Introduction to Video Poker

Video Poker Basic Rules

Video Poker Game Variations

Pay Schedule Variation Within Versions of JOB

The Expert Way To Play Video Poker

Learn to Play Video Poker With Optimal Strategy

Strategy for Jacks or Better (JOB 9/6)

Introduction to Video Poker

Video Poker is one of the best games for earning comps in a casino. Most important among the reasons video poker is a great game to play to earn comps is that it is a game of skill, which allows the player to “trick” the casino into thinking that you are a more valuable customer for the casino than they really are. Additionally, games are available to satisfy just about any level of gambler, from high-roller to low-roller. Finally, but by no means least in importance, video poker is fun! Video Poker has become so popular, in many locals casinos in Las Vegas it has practically taken over the whole gaming floor. The game seems to have the right balance of player involvement via the discard decisions, but is not so taxing as to impede the fun. After playing the game for a while it is easy to understand why Video Poker is often called the ”Crack Cocaine” of casino games.

As the popularity of video poker has grown over the past several years, so has the number variations in the game. The original game is called Jacks or Better, often abbreviated in video poker books and articles as JOB. The game plays like 5-card draw, where the player is dealt 5 cards, with which he decides how many to discard for a re-draw. In video poker you are playing against a pre-determined pay-schedule not other players, hence there is no bluffing! Having a pre-determined pay-schedule is an advantage to the player, since it allows the player to determine the payback of the video poker machine before he even sits down at the machine.

Video Poker Basic Rules

All Video Poker games are a variation of a five card draw poker game, the goal of which is to select which of your initial five cards to discard so that you end up with the best possible poker hand. The rank of poker hands is as follows, in descending order:

Royal Flush: Ace; King Queen; Jack; 10 all of the same suit
Straight Flush: 5 consecutive cards all of the same suit e.g. 5-6-7-8-9 of clubs
Four of a Kind: Such as four Jacks
Full House: Three of one denomination and a pair of another denomination such as three Jacks and a pair of Queens.
Flush: Five cards of the same suit
Straight: Five consecutive cards, not all of the same suit, which would make it a straight flush
Three of a Kind
Two Pair
Single Pair

Each version of Video Poker will assign a unique value to each possible outcome. For Jacks of Better (JOB) the pay-schedule is as follows:

The first number is for a single unit bet, while the second number represents the maximum coin bet of five units. Notice, with the exception of the Royal Flush, the five unit bet is simply five times the single unit bet. That the Royal Flush payoff is not a simple multiple of the number the number of units bet is more obvious when you look at the Royal Flush payoff for one to five units bet: 250: 500: 1,500: 2,000: 4,000 this extra payoff 4.000 versus 2,500 is what leads to the expert advice of always playing maximum credits, five units per hand, when playing video poker. The exception to this rule, aren’t there always exceptions!, is under the rare circumstances when the video poker machine offers no royal flush premium for five coins bet, e.g. 800 coins per unit bet.

Video Poker Game Variations

There are many variations in video poker pay-schedules, most involve the pay-offs of four of a kinds, often called “quads” The most common variation involves premium pay-offs for quad Aces and quad 2s; 3s; and 4s. Which leads to ever higher pay-offs for these premium a hands in the following games:

Bonus Poker
Double Bonus Poker
Double Double Bonus Poker
Triple Double Bonus Poker

That list is enough to make any novice video poker player’s head spin, but there is method to the madness. First let’s look at what happens to the payoff to Quad Aces as we progress through the list. For the sake of completeness I’ll start with our old friend Jacks or Better (JOB), in that game all quads pay 25 per unit bet or 125 for a five unit, hence quad aces pay 125. As a side note, since I already explained that it is almost always optimal to play five units per hand, henceforth I will always assume I am speaking about a five unit bet when I am speaking about video poker pay schedules. Next in the list is Bonus Poker this games pays 400 credits for quad Aces. Guess what double bonus pays for quad Aces, that’s right 800 credits. Now we come to Double Double Bonus Poker, what does that mean. This is where we introduce the idea of “kickers”. A kicker is a fifth card that increases the value of the quad. In Double Double Bonus Aces; 2s; 3s and 4s make up both the premium quads and the kickers. For example quad aces with a kicker fifth card of any 2, 3 or 4 is worth 2,000 credits, Wow!, now that’s a bonus quad. Without the kicker quad aces is worth 800, as in the base Double bonus game. In Triple Double Bonus the pay-off is ratcheted-up to 4,000 for Aces with a Kicker.

