Essential Study Topics for Video Poker Novices

Published: December 5, 2013

In recent years, video poker has started to get a lot more attention as a skill game played at online casinos. In turn, more new players have started taking up the game and trying to improve their results with studying. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of practical resources out there for players who want to learn the basics. Instead, most of the strategy content out there for video poker revolves around memorizing long, complicated charts of information. Here we're going to take a more practical and actionable approach that will appeal to players who don't have dozens of hours of free time to devote to studying to improve their winrate by 0.05 percent.

The very first thing that you should study is the comparative value of draws and made hands. Basically, you want to know when you should break pairs to go for draws and when you shouldn't. In Jacks or Better, for example, if you had 8h 4h 2h 9h 9s, then you should break the pair and go for the flush draw. If you have 7s 7d 8c 9h Td, however, then you should keep your low pair of sevens and discard the rest. These are the first difficult decisions that you will come to in your video poker career, and you need to know them by heart for the variation of video poker that you prefer.

Next, you should make sure that you start off with the basic games. For wild card games, the title you want to study is Deuces Wild. For non-wild games, it's Jacks or Better. All other games are primarily based on one of these two titles, and that's why they are so necessary to get a good, solid foundation for playing video poker in a smart, strategic and practical way.

With some basic strategy under your belt, you'll start to be able to play most hands in a quick and straight-forward way. However, when you run into a hand that you aren't sure how to play, then write it down so that you can look up the right answer later. There are charts and simulators online that will show you the mathematically perfect play in any given situation, and while it might not give you much in terms of why the correct play is what it is, it can be a big help in dealing with difficult spots.