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WELCOME VIDEO POKER NUTS TO VIDEO POKER DOGGIE STYLE!
By Joey Marino and Jody Nguyen
If you play video poker in live casinos, you’re good to go, Mutts. The online games are exactly the same. The only difference is that you’ll use your mouse to press the buttons for betting, dealing, holding, and drawing cards. If you've never played video poker in a live casino, here’s a quick and easy Dogg’s eye view of the game.
HOW TO PLAY VIDEO POKER
Okay, Mutts, this ain’t really a poker game. There aren't any other players you’re trying to beat. You’re just trying to make a good poker hand with five cards. That’s all. And the better the hand you make, the more you get paid.
You probably played “draw” poker when you were a pup. Didn’t we all? Video poker is a simplified draw poker game. You can throw away any or all of your cards, and you’ll be dealt new cards in their place, to try and make a better hand.
The normal poker hand values are used. The most common version that you find at just about every online casino—plus every casino in Reno, Vegas and Atlantic City!—is called Jacks or Better. The name of this game says it all. You have to have at least a pair of Jacks to get paid, and that payout just gives your bet back. A pair of Tens ain’t worth a pile of dogg-do in this game.
All of the video poker games take one to five “coins” for the bet on each hand. You can play less, but if you don’t play five coins, the Royal Flush payout is underpaid, so the only smart way to play is with the maximum coins.
Online video poker games usually take 5-cent, 10-cent, 25-cent, 50-cent, $1, and $5 “coins.” After you select your coin value, you hit the “Bet Max” button (they make it pretty easy for you to bet your five coins), and five cards appear face up. You then use your mouse to point and click on the cards you want to keep. Then you hit the “Draw” button, and the cards you didn't hold get replaced with new cards. If your five-card hand is a winner, your get credited with the amount won.
That’s the whole game.
With online video poker you can usually play for very low stakes, 5 cents or 10 cents, and you can usually find casinos where you can play multiple hands, even as many as 50 or 100 hands simultaneously. With these programs you get dealt multiple hands with identical cards. Then you make your hold decisions, and all 100 hands (or 50 or whatever) will hold those same cards. But every hand is then dealt new cards, with each hand dealt from a separate deck. I like these multi-hand games because you get more of a shot at hitting some of the high-paying hands.
The Standard Jacks or Better Payouts
The chart below shows the payouts for the various hands. Some games have different payouts, but this is the best one if you can find it.
| Jacks or Better Pay Table |
| Hand | One Coin | Five Coins |
| Royal Flush | 800 | 4000 |
| Straight Flush | 50 | 250 |
| Four of a Kind | 25 | 125 |
| Full House | 9 | 45 |
| Flush | 6 | 30 |
| Straight | 4 | 20 |
| Three of a Kind | 3 | 15 |
| Two Pair | 2 | 10 |
| One Pair, Jacks or Better | 1 | 5 |
Double or Nothing
A lot of the online video poker games give you 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. You can keep doing this until you get afraid your luck might run out, or you lose, or you bump into the house’s doubling maximum. I like the double or nothing bets because they allow a you to manufacture your own big scores, rather than wait for one!
Easy Jacks or Better Video Poker Strategy
(Provided courtesy of Arnold Snyder's Blackjack Forum)
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 Chart |
| Hand | Draw |
| 1. Royal Flush, Straight Flush, or 4-of-a-Kind | 0 |
| 2. Four Cards to a Royal Flush | 1 |
| 3. Full House, Flush, or Straight | 0 |
| 4. Three of a Kind | 2 |
| 5. Four Cards to a Straight Flush (Open-ended) | 1 |
| 6. Two Pair | 1 |
| 7. Four Cards to a Straight Flush (Inside) | 1 |
| 8. Pair Jacks or Better | 3 |
| 9. Three Cards to a Royal Flush | 2 |
| 10. Four Cards to a Flush | 1 |
| 11. 10-J-Q-K | 1 |
| 12. Pair Tens or Lower | 3 |
| 13. Four Cards to a Straight (Open-ended) | 1 |
| 14. Two Suited High Cards | 3 |
| 15. A-K-Q-J | 1 |
| 16. Three Cards to a Straight Flush | 2 |
| 17. J-Q-K | 2 |
| 18. Two Unsuited High Cards | 3 |
| 19. Suited 10-J, 10-Q, or 10-K | 3 |
| 20. One High Card | 4 |
| 21. Any Other Hand (All Low Cards) | 5 |
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.
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!)
And here is one final video poker tip from the Slot Dogg. I personally like playing video poker in online casinos that use Microgaming Viper software, because the software automatically tells you the right cards to hold, so you can play perfect video poker strategy on any game without knowing any charts! Have another beer while you're at it! You don't have to worry about screwing up!
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