Video Poker is a popular game that is able to be played in casinos across the world, or in your house on your PC, through a net connection. The rules are very simple and involve the player trying to achieve the highest assemblage of cards as you can in order to acquire money. In this respect it’s much the same as a normal game of poker, minus the involvement with any other players. Of course, tactics used in a physical game of poker, like tricking, will be useless in Video Poker.
The game of Electronic Poker starts when the bettor puts credits (whether it is tokens, credit slips or money) into the video poker machine and pushes the play button. A hand of five cards will be electronically ‘handed out’ on the video screen.
The Video Poker game also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and bettors should now pick which cards to keep and which to discard. For the cards the player wishes to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons need to be pressed so that they light up. The player can decide to keep any amount of cards they want, from all to none.
After the enthusiast has selected which cards he or she wishes to keep, they should press ‘deal’, at which point any new cards will be needed they will be given out. The game is now completed, with the Video Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands listed in the pay out schedule.
Normally, the minimum succeeding hand on an Electronic Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money increasing for each better hand. A common list of winning hands starts with jacks or better, moving on to two pairs, 3 of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, 4 of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It goes without saying that the payout schedule can range from game to game, so that knowledgeable gamblers are able to choose the most beneficial machine each time.
As soon as the first round has completed, the player can either choose to stay on and try to to maximize their winnings, or they can press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any cash that they may have won. Additionally, a few versions of the game give the bettor a chance to double their winnings, in which case another hand is played. There are also variations among specific games, with some virtual decks having wild cards and other differing aspects to increase playability.
