Video Poker Strategy Trainer – Strategy Cards, Cheat Sheets & More. Welcome to your one-stop-shop for all things video poker strategy. Consider this page your personal video poker trainer, as it covers the most common need-to-knows, how to up your game and common strategy myths. You can skip to the most pertinent sections by using the. Video Poker Trainer. Playing video poker can get frustrating once you see your bankroll is headed south due to the wrong cards you discard and hold. Fortunately, you can easily find a trainer of video poker online that will help you master your skills and become comfortable in choosing which cards to hold in order to form a high-ranked hand. Video Poker Tutorial Welcome to the free video poker tutorial section, here we have a step by step guide to alert you to every aspect of playing video poker. Below is a complete overview of how our video poker games work and operate, feel free to refer to it as often as you like until such a time as you are confident enough to play video poker online using your own newly gained experience!. Video Poker is one of the few games at a casino where strategy plays a big role. You can use our trainer to learn the best play for every hand increasing the chance you will have a positive result. Simply hit deal and play as you would normally. He has also produced a video poker training software called “Optimum Video Poker”. Lenny Frome – The author of Winning Strategies for Video Poker is called the “Godfather of video poker.” He was one of the first advocates of using strategy to increase your chances of winning at video poker, at a time, 20 years ago, when the game was. It includes information about stretching your bankroll so that you can have more fun in various Qwirkle Spielregeln destinations, but it also features tips for playing with profitability as your goal. These games can be enjoyed at land-based casinos on video poker machines that look a lot like slot machines. What should you do then? Because the player has a choice in video poker play, it is possible to play the hands in a way that is most beneficial to the player. Video Poker Strategy Chart:.

Games like roulette and slot machines have no strategy. The decisions you make are essentially meaningless. Video poker, on the other hand, resembles blackjack.

You can use strategic thinking to improve your chances of winning and decrease the house edge. We talk more about that in the next section.

That probability is determined by the random number generator. A random number generator is a computer program that constantly cycles through numbers at the rate of thousands of numbers per second.

Each number corresponds to a different stop on the reel in a slot machine game. Or in the case of a video poker game, each number corresponds to a playing card.

There are no decisions to be made. You put your money in, your spin the reels, and you accept the outcome. Several, if not most, casino games are like this.

You have no way of affecting the odds no matter how smart you are. The odds of winning a single number bet in roulette are 37 to 1, no matter what kind of strategy you use.

You DO have the opportunity to make decisions which affect your outcome. The expected return of a bet, video poker or otherwise, can be calculated if you know the probability of winning and losing.

You also need to know how much you stand to win and how much you stand to lose. You add those two numbers together to get your overall expectation.

The minimum paying hand is the poker hand that players will have to achieve to be eligible to claim a payout. It differs from one game to another depending on the rules of the game as well as the other features.

For example, if a game has a wild card or cards, it will have a higher minimum paying hand, which could be as high as 3 of a kind.

This means that if players do not get a three of a kind, they will not qualify for a win. For a Jacks or Better, the minimum hand is a pair of Jacks.

For Tens or Better, it is a pair of Jacks, but most games that do not have extra features will have a minimum hand pair of Jacks.

The wild card is a feature that is offered at some, but not all, of the video poker variants. The wild card is always the Joker or the Deuce.

This wild card can be substituted for any other card from the deck in order to help players achieve a winning poker hand.

In Deuces Wild, for example, the wild card is the 2, which is where the name of the game comes from. Another game is Joker Wild, where the Joker is the wild card.

Some games might have more than one wild card, such as Joker and Deuces Wild. In this game, the 2 and the Joker are wild cards.

Video poker follows the same hand ranking rules as regular poker with the Royal Flush being the highest hand.

It is also important to note that in video poker, it is the hand that matters regardless of the value of the cards forming it.

For example, a pair of Aces will pay the same as a pair of Jacks, and a Straight from 9 to K will pay the same as a straight from 2 to 6. Here is the poker hand ranking in descending order:.

A straight flush that begins at 10 and ends with an Ace. At some games, this hand will trigger the progressive jackpot, if there is any.

The minimum paying hand possible at video poker. The odds and the payout of Video Poker will differ from one version to another, so we will only discuss the hand odds of the most popular game, Jacks or Better.