Before we dive into the table let me first say, that I have chosen representative versions of each individual game, with a preference given to the best version of the game that is commonly available in Las Vegas. Double Double Bonus is a very popular version of video poker, probably the most common. Every version of Double Double Bonus will have identical payoffs for all the quads, that is Aces with a kicker will pay 2,000 while Aces without a kicker will pay 800, and so on. The difference among versions of Double Double Bonus is found in the payoffs of Flushes and Full-Houses, just where most players are not looking. We’re back to our recurring theme, it is the small things that are often the most important in casinos.

Most gamblers would look at this table and say, Triple Double Bonus is obviously the best game of the bunch. Why would anyone bother ever playing Jacks or Better for a measly 125 units, when you can get 4,000 units for Aces with a kicker. First impressions can be deceiving. The punch-line is contained in the last line of the table labeled “Expected Value” The line tells you the expected return of the game, when playing the game with the correct strategy. The higher the number the better, hence Jacks or Better with the measly 125 units for all quads is the best game in the table with 99.54% return versus 98.15% return for Triple Double Bonus. The obvious next question is “How can that be true?” To answer that question, let’s compare the pay-schedules.

The differences in the schedules are due to the payoffs in the quads and the pay-offs in two pair and three of a kinds. The payoffs for quads all favor the Triple Double Bonus schedule, with all quads being much higher than the measly 125 Jacks or Better pays for all quads. However the pay-offs for two pair and three of a kind favor Jacks or bettor. If you think about this classic tortoise and hare example, it is rather amazing. The plodding advantage of getting an extra 5 units for two pairs and three of a kinds outweighs the advantage of getting 4,000 units for Aces with kickers and 2,000 units for 2s, 3s, 4s with kickers versus 125 units with JOB, I haven’t even mentioned the significant premium that Triple Double pays for all the other quads, as can be seen in the Table .

To help drive home the importance of paying close attention to small changes in pay-schedules, and for completeness, let’s quickly review key aspects of the Table . Starting at the right side of the table with Triple Double Bonus and moving leftward, the next game is Double Double Bonus. The only difference between these two games is the reduction of the “kicker” pay-offs from 4,000 to 2,000 for Aces and from 2,000 to 800 for 2s, 3s, 4s and the increase in three of a kind pay-off from 10 to 15. Once again we see that the small 5 unit increase in pay-off more than makes of for some substantial quad pay-offs. I say more than makes up for the difference because Double Double has a higher expected return than Triple Double, 98.98 versus 98.15.

The next game to the left of Double Double Bonus is just plain Double Bonus, say that three times fast! In Double Bonus the kickers are removed, hence all Quad Aces pay the same, 800, while 2s, 3s, 4s all pay 400. To make up for this shortfall, flushes are increased to 35 from 30 and straights are increased to 25 from 20. Notice again these small strategically placed 5 unit increases slightly more than make up for the big kicker payoffs. Double Bonus has a higher expected return than Double Double Bonus, 99.19 versus 98.98.

The jump from Double Bonus to Bonus gets us to a game that is much closer to Jacks or Better than any of the previous games we have discussed so far. As you might expect, in going from Double Bonus to Bonus the all quads are cut in half, Aces from 800 to 400, 2s, 3s, and 4s from 400 to 200, non-bonus quads from 250 to 125.. The flush is cut from 35 to 25 and straights are cut from 25 to 20. The only gain, which again more than off-sets these cuts, is that two pair is now worth 10 instead of 5. Expected return of Bonus is 99.17 versus 99.11 for Double Bonus.

The final jump is from Bonus to Jacks or Better the reduction is in quad Aces from 400 to 125 and quad 2s, 3s, 4s from 200 to 125. Note that both games pay 10 for two pairs. JOB more than makes of for the reduction in bonus quads via 5 unit increases in flushes and full-houses to 30 and 45 respectively. The jump in expected value from Bonus to JOB is the largest in the table, from 99.17 to 99.54.

Pay Schedule Variation Within Versions of JOB

There is more variation in Video Poker Pay Schedules than just among the different games, Pay Schedules can vary among different versions of the same game. As always, small changes can be very important. We'll take a closer look at our old friend, Jacks or Better (JOB). In the following table only the hands that vary are included.

Notice how small changes can have large effects. In going from JOB 9/6, which pays 45 for full houses and 30 for flushes, to JOB 8/5 which pays 40 for full houses and 25 for flushes we lose over 2% of our expected return, going from a 99.54% game to a 97.3 % game.

