Video Poker is a popular game that usually will be enjoyed in casinos around the world, or in your house on your PC, using an Internet account. The game rules are very simple and consist of the player trying to get the highest assemblage of cards possible in order to win cash. In this respect it’s much the same as a regular game of poker, apart from the interaction with any other players. Of course, techniques employed during a real-life game of poker, like bluffing, will be irrelevant here.
The game of Video Poker begins when the enthusiast puts credits (either tokens, credit slips or cash) into the machine and pushes the draw button. A 5 card hand will then be electronically ‘given out’ on the screen.
The Electronic Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and gamblers should now decide which cards to hold and which to discard. For the cards the enthusiast wishes to retain, the ‘hold’ buttons should be pressed so that they light up. The player can choose to keep any amount of cards they wish, from all to none.
After the gambler has chosen which cards he or she wishes to retain, they should press ‘draw’, which will mean that any fresh cards will be dealt if desired. The hand is now completed, with the Video Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands listed in the payment schedule.
Normally, the minimum succeeding hand on an Electronic Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money getting larger for each better hand. A list of common winning hands begins with jacks or better, and moves on to 2 pairs, 3 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 payment schedule can vary from machine to machine, so that experienced gamblers are agile enough to select the most profitable game each instance.
Once the first round has finished, the player can either decide to continue on and try to to increase their earnings, or they can press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any cash that they may have won. Further, some styles of the game give the player a chance to double their wins, in which case another game is played. There are also differences among specific machines, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other differing aspects to enhance playability.