Video Poker: Choosing Your Game
Video poker has many variations. Each variation has different minimum hand to payout, rules, treatments, and various other aspects. Playing Jacks or Better is not the same with playing Joker Wild or Deuce Wild. Each game have different odds, different payout ratios, and of course different rules of playing. With these differences in mind, you can formulate a game plan and have fun playing video poker.
However, you don’t really need to play all kinds of video poker. All you have to do is master one or two variation and stick with it. People who are used with playing Jacks or Better need time to adjust when asked to play Joker Wild, and the time you take for adjusting may throw you out of focus and into a bad losing streak.
Choosing your game is very important. You can use different calculations based on the payout table, but the one thing you should really be concerned about is you pleasure. Video poker is a game, and the only way you can be good at it is to actually enjoy yourself playing. It will not be hard to find a video poker machine with reasonable payout ratio, but finding one you are comfortable with requires a bit more than just looking at payout tables.
Once you are comfortable with a certain video poker variation, focus on the game and develop your own game plan. Include exit strategies and bankroll management as part of your overall plan. Before you know it, you can be aiming at the jackpot.
Cashing Out or Walking Out
Have you ever feel like you can’t quit when you are gambling? Most gamblers don’t really know when to quit, and they end up losing most — if not all — of their money only because they can’t cash out or they feel the need to win more. Video poker can be very addictive, and having an exit strategy becomes more important. I have seen a guy who played video poker almost all night long and still walk away with nothing. He won some, he lost some, but he never does know when to quit so he just keep playing until he ran out of coins.
I found that the best exit strategy is to set a trailing stop and stick with it. Say you start with 100 coins that you can afford to lose. This is your capital, and you will be playing video poker with it. If you win, raise the trailing stop. At first, the stop point is 0 with 100 coins in your account. As soon as you gain 10 coins raise the trailing stop and stick with it. So now you have the stop point at 10 coins and you have 110 coins in your account. If you then lose a lot of hands and have your coins decreased to 50 coins, your trailing stop will still be at 10 coins. If you lose more and you have only 10 coins less — meaning your stop point is reached — stop playing and use the money to get a nice drink instead.
Going Wild: Playing Deuce Wild Video Poker
There are several variations of video poker. Jacks or Better, Joker Wild, and Deuce Wild video poker machines are among the popular ones. A lot of people love playing Deuce Wild video poker because the payout is good and the odds are quite high. The deuces can be used as wildcards to create a hand.
Your strategy of playing Deuce Wild should be a bit different compared to strategies for other types of video poker. You may be tempted to hold high cards, but high cards don’t actually matter in Deuce Wild when they are single. Some machines have different payout rate for hands with deuces used as wildcards, but that doesn’t mean you should aim for natural straight when you can secure a win with your wild deuce. If you get two pairs, you should really discard one of them and draw three. Two pairs will not do you any good, because the lowest paying hand would be three of a kind.
Some video poker players opt to focus on either games with wildcards such as Deuce Wild or games without wildcards like Jacks or Better because the strategy used it so much different. Being able to use deuces as wildcards does changes how you should play the game a lot, so it would be best to familiarize yourself with Deuce Wild characteristics and formulate a winning strategy before playing the machine. Remember, the lowest paying hand is three of a kind so make sure you aim high and you play your cards, and wildcards, wisely.
Why Jacks or Better Video Poker Is Good For Beginners
If you are thinking about trying video poker, or if you are a beginner video poker player trying to develop your skills, the game you should be playing is Jacks or Better. This variation of video poker has one of the best payout rations; if you play it correctly you can actually make enough money and develop your playing strategy in the same time.
First of all, find Jacks or Better machines with good payout. You may find 7/5 Jacks or Better — 7/5 means you get 7 coins for a full house and 5 coins for a flush. You need to avoid playing on these machines because the house’s advantage is too high.
One of the most common mistakes when playing Jacks or Better is keeping a kicker. You don’t need to keep an extra high card with your pair; just draw three cards and you will have a better chance of scoring three of a kind or even better. Never break up two-pairs just because you want to aim at the four of a kind. Jacks or Better is very simple, and you need to keep your playing strategy simple as well. If you see two pairs, keep them and draw one instead. They payout ratio is high enough, and aiming at the big prize constantly will cost you your coins.
Once you can develop a certain playing style, you can move on to other variations of video poker or stick to Jacks or Better for better playing experiences.
Video Poker: Understanding Casino Advantage
I can’t seem to understand why the issue of casinos cheating on their users is always brought up when someone is losing a lot of money. Casinos don’t really need to cheat on their users because they have casino advantage. When you play Blackjack, you know for sure that the casino have some level of advantage (often called house advantage) against players to keep the game profitable. Even in games Craps and Baccarat casino advantage is present. In video poker, you can be up against 0% to 20% house advantage; they don’t really need to cheat on you or trick the machine in order to make money.
Is that mean there is no way we can win against the house? That is not correct. The truth is, understanding casino advantage can help you be profitable playing video poker, especially in the long run. If you take a closer look at the payout tables, you will be able to calculate which machines are actually profitable. My personal favorite would be the 9/7 Jacks or Better, because it has 100% payout ratio. Video poker machines are, well, machines; they are coded in a certain way and they will operate based on the programming. There are also monitoring bodies that will ensure fair play on video poker machines.
If you still think the house is cheating on video poker, you need to seriously learn more about casino advantage and use it to improve your game selection. Once you can use it to your benefits, you will be able to play profitable sessions of video poker.
9/6 Jacks or Better: Choosing the Best Video Poker Game
If you think Jacks or Better is the best video poker game you can find, try finding 9/6 Jacks or Better and see how your odds are increasing substantially. 9/6 Jacks or Better means the machine will pay nine coins for a full house and six coins for a flush. This is probably the best combination when it comes to video poker, because the payout ratio will be at around 100.2%.
The 10/7 Double Bonus may interests you. They do give double the coins for certain hands, and playing 10/7 Double Bonus is not bad at all, but we are seeking for the best video poker games here — in terms of chances of winning and payout ratio — and the 99.5% payout ratio for 10/7 Double Bonus is just not good enough.
When it comes to payout ratio, Full-Pay Deuces Wild does have higher payout ratio of around 100.8%. This is in fact the video poker game with the best payout ratio, but 9/6 Jacks or Better machines are easier to find. You can also opt for other machines as long as you pay attention to house advantage by seeing each machine’s payout table right above the video screen. Just pick machines you like with reasonable, if not best, payout ratio.
All you need next is time, a lot of coins, and of course luck. You will have a lot of fun playing video poker and with higher payout ratio you will be able to win bigger and be more profitable as well.
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