The same variations occur in all versions of video poker games. For instance in Double Double Bonus poker, the game where quad Aces with a kicker pays 2,000 the standard game we looked at in the first table paid 45 for full house and 30 for flushes, if we drop the pay schedule to 40 for full house and 25 for flushes the expected value of the game goes from 99% to 97%.

The Expert Way To Play Video Poker

The reason that small changes in hands like two pair or three of a kind are enough to offset large changes in quad hands is due to the relative frequency of each type of hand. In any given session of video poker you are going to have many more hands resulting in two pair than you are quad Aces with a kicker. This is obvious to anyone that has any played poker. What is less obvious, is the exact extent of the difference in frequencies. This is why expert video poker players don’t rely on gut instinct in deciding how to play each hand they are dealt in video poker. Experts rely on strategy sheets and cards that tell them exactly how to play each hand. Remember, there is no bluffing in video poker!

There are 2,598,960 unique possible dealt five card hands in video poker. Fortunately, many of these hands are treated the same way from a strategy perspective. This allows us to have a relatively short list of instructions to advise on how to play any given dealt hand. The best way to learn the correct strategy for any video poker games requires both a basic understanding of the theory behind the strategy and some brute force practice and memorization.

Jacks or Better is the best game to start with since it forms the foundation of all other video poker games, and is a relatively easy strategy to master. Additionally it is one of the few “good” video poker games that can be found on the Strip in Las Vegas. To find “good” versions of most other video poker games involves exploring locals casinos and downtown casinos.

First let’s cover some general concepts or theory of video poker strategy.

Always be cognizant of what game you are playing, on many newer machines, different video poker games are offered on the same machine, such as JOB; Bonus; Double Bonus; Double Double Bonus and so forth. The strategies are different for each game, particularly regarding how you handle Aces.

Which leads us to our first general concept.

In playing JOB which of the following cards would be most valuable to hold, if you only held one card: Ace; King; Queen; Jack? Probably a large number of people would say the Ace, since it is generally regarded as the highest value card in poker games. Another group of people would say “It doesn't’t matter since all of these cards are of the same value in JOB” The truth is both of these answers is incorrect. The answer is the Jack. The reason is the Jack gives you the greatest number of possible straights and straight-flushes. It actually turns out that the Ace is the least valuable of the Royal cards in JOB. If you hold a single Ace you can only form an ace high straight or a royal straight flush. The Jack allows much more flexibility in the creation of winning hands: straights starting with “7" and ending with an Ace all contain a Jack; straight-flushes from “7" to King high; plus the Royal Flush, all contain a Jack.

Cards that are near the top or bottom of the card sequence 2 through Ace are less valuable then those in the middle, as far as making straights are concerned. This is the same concept as discussed in the previous paragraph, except now we are dealing with situations where we are holding several cards to complete a straight or straight-flush. For example if you are holding: Ace-2-3-4 only a 5 will complete the straight, but if you are holding 2-3-4-5 an Ace or a six will complete the straight. Ace-2-3-4 is really the same as an inside straight, since only one card will complete the straight. Inside straight draws are those where only one card will fill the straight, such as, 2-3- _-5-6, where only a 4 will complete the hand. Open ended straights are those where two cards will fill the hand, such as, 2-3-4-5, here either an Ace or a 6 will complete the straight.

If you speak to video poker players that are not savvy about using the correct strategy, they will most likely describe their theory on how to play video poker as either conservative or aggressive. Conservative players choose to stay with sure winners or go for the easier hand to complete, while the aggressive player will always opt for the potential big hand. Consider the hand: 9-Ace- King-Queen-Jack all of the same suit, this is a pat flush hand, that also happened to contain 4 cards to the Royal Flush. The conservative player will keep the flush, while the aggressive player will go for the Royal, which just so happens to be the right play. Now consider the hand 9-10-Jack-Queen-King all of the same suit, this is a straight-flush here the aggressive player may again try for the Royal by discarding the “9", while the conservative player will surely hold the straight-flush, which happens to be the right play in this case. In video poker there are two types of playing styles, however, they are not aggressive and conservative, they are correct or incorrect. Every single video poker has a unique best play. This is what we are going to learn to do now!

Learn to Play Video Poker With Optimal Strategy

Developing video poker strategies involves millions of arithmetic calculations, which is why computers are so important for the task. The general process is simple, just tedious. Start with the 2,598,960 unique dealt five card poker hands. Eliminate those hands where the uniqueness is immaterial, such as it doesn't matter whether you are dealt royal flush in clubs or diamonds. For each of those unique dealt hands there are 32 ways in which to play the hand. For each of these 32 ways of playing the hand, calculate the expected value of that hold. The expected value of the hold is found by multiplying the pay-schedule payoff of a given hand times the probability of achieving that final hand. The good news is that there is software available that will do all this work for us. Our job is to learn how to utilize these strategy charts, and refine them to suit our tastes. All useful strategy charts contain some simplifying short-cuts to make them manageable, while achieving a high level of accuracy.