You should always place the maximum bet because it makes you eligible to win the grand jackpot prize of 4, if you get a royal flush. If you bet with 1 or 2 coins and get a royal flush, the payout will not be proportionally equal.

If betting 5 coins is too expensive for your gambling budget, you can find a lot of. Here are good benchmarks on possible payouts based on an overall average.

The outcomes vary depending on which version of video poker you are playing. These numbers, on average, represent your odds for pulling a certain hand.

After studying this payout and odds table, it is notable that there is an inequality between the odds and the payouts of some hands despite the fact that a Full House is more likely to happen than a straight or a flush but pays more than these two hands.

It is clear from the paytable that hands that are less likely to happen pay more than hands that are more likely to happen to.

Despite this, the game is in the favor of the player, which is why it can be only found online or at big land-based casinos. Here is your hand: Ks Qs Js Ts 3s.

While you have total control over the five cards that have been dealt, not every decision that you might make has the same impact. To use an extreme example, let us assume you are dealt a hand containing four 3s and an ace.

What would you do here? Would you save the straight flush consisting of the 9 of spades through the king of spades? Or would you decide to save the four cards of a royal flush and once again hope for lightening to strike?

A straight flush pays very well, but a royal flush pays many times more. This is a truly difficult decision. Again, the choice is totally yours.

Do you save the flush for the sure win? Or would you rather save the four cards of a royal flush and hope to hit the jackpot? Since a flush pays quite a bit more than the high pair that was in the previous example, the decision with this hand is even harder to make.

It should be obvious that the proper play is to hold the two kings. There is really nothing else worth saving in the hand.

This tends to be the case for most of the hands that you are dealt. Most video poker players make their decisions about what to hold and what to discard based on intuition or hunches.

In this hand: 4c 5c 6c 7d Ts. This type of video poker player bases every hold decision on what he or she feels is the best play.

Are there a lot of high pairs? How about straights — are they happening fairly frequently? Have there been streaks of full houses or flushes?

These players make their hold decisions based on how the cards have been flowing in the recent past. Holding cards based on what you feel is correct or holding based on the flow of the cards are both technically strategies.

But the video poker game manufacturers set up pay tables based on the math of the game so the casinos will be sure to make a profit from them.

Therefore in order for you to make the most of your video poker playing experience, you need to use a strategy that is based on the same math.

Playing hunches or streaks may work for a hand or two or possibly even a session or two , but far more often these tactics will not work.

In fact, by employing these types of playing strategies, you will end up giving the casino even more of your hard earned money than you need to.

Only by using mathematically derived video poker playing strategies will you get every cent you can from your video poker play over the long run.

Obviously you will not run across hands such as these very often, but they do demonstrate a point. That point — each hand that is dealt is a unique situation.

How you decide to handle that situation could make a big difference in the outcome of the hand. The same situation happens at a much less exciting level in each and every hand that is dealt.

To be honest, most video poker hands leave very little doubt as to the best way to play the hand. It does not take a lot of skill or intuition to know what to do when dealt a hand such as this one Ks Kd 3h 6c 8s.

Unlike slot players, video poker players have a say in the outcome of the game. Because the player has a choice in video poker play, it is possible to play the hands in a way that is most beneficial to the player.

Most video poker players use hunches or play streaks. Only a mathematically derived video poker playing strategy will get you the most from your video poker play.

You learned in section 6. There are several different ways to develop a video poker playing strategy. It could be tailored to favor hitting royal flushes.

A strategy developed in this way could be useful in video poker tournaments where the participant has a limited amount of time to get a high score in order to win.

This type of strategy would see a greater number of royal flushes. It would however also see a smaller return to the player because smaller winning hands would be sacrificed in favor of holding for a royal flush.

Another type of strategy could favor winning as many hands as possible regardless of the amount of the win. For example, any time a high pair is dealt it would be saved even if there were decent shots at a royal flush or other higher paying results in the same hand.

This type of strategy may find the player winning more hands, but the amount won per hand would be significantly less than is possible.

Think about how normal video poker play goes. After depositing your initial amount, you start playing hand after hand. Most often you lose your bet.

The next most frequent occurrence is to simply get your bet returned by hitting a high pair or sometimes two pairs that returns 1 for 1.

