Some people prefer the excitement of video poker to table play for a number of reasons. It might be that they are not physically able to get out to the casinos or perhaps they do not live in an area where casinos exist. However, many poker players believe that the video form of poker is rigged and that winning is an impossible task. Regardless, if you choose to play on the internet, you need to know that there are ways to win at video poker.
First, to calculate the expected value of each dealt hand, you need to consider that by using a 52-card deck that more than 2.5 million possible five-card hands exist in poker. The reason is that in poker, the order of cards in unimportant. Additionally, suit does not always play an importance either. For example, if you have an Ace-Queen-seven-four-three combination of Spades, there is no greater value for that combination than if the suit were Diamonds, Clubs, or Hearts. Now considering the suit equivalences, the same 52-card deck has 134,459 unique hands. Therefore, out of these hands, 32 possible discards exist that range from stand pat to draw five. This means that the way in which you make your calculations of the expected value for each hand dealt to you would be 32 times 134,459.
While this is not rocket science, performing these calculations would take the average player weeks to complete. Therefore, the method most commonly used is by calculating the average expected value of the type of hand dealt to you. With this method, all types of hands are ranked according to this value, making this ranking your strategy. By using the occurrence of every type of hand within the initial deal, the calculation for net return can be reached easily. The only drawback to this method is that many people will place the hands in buckets prematurely based on type and when this happens, some interactions are missed.
For instance, if you were playing Jacks or better and were dealt an Ace-King-Queen-Jack hand with the Jack and Queen being Hearts, would your best move be to go for the Straight or two-card Jack-Queen Royal? Since the Jack-Queen Royal would have the higher expected value, would you draw trying to get that hand? To answer those questions, you would first need to determine the fifth card. If that card were a nine or a Heart, then the Ace-King-Queen-Jack would be the wiser play if you had no chance of getting a Straight Flush.
In this case, the expected value of the two hands is in reverse since the nine would be a disadvantage for the Jack-Queen Straight. Additionally if you were dealt a Heart, it would create a disadvantage for the Jack-Queen Flush. These types of plays are missed by many players when cards are placed in the bucket too early. The key to winning in video Poker is to play consistently. More than likely, you will not hit a huge jackpot, few players do. However, if you can win small hands on a consistent basis, then you come out the winner in the end.
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