jacks or Better

Each video poker game has a pay table that is considered full pay, and any variations from the standard full-pay chart make the game a short pay game. The house edge is lowest when the pay table is full pay.

The pay table is a chart that displays the payouts for the various hands. This is the jacks or better pay table you are looking for:

Full-Pay Jacks or Better Pay Table

Be especially careful to read all of the payouts before you play. A typical short-pay jacks or better game will pay only eight coins for a full house, and five coins for a flush, instead of nine coins and six coins for each of these hands respectively. This short-pay pay table gives the house almost a 3 percent advantage, instead of one half of one percent.

Double or Nothing

Many Internet casino video poker games give the player the option to play double or nothing on any win. That is, if you hit, say, three of a kind with five coins in for a fifteen-coin payout, you have the option to try to double your win to thirty coins by picking a card—one out of four—against the dealer’s card. If your card beats the dealer’s card, you may continue to play double or nothing on the thirty-coin win, and again on the sixty-coin win, etc., until you are satisfied, you lose it all, or you run into the house’s doubling maximum.

This feature is available on video poker games at most online casinos (though not on all games at these casinos). We like double or nothing bets because they allow a player to manufacture his own jackpots, rather than wait for one!

The Jacks or Better Strategy

If you use the easy jacks or better strategy in the chart below, the house advantage over you is roughly 0.5%. This simplified strategy works well and makes playing fast and easy. The hands in this chart are in order of value, from the most valuable to the least valuable.

Easy Jacks or Better Strategy

How to Use the Jacks or Better Strategy Chart

In using the chart, you always want to keep the most valuable hand, so if you have two possibilities, look at how the hands are ranked and keep the hand with the higher ranking.

For example, let’s say the initial five-card hand that is dealt consists of a pair of jacks, a pair of queens, and a king. And let’s say that one of the jacks, one of the queens, and the king are all spades. Do you throw away the non-spade jack and queen and draw to the three-card royal flush, which has an 800-for-1 payout, or do you keep the two pair, which pays out only 2-for-1? You find the answer by looking in the chart. We see that two pair (ranked at #6) is higher on the chart than three cards to a royal flush (ranked at #9), so we keep the two pair and only draw one card (hoping to hit a full house).

Note that “High Card” always means a jack or higher, and “Low Card” always means a ten or lower. One immediate thing you should note in this chart is that if you have a paying hand already made (a pair of jacks or better), the only non-paying hands that would ever cause you to throw away the paying hand are four cards to a royal flush or four cards to a straight flush. So, if you have a paying hand, unless you have four cards to a royal or straight flush, you don’t even have to bother looking at the chart. Keep the paying hand. .

Note that there is no entry for three unsuited high cards, other than J-Q-K (ranked at #17), yet there is an entry for two unsuited high cards (ranked at #18). That’s because you should never hold three unsuited high cards if they are not J-Q-K. Any other three would contain an ace, in which case you should throw away the ace, and keep the other two. That’s because the other high cards are not only more likely to make a straight, but also have more chances to turn into a pair.

In addition to the above, here are a few other quick tips to remember so that you do not need to consult the chart so often:.

1) If you have one or two high cards (J, Q, K, or A) in your hand, and no other made or potential hand of value (no pair, and no three cards to a possible straight or flush), just keep the high cards and throw away the others.

2) If you have three high cards and no pair, and two of the high cards are suited, throw away the non-suited high card and draw to the two suited cards. Obviously, that’s because they have a slim possibility of turning into a royal flush, but you also keep the flush possibility alive.

3) Always draw to a small pair unless you have four cards to a flush or three cards to a royal flush, in which cases you would draw to the flush or royal. Even with four cards to an open-end straight, keep the small pair.

4) Always draw to a high pair, even when you have four cards to a straight or flush. A high pair means a payout, and in video poker, a bird in the hand is almost always worth more than two in the bush.

5) If you have no high cards, no open-end straight draw, and no four to a flush, don’t grasp at straws. Bite the bullet and throw all five of your cards away so that you can draw a completely new hand.

6) If you have four to a royal flush, always draw to the royal, unless it means breaking a straight flush. That is, if you have a 9-10-J-Q-K suited, keep it. But if you have 8-10-J-Q-K suited, throw away the 8, even though you are throwing away a made flush hand. It’s hard to throw away a made flush, but if you’re this close to a royal, you’ve got to go for it. (In this case, you’ve got 6 birds in the hand, but 800 in the bush!)

We will be adding more video poker strategies for popular online casino games like Deuces Wild and Double Bonus Poker soon, so be sure to check back. Playing video poker online is fun, and allows you to use strategy in your playing decisions that can significantly reduce the online casino house edge at the video poker game. See you in the video poker winners circle!