Video Poker is a popular game that can be bet on in casinos around the world, or alternatively at home on your personal computer, through a web account. The game rules are very simple and consist of the player trying to achieve the highest combination of cards achievable in order to acquire cash. In this respect it’s much the same as a normal game of poker, minus the interaction with any other players. Of course, methods used in a physical game of poker, like bluffing, will be useless here.
The game of Video Poker starts when the gambler inserts credits (either tokens, credit slips or money) into the machine and pushes the deal button. A 5 card hand will be electronically ‘handed out’ on the screen.
The Electronic Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and enthusiasts will need to now pick which cards to keep and which to discard. For the cards the bettor wishes to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons need to be pressed so that they light up. The player can decide to keep any number of cards they wish, whether it is all or none.
After the player has selected which cards she wishes to keep, the player will then press ‘deal’, at which point any new cards are needed they will be handed 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 listed in the payout schedule.
Normally, the minimum succeeding hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money increasing for each better hand. A common list of winning hands begins with jacks or better, and moves on to two pairs, 3 of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, 4 of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It is obvious that the payment schedule can change from game to game, so that discerning enthusiasts are agile enough to pick the most money-making machine each time.
Once the first round has completed, the player can either decide to continue on and try to to increase their winnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any money that might have been won. Additionally, some versions of the game give the player an opportunity to double their wins, in which situation a further game is played. There are also variations among individual games, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other differing elements to enhance playability.