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Today's Winning Tip - Video Poker

Many overly keen Poker enthusiasts tend to fall into the trap of thinking this game is a race, rather than an activity of observation, perseverance and above all – patience. Sometimes not having enough of the last one can lead to players making irrational decisions, which in many cases could end up costing them the entire game!

Today’s winning video poker tip – take your time!

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• Jacks or Better: Perhaps the most well-known online video poker game in the USA, Jacks or Better is the basis of many other versions of video poker. The lowest winning hand is a pair of Jacks.

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• Bonus Poker: This is also a variant of Jacks or Better with higher pay-outs for four of a kind with Aces as well as twos, threes, and fours.

• Deuces Wild: In this version of video poker, the number two cards count as wilds, standing in for any other cards. The lowest winning hand is a three of a kind.

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Everything You’ll Ever Need to Know about Video Poker

The history of video poker – a brief timeline

1891: Sittman and Pitt invent a 5-reel poker machine with 10 playing cards per “drum” (or reel). The mechanism begins to spin once the lever is pulled, then the final 5-card hand is revealed. The machine is installed at bars around New York City, with prizes like free beers and cigars instead of monetary payouts.

Circa 1898: Charles Fey, “The Father of the Slot Machine,” perfects the most popular model of his invention: The Liberty Bell Slot Machine. His version simplifies the machine, decreasing the reels from 5 to 3 and including a mechanism that gives players cash payouts for winning combinations. The slot machine is installed throughout San Francisco and is soon followed by many imitators.

1901: Fey creates a poker machine that now includes a hold feature, allowing players to select cards to keep from the initial hand. The player then spins again in an attempt to improve his final hand. This Skill Draw machine is considered to be the first five-card draw poker machine.

1970: Dale Electronics releases the first electronic video poker machine. These machines are installed at many Vegas casinos, but the general reception is lukewarm.

1975-1981: Si Redd begins to push for a marketing strategy to popularize video poker machines, eventually creating his own company (SIRCOMA, now known as International Game Technology) to do so. Thanks to his efforts, video poker machines become highly popular and remain essential to any land-based and most online casinos today.

1994: The first online casinos are opened, with video poker as one of the first games to be offered online.

2000-present: The online casino industry grows at an exponential rate. With increased ownership of smartphones, mobile casinos are introduced and continue to grow in popularity, driven by its most well-loved game offerings – including video poker in the USA.

The Specifics of Video Poker

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It’s easy to get confused about what online real money video poker online actually entails, particularly when it sounds like regular poker and looks like slots. Here are some of the similarities and differences between video poker and regular poker as well as video poker and slot machine games.

Video poker vs. regular poker

Video poker and normal poker share two fundamental traits. First, they’re both based on 5-card hands that are ranked. Some winning hands in both games include royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, and full house. However, online variants of video poker also include other hands that result in pay-outs, for example a pair of Jacks in Jacks or Better.

Second, they both require some knowledge of strategy when it comes to the probability of different hands. In both games, the player is dealt an initial hand. When it comes to predicting possible cards that can complete a hand, understanding the odds of different outcomes is necessary for both.

A defining trait of normal poker is that you have to win the round against other players.

In video poker, it’s just you and the “dealer.” You don’t need to beat anyone; you just need to end up with a winning hand to receive a pay-out after each round. In that sense, video poker offers the chance to focus on your own hand instead of having to wonder and worry about what your opponents are up to. It involves the perfect amount of strategy – just enough to stay engaged and motivated, and not too much to discourage or overwhelm you.

Texas Hold´em Poker Guides

Texas Hold’em Poker Guide

While a lot of people are intimidated when it comes to games like Texas Hold’em Poker, learning the game is actually remarkably simple, easy and fun. Based on classic 5-card poker, Texas Hold’em is a game that has been keeping video poker fans enthralled for decades.

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Texas Hold’em Tips

Once you’ve mastered the basics of Texas Hold’em, it’s time to get down to business and learn tips and tricks from the experts. Video poker is as much a game of skill as chance. It’s about good decision making. These tips and tricks will help give you the winning edge.

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Real money video poker vs. real money slots

Video poker and slots are often lumped together because they’re the two main electronic gaming machines that you’ll find at your average land-based casino. The technology is similar: both depend on random number generator software – when it comes to slot machines, it’s used to determine the symbols that line up on each spin, and for video poker, the RNG ensures random “shuffling” and dealing of the playing cards.

