Video Poker is a beloved game that usually will be enjoyed in casinos across the world, or in your house on your personal computer, through a net connection. The rules are absolutely straightforward and involve the player attempting to achieve the highest combination of cards possible in order to come away with money. In this respect it’s very similar as a classic game of poker, apart from the line of contact with competing players. Of course, techniques used in a real-life game of poker, like bluffing, will be useless here.
The game of Video Poker starts when the player puts credits (whether it’s tokens, credit slips or cash) into the video poker machine and presses the play button. A 5 card hand will then be electronically ‘given out’ on the screen.
The Video Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and bettors should now decide which cards to keep and which to discard. For the cards the player wishes to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons must be pressed so that they light up. The player can choose to keep any number of cards they wish, whether it’s all or none.
After the player has decided on which cards she wishes to retain, they should press ‘deal’, which will mean that any fresh cards will be needed they will be handed out. The hand is now finished, with the Video Poker machine analyzing the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands listed in the pay out schedule.
Typically, the minimum succeeding hand on an Electronic Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the prize money getting larger for each better hand. A common list of winning hands starts with jacks or better, moving on to two pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, 4 of a kinds, straight flushes and last but not least royal flushes. It is obvious that the payout schedule can vary from game to game, so that experienced bettors are able to pick the most beneficial ones each time.
After the first round has completed, the player can either choose to continue on and try to to increase their earnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to cash out any credits that they may have won. Additionally, some styles of the game give the gambler a chance to double their profits, in which case another hand is played. There are also variations among specific games, with some virtual decks including wild cards and other differing characteristics to increase playability.