You will also hit other higher paying but less frequent hands. In each case, however, unless you hit a royal flush or other very high paying hand such as four aces with a kicker, the amount you win is not enough to cash out and be considered a good win for the day.

Instead, all of these lesser wins are really just extra money that allows you to play a few more hands in order to try to win the jackpot sized hand s.

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You can also use the lite software to practice playing the various games. There are, no doubt, many other video poker strategy trainers on the market, but these seem to be the most popular and easiest to find.

They all seem to have their pros and cons, too. Try whatever you can for free before making your final purchasing decision.

Video poker simulators are free games that simulate actual video poker games. Poker hands take two factors of each card into consideration—suit and rank.

There are four suits in a standard deck of cards: clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades. The ranks are the numbers on the cards, from ace to ten, and the face cards the jack, the queen, and the king.

The higher on the list the combination is, the better the hand. Better hands beat worse hands in table poker ; in video poker, they generally result in higher payouts.

The most common is the casino software at an Internet casino. All online casinos offer free versions of their software in order to entice new players to their sites.

This kind of free video poker is usually accompanied by subtle or not-so-subtle advertising so that the site owners can make a profit of some kind by selling their ads.

Video poker simulators are fine if you just want to learn how the game interface works. But the best use of these kinds of games is to improve yourself so that you become an expert player.

Expert video poker players face the lowest house edge in the casino. Persistence matters because it takes time and practice to improve at video poker.

The best simulators provide strategy advice that you can use to catch your mistakes as they happen. Not all simulations offer this perk, so look for one that does.

Decide what you want out of your video poker experience. These perks can include free show tickets, room and board, meals, and even travel to and from the casino.

When you face a house edge of under 0. Free video poker games are useful for more than just learning the basics of how to play and practicing strategy.

They can also help you determine how much stamina you have, so that you can decide on a bankroll for the casino. If you know you play an average of hands per hour, but you can only stand to play for 2 hours before getting tired, then you know to have a bankroll large enough to accommodate those hands.

The more likely it is to go on a winning streak or a losing streak , the higher the variance is for that particular game.

Some people like casino games with a high variance. They enjoy the opportunity to get a really big win or to go on a big winning streak.

So a progressive jackpot video poker game with a huge jackpot will have a far higher variance than a blackjack game , for example.

The difference is that the blackjack wins will be for smaller amounts. Another way of looking at variance in video poker is in terms of volatility.

Volatility is a word that, when used to discuss video poker, describes short term fluctuations in your results. Eventually, if you play long enough, your results should grow closer to the mathematical expectation.

The more volatile the game, the longer it takes to near that expected number. One factor that affects volatility in video poker is hit frequency.

This term describes the percentage of hands that actually provide you with winnings. Winning more often, even for smaller amounts, preserves your bankroll so that you can eventually hit some of the larger jackpots.

Hit frequency and payoff amounts determine the volatility of a game. For example, Deuces Wild is considered a particularly volatile game.

Much of the expected return for the game comes from the hands which have four deuces in them. How often will you see hands with four deuces in a game of video poker?

Statistically, that hand shows up once every hands or so. It will take most video poker players 8 to 10 hours to get that payout.

And how often does it take to get a royal flush in Deuces Wild? That happens maybe once in every 45, hands, so that means you have to play close to 90 hours before you hit that hand.

Of course, a royal flush could come up on your very first hand. You have to be patient, and you need a large bankroll to avoid going broke while you pursue the jackpot.

Casino games with the highest returns exhibit the highest volatility and the highest variance. For example, the Mega Jackpots slot machines are super-high in volatility and variance.

In fact, you might play for the rest of your life without hitting a jackpot. In terms of video poker games, Jacks or Better is one of the games with relatively low volatility.

But even Jacks or Better is prone to bigger streaks more often than games with really low volatility like blackjack.

The return on a full pay game, eliminating the return for that royal flush, is Video Poker Strategy. Written By: Staff.

Video Poker Strategy No one could cover everything there is to know about video poker strategy in a single section.

Pay Tables and Payout Schedules Playing video poker is no more difficult than playing slot machines, but minimizing the house edge which also maximizes your chances of winning requires a little bit of knowledge and effort.

Video poker games can be divided roughly into two categories: Non-wild games. These include games like Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, and Double Bonus Poker.