Video poker lessons

The lessons in this track

1. 8.1Deal, hold, drawA video poker hand is one bet, one deal of five cards, one choice of which cards to keep and one draw. Here is how a hand goes, which hands pay, and what your choice of hold changes.About 17 minutes
2. 8.2Reading the pay tableTwo video poker machines can carry the same game and the same royal flush line and still cost different money a hand. Two lines of the pay table say which machine is which.About 18 minutes
3. 8.3Coins, denomination and the royalOn the one video poker pay table we could read by its coin columns, the royal flush pays more for a five-coin bet. Here is what that does to the return, and how to fit five coins inside your limit.About 15 minutes
4. 8.4When the deal already pays somethingA deal that already pays is not always a deal to keep whole. Here is