A note on notation, since it gets rather cumbersome to spell out a cards rank and suit I will use the following common abbreviations. A=Ace; K=King; Q=Queen; J=Jack c=clubs; d=diamonds; sp= spade; h=hearts. I’m using “sp” for spade instead of just “s” because I’ll use “s” for cards that are of the same suit, but where the actual suit is immaterial, which will usually be the case.

Dealt video poker hands into three categories: The first category I’ll call obvious hands, these are the hands where the correct play is obvious, even to a novice player, such as: Jc Jd 5h 9sp 3d. Just to be clear,r that we are on the same page as far as the notation goes. I just denoted a hand with a pair of Jacks, a Jack of clubs and a Jack of Diamonds, along with 5 of hearts; 9 of spades; and 3 of diamonds. The obvious and correct hold here is to hold the pair of Jacks, a guaranteed winner, and discard the other three cards in the hope of improving the hand.

The second category of hands I’ll call “Obvious Conundrum”, that is there is obviously more than one good hold, making it a conundrum as to which cards to actually hold. Consider the following hand: "Asp 10sp 2d 4 d 5c" what would you hold?

1. You could hold the Ace and 10 of spades hoping for a royal, or at least a pair of Aces
2. You could hold Asp 2 d 4 d 5 c hoping to complete the straight or get a pair of Aces
3. You could just hold the Ace and discard the other four cards, which turns out to be the best play for this hand.

My final category I’ll call “Subtle Conundrums” that is, it is not obvious to the novice player that there is more than one way to play this hand, more specifically, the novice player tends to play these hands incorrectly, and doesn’t even realize their mistake. A common example, particularly for bonus games is what to do with two pairs when one of the pairs is JOB. In JOB you always hold the two pair. In Double Double Bonus with two pair where one pair is Aces you keep the Aces and discard the second pair. Keep in mind if you substitute another high pair, such as pair of Queens for the pair of Aces in the two pair the correct play would be to hold he two pair.

The only way to truly master the correct play of any given video poker game is through practice with a software program that corrects your mistakes, I’ll discuss the available software packages later. To facilitate quick mastery of correct play, I’ll highlight some of the key aspects of correct play with Jack or Better.

A convenient method of displaying the correct strategy for JOB is to list hands in descending order of preference. For instance a royal flush is the best hand in video poker, hence it is at the top of all strategy lists. Three of a kind is also a very good hand, hence will be high on the list, however a full-house is an even better hand and thus will be even higher on the list, but still below royal flush.

Let’s start filling in the list, from the top, here we go!

Strategy for Jacks or Better (JOB 9/6)

9/6 describes the version of Jacks or Better where a full house pays 9 units or 45 for max bet and a flush pays 6 units or 30 for max bet.

1. Hold the following pat hands Royal Flush; Straight Flush; Four of a Kind; Full House; Straight Flush.

Notice that Flushes and Straights are NOT automatic holds.

2. For pat Flushes and Straights, that also contain 4 card royals, keep the 4 card royal and discard the fifth card. For example Ac-Kc-Qc-Jc-5c Break-up the pat club flush, keep the four card royal and discard the 5 of clubs.

3. Four Card Straight Flush open/no gaps

4. Two Pair

5. Four Card Straight Flush Inside

6. High Pair JJ-AA

7. Three to a Royal Flush

8. Four Flush

9. K-Q-J-10

10. Low Pair (Pair of 2's through pair of 10s)

11. Q-J-10-9 or J-10-9-8

12. Q-J-9 suited or J-10-9 suited

13. Four Straight 2-3-4-5 through 7-8-9-10

14. Q-J-8 suited

15. 3 card straight flush (with at least as many high cards as gaps)

16. A-K-Q-J unsuited

17. Two Suited High Cards

18. Four Card Straight Inside Three High Cards

19. Three Card Straight Flush 2 Gaps 1 High Card

20. Three Card Straight Flush 1 Gap 0 High Card

21. K-Q-J Unsuited

22. Q-J Unsuited

23. J-10 Suited

24. K-Q or K-J both unsuited

25. Q-10 Suited

26. A-K; A-Q; A-J all unsuited

27. K-10 Suited

28. Single High Card (A; K; Q; J)

29. Three Card Straight Flush; 2 Gaps; 0 High Cards