Both types of electronic gaming machines are fun, flashy, and easy to pick up. They also don’t involve opponents, so you can play them at your own convenience and in your own space. Here’s where real video poker and slots are different. All slot machines are random. Don’t believe what you read about detecting patterns or other strategies to beating the system. While some slot games have better odds than others, there isn’t much in the way of complicated strategy that can go into improving your slots skills over time. Sure, there are general guidelines to follow when choosing the game, the pay table, the bet amount, and other factors, but there are no step by step methods for guaranteed wins. Most real money slots fans enjoy the randomness of each spin – there’s the stress relief that comes with every spin, and a certain amount of satisfaction that comes with lucky wins.

On the other hand, video poker does allow for improvement. In fact, it’s a well-known fact that video poker is one of the rare casino games that, if played well, can actually allow players to beat the house edge.

Strategies how to win at real money video poker

Video poker strikes a balance – a happy medium that takes the best advantages from normal poker and slots games. Take a look at some basic strategies for getting started with video poker online today:

1. Learn to analyze pay tables. Research payback percentages so that you’re able to choose optimal pay tables to maximize your winnings. The highest paying variant of a game is referred to as “full-pay.”

2. Internalize the rules. Once you’ve identified the full-pay games, you need to fully understand what makes those variants different from others. The basic rules aren’t hard to pick up, but if you want to master the game, you need to take it a step further and really internalize the specifics.

3. Place maximum bets to increase potential winnings – that also means managing your bankroll to accommodate max bets.

4. Study video poker strategy. There are specific strategy tables and guides with highly detailed methods, posted online and published in books. Do your homework, check out a great article here, and your hard work is guaranteed to pay off.

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Poker
  • General principles
    • Betting limits
  • Principal forms
    • Stud poker
    • Community-card poker
    • House-banked games
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Internet Cats Playing Poker Game

Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work! Albert H. MoreheadSee All Contributors
Writer and editor. Bridge editor, the New York Times, 1935-63. Author of Hoyle's Rules of Games and The Complete Guide to WInning Poker, among others.

Poker, card game, played in various forms throughout the world, in which a player must call (i.e., match) the bet, raise (i.e., increase) the bet, or concede (i.e., fold). Its popularity is greatest in North America, where it originated. It is played in private homes, in poker clubs, in casinos, and over the Internet. Poker has been called the national card game of the United States, and its play and jargon permeate American culture.

Although countless variants of poker are described in the literature of the game, they all share certain essential features. A poker hand comprises five cards. The value of the hand is in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency; that is, the more unusual the combination of cards, the higher the hand ranks. Players may bet that they have the best hand, and other players must either call (i.e., match) the bet or concede. Players may bluff by betting that they have the best hand when in fact they do not, and they may win by bluffing if players holding superior hands do not call the bet.

General principles

There are forms of poker suitable to any number of players from 2 to 14, but in most forms the ideal number is 6, 7, or 8 players. The object is to win the “pot,” which is the aggregate of all bets made by all players in any one deal. The pot may be won either by having the highest-ranking poker hand or by making a bet that no other player calls. The following principles apply to nearly all forms of poker.

Cards

Poker is almost always played with the standard 52-card deck, the playing cards in each of the four suits (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs) ranking A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A (low only in the straight [a series of five cards numbered consecutively] or straight flush [a series of five cards numbered consecutively within the same suit] 5-4-3-2-A and in certain variants described below).

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In social play, especially in “dealer’s choice” (i.e., a card-playing session in which each player takes a turn at dealing the cards and selecting the game), certain cards may be designated wild cards. A wild card stands for any other card its holder wishes to name. There are many methods of introducing wild cards into the game. The most popular are:

  1. Joker. A 53-card pack is used, including the joker as a wild card.
  2. Bug. The same 53-card pack including the joker is used, but the joker—here called the bug—counts only as a fifth ace or to fill a flush [a series of five cards of the same suit], a straight, or certain special hands.
  3. Deuces wild. All four deuces (2s) are wild cards.
  4. One-eyes. In the standard pack the king of diamonds, jack of spades, and jack of hearts are the only cards shown in profile. They are often designated as wild cards.

