Expert Play Begins Long Before Popping In Coins

The other night we saw a perfect example when a novice player popped in five dollars and stood transfixed for several minutes trying to figure out how to play the hand. In reality, the hand was a bust and the expert play would have been to draw five cards. This player finally decided to hold two non-sequential low cards of the same suit. Statistically, that move was costing about $1.25 of the wager in comparison to the right play. Furthermore, that particular machine was a lower paying version in an area surrounded by full pay machines, so it really should have been avoided completely. In short, that player evidently had no idea what Video Poker is all about.

Expert players know that on the job training can be very costly on Video Poker machines. While expert play can attain near or above breakeven paybacks on many versions, most good players know that the only reason the casinos are so generous is simply that there are enough hackers around to provide an adequate return to the operators.

Training is essential to winning at this game and it's now available in so many good books software products at such a reasonable price that it's ludicrous for anyone to start playing cold. Thinking that the back home table poker games prepare players for Video Poker is fallacious as these examples in Jacks or Better demonstrate.

Dealt 4D 5D 6D AH KH the gut feel is to hold the Ace King and pull for the Royal. Wrong! The better play is to hold the 3-Card Straight Flush. Here's why in a nutshell.

To attain maximum payback, every hand we get must be played in the way that maximizes its average return. Here's the proof for this hand:

(A) Holding two cards to the Royal and drawing three cards opens the possibility of 16,215 unique draws, each being equally likely. The possible outcomes assuming five coin play are as follows:

This Expected Value (EV) 0.59 means a payout of only 59% of our wagers.

(B) Holding three cards and drawing two allows 1,081 unique draws which would be expected to produce this pattern of final hands:

This EV of 0.64 means a payout of 64% of our wagers. This represents a gain of 25 cents on every similar hand on a one dollar machine compared to the erroneous play. The same strategy does not apply for 3-Card Straight Flushes of 2 3 4 makeup.