The Most Difficult Jacks or Better Video Poker Hands

Published: February 20, 2014

In any type of video poker that you play, some hands are going to be a lot easier to play than others. For example, if you're dealt KQJT4 with no possible flush draw, then you're almost always going to simply discard the four because there is no other option that has any real value. On the opposite end of the spectrum are hands that can be played any number of ways, and those are the types of hands that we're going to focus on here. The point is to teach you how to play some of the most difficult Jacks or Better video poker hands that you can get.

Suppose you have the hand 3s 3d Jd Ad Kd. Generally speaking, there are three different ways that you could try to play this hand, and all three of them would make sense. You could keep the pair of threes and try to make a hand based on a low pair. Alternatively, you could discard the three of spades and go for the flush draw. Finally, you could discard both of the threes and just keep the ace, king and jack of diamonds. In this particular situation, it's the final option that's correct. Three cards to a royal flush is a stronger hand than four cards to a normal flush or a low pair.

Here's another example hand that confuses a lot of players. Suppose you have 5s Js As Ks Ts. Your first option in this scenario would be to simply discard none and keep your flush. This is especially tempting because it's a guaranteed 6x payout. Your only other real option is to discard the five of spades in an attempt to hit a royal flush. Discarding the five is the correct play because four to a royal flush is stronger than any made hand lower than a straight flush.

Now we're going to look at one more difficult hand. Let's say you have 6s 6s 7h 8h 9c. You can see that your decision is between keeping the low pair and keeping the opened-ended straight draw. You can either discard one of the sixes, or you can discard the seven-eight-nine combination. The correct play is to keep the low pair. Open-ended straight draws are particularly weak in Jacks or Better because they pay low and have a low chance of hitting.