Rank of poker hands

The rank of standard poker hands is determined by their odds (probability). Two or more identical hands tie and divide any winning equally. The suits have no relative rank in poker. When there is any wild card in the game, the highest possible hand is five of a kind, which beats any straight flush. When there are several wild cards, there may be identical fours of a kind or threes of a kind, in which case ties are broken by the highest unmatched cards or secondary pairs (in a full house [a five-card hand made up of three of a kind and a pair]).

Poker odds
poker handnumber of ways the hand can be madeapproximate odds of getting the hand in five cards
royal flush41 in 649,740.00
straight flush361 in 72,193.33
four of a kind6241 in 4,165.00
full house3,7441 in 694.16
flush5,1081 in 508.80
straight10,2001 in 254.80
three of a kind54,9121 in 47.32
two pairs123,5521 in 21.03
one pair1,098,2401 in 2.36
no pair1,302,5401 in 1.99

Deal

At the start of the game, any player takes a pack of cards and deals them in rotation to the left, one at a time faceup, until a jack appears. The player receiving that card becomes the first dealer. The turn to deal and the turn to bet always pass to the left from player to player. For each deal, any player may shuffle the cards, the dealer having the last right to shuffle. The dealer must offer the shuffled pack to the opponent to the right for a cut. If that player declines to cut, any other player may cut.

A professional dealer is used in poker clubs, casinos, and tournament play, where a round disc (known as a dealer button) is passed clockwise each hand to indicate the nominal dealer for betting purposes. Also, such environments almost invariably charge the players either by setting an hourly rental fee for their seats or by “raking” a small percentage (say, 5 percent) from each pot.

Betting procedure

In each deal there are one or more betting intervals according to the specific poker variant. In each betting interval, one player, as designated by the rules of the variant being played, has the privilege or obligation of making the first bet. This player and each player in turn after him must place in the pot the number of chips (representing money, for which poker is almost invariably played) to make his total contribution to the pot at least equal to the total contribution of the player before him. When a player does this, he is said to be in the pot, or an active player. If a player declines to do this, he discards his hand and is said to drop or fold, and he may no longer compete for the pot.

Before the deal, each player may be required to make a contribution to the pot, called an ante. In each betting interval, the first player to make a bet is said to bet, a player who exactly meets the previous bet is said to call, and a player who bets more than the previous bettor is said to raise. In some variants, a player is permitted to check, which is to stay in without betting, provided no other player has made a bet in that betting interval. Since a player cannot raise his own bet, each betting interval ends when the betting turn has returned to the person who made the last raise or when all players have checked.

At the end of each betting interval except the last, dealing is resumed. At the end of the last betting interval, there is the “showdown,” in which each active player shows his full hand, and the highest-ranking hand wins the pot.

Betting limits

There are “no-limit” or “sky’s-the-limit” games, but in practice most poker games place some limit on what one may bet in any game. There are three popular methods.

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Fixed limit

In fixed-limit games, no one may bet or raise by more than the established limit. In draw poker the limit is usually twice as much after the draw as before—for example, two chips before the draw, four chips after. In stud poker the limit is usually twice as much in the final betting interval as in previous betting intervals. (The higher limit applies also when any player’s exposed cards include a pair.) These respective forms of the game are described below. In a fixed-limit game a limit is usually placed on the number of raises that may be made in any betting interval.

Pot limit

In pot-limit contests, a player may bet or raise by no more than the amount in the pot at the time the bet or raise is made. When raising, the player may first put in the pot the number of chips required to call the previous bet and then raise by the number of chips in the pot. When pot limit is played, it is customary also to place a maximum limit on any bet or raise, regardless of the size of the pot.

Table stakes

This method most closely approximates the no-limit game. Each player’s limit is the number of chips he has on the table at the beginning of the deal. He may not bet more, but for this amount he may call any higher bet (go “all in”) and compete for the pot in the showdown. Other players having more chips may continue to bet, but their further bets go into one or more side pots in the manner decided among the players who contributed fully to the side pot. When a player drops out of any side pot, he drops out of the original pot as well, in effect surrendering his rights in the original pot to the player whose later bet he did not call. Thus, there may be different winners of the main pot and various side pots.

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