Video Poker is a beloved game that can be enjoyed in casinos around the world, or in your house on your personal computer, through a net connection. The rules are absolutely simple and involve the player attempting to get the greatest assemblage of cards as you can in order to come away with cash. In this respect it’s very similar as a classic game of poker, minus the interaction with competing players. Of course, tactics used in a physical game of poker, like tricking, will be irrelevant here.
The game of Electronic Poker starts when the enthusiast inserts credits (either tokens, credit slips or money) into the machine and presses the draw button. A hand of five cards will then be electronically ‘distributed’ on the screen.
The Video Poker machine also has hold buttons, and players should now choose which cards to keep and which to throw away. For the cards the bettor wishes to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons must be pressed so that they light up. The player can decide to keep any amount of cards they want, whether it’s all or none.
After the bettor has chosen which cards he or she wishes to keep, the player will then press ‘draw’, at which point any fresh cards are needed they will be given out. The round is now finished, with the Video Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it is the same as any of the winning hands shown on the payout schedule.
Generally, the minimum succeeding hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money growing for each and every better hand. A list of common winning hands starts with jacks or better, and moves on to 2 pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, four of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It should be known that the pay out schedule can vary from game to game, so that skillful enthusiasts are agile enough to choose the most money-making machine every time.
After the initial round has played out, the player can either decide to remain on and try to to increase their winnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to cash out any money that might have been won. Further, some styles of the game allow the player a chance to increase their wins, in which instance another round is played. There are also differences among individual machines, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other differing characteristics to increase playability.