Video Poker is one of the most sought games by players at the casinos. You can find wide range of such types of games to play. In fact the online casinos display full fledged menu of such games which go beyond 50 types of video poker to enjoy. To play these games one thing is common that you first place your bet by selecting a coin size and the number of coins. Then click the Deal button. You will receive five cards. After examining your cards, you must decide which ones you want to hold and which ones you want to trade in for different cards. You do this by clicking on the cards you want to hold. You may hold as many cards as you want to: from no cards at all up to all five of your cards.
Then click the Draw button. The cards that you did not hold will be replaced by new cards to create your final video poker hand. Your final hand is then compared to the payout table to determine if you are a video poker winner and, if so, how much you won.
Online Video Poker Strategy
Video Poker strategy comes into action when you need to decide as which cards to hold and which to discard in the game play.. Suppose you have a 3 of spades, 6 of spades, 9 of spades, Ace of spades, and Ace of hearts. Do you keep the pair of aces and discard the rest? Or do you keep the four spades in hope of drawing a fifth spade for a flush? A difficult decision indeed, but that’s what makes online video poker interesting. There is no hurry in the game and you can take couple of minutes to think about the odds, the probabilities, and the potential payouts, instead of making a haste decision.
Wild Cards in Video Poker
Some online video poker games have the added attraction of a wild card. A video poker wild card can stand in for any other card to complete a winning poker hand. In Deuces Wild, for example, the 2’s are wild. A hand of 2-4-5-6-8 would be a loser in most poker games, but in Deuces Wild the 2 can act as a 7 to complete the 4-5-6-7-8 straight. With a wild card, you can even achieve a hand of five of a kind, a feat that would otherwise be impossible. This is another advantage of online video poker.
Winning at Video Poker
Each online video poker game has its own rule concerning the minimum hand needed to win. In Tens Or Better, you need at least a pair of 10’s; at Jacks Or Better, at least a pair of Jacks; in Joker Poker, at least a pair of Kings. In Deuces Wild, you need at least three of a kind.
Online Video Poker Payout Schedules
All of the online video poker games award higher payouts for the higher poker hands. The top hand is a royal flush. In Joker Poker, it pays out 5,000 coins on a 5-coin bet.
After the royal flush come the straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pairs, and a pair.
Although the order of the poker hand rankings is the same in most video poker games, the amount of the payouts varies widely from game to game. A flush, for example, pays out 2-to-1 in Deuces Wild, 3-to-1 in Deuces and Joker, 4-to-1 in Double Joker, 5-to-1 in Aces and Faces, 6-to-1 in Jacks or Better, 7-to-1 in Double Bonus Poker, and 8-to-1 in All American Poker.
Double or Nothing
If you win a hand of video poker, you have a choice of Collect or Double. Collecting, of course, means collecting your winnings according to the payout schedule. Double means you have a chance to double your winnings by picking a high card.
If you choose Double, you will see an array of five cards. The dealer’s card is face-up; the other four are face down. You must select one of the face-down cards by clicking on it. If your card is higher than the dealer’s, you have just doubled your winnings. If your card is lower, you forfeit your video poker winnings and get nothing. Double or Nothing is online casino betting in its purest form.
Progressive Video Poker
Jackpot Deuces and SupaJax are online progressive video poker games. That means they offer a jackpot that is constantly increasing, without limit, until someone wins it. Then the jackpot amount is reset and starts increasing once again.
In both games, you must wager five 1-credit coins to be eligible for the jackpot. You need Jackpot Deuces in a Diamond Royal Flush to win. In SupaJax, you need four Jacks plus the wild SupaJax card. In either case, if you are lucky enough to win the progressive jackpot, you are in for a lot of money. This is yet another advantage of online video poker.
How to choose an online Video Poker Game to play
As you browse through the selection of Video Poker games in the online casino, pay attention to the payout table, the minimum hand needed to win, and whether or not the game has a wild card. You will see that every game has advantages and disadvantages in these areas.
Double Joker has two wild cards, which is a big plus, but you need at least two pairs to win, which is not so great. Therefore every video poker game that has an advantage in one area will have a disadvantage in another area like in most the online casino games.
So look at all the video poker games in the casino lobby, pay attention to their features, think about which ones are most important to you, and make your selection. Or, better yet, play different online video poker games on different days, and take advantage of the best features of each of them.
