Intro to Video Poker

Now that you have decided that you want to play Video Poker there are some things that you need to know about the game before you dive into it. First of all you will get five cards dealt to you by the game from a standard deck. You can keep or discard any of the five cards depending on the hand that you are aiming for. One very important thing that you should pay attention to is the Hold button, this can be the deciding factor on whether or not you win the hand that you are playing. Make sure that you hold the cards that you want to keep before you click on the deal button to get your replacement cards. Also be aware that some casinos have Discard buttons instead of hold buttons, this could cost you a lot of money if you get rid of something that you intended to keep. Now that you have kept the cards that you want to and gotten rid of the ones that you didn?t want you should learn about the card rankings and what you should be shooting for.

The basic hand rankings are from highest to lowest, Royal Flush, Straight Flush, 4 of a Kind, Full House, Flush, 3 of a Kind, Two Pair and One Pair.

There are many varieties of Video Poker, but almost all are based on Jacks or Better. In Jacks or Better, the object is to get a hand that ranks with at least a pair of Jacks, or better. The structure of the hand ranking is simple, the cards in the deck are valued as follows, an Ace be either high or low, King counts as 10, Queen counts as 10, Jack counts as 10 and all of the rest of the cards hold their face value.