Although video poker is a strategic game, and in order to reduce the house edge to a minimum it is necessary to adopt a perfect strategy, it is not rocket science (though who said rocket science was difficult in the first place?). In fact the strategy required to play perfect video poker is considerably simpler than playing the real game of poker.

There is a pay-off between the complexity of a strategy and the payout. Here we will look at a video poker strategy for Jacks or Better and which is relatively simple and will produce a payout of 99.46%. This is a little sub-optimal however. The optimal strategy will give a payout of 99.54%.

First let’s look at the pay table for Full pay jacks or better. A royal flush pays 800; straight flush 50; four of a kind 25; full house 9; flush 6; straight 4; three of a kind 3; two pair 2; pair of jacks, queens kings or aces 1.

The question always arises as to should you ever sacrifice a winning hand in the hope of improving on it. The answer to this is never.

First you should look at the cards that do not make up a winning hand and consider all
realistic ways to play them. You should look at all possible targets, the payout of the targets and the probabilities of achieving them. Thus for every possible play you should compute the expected value of playing in that manner and choose the play that produced the highest possible expected value.

As an example, if you need only one card to make a flush and you also have a low pair (that is a pair lower than jacks) the highest expected value is to forget about trying to do anything with the low pair and instead go for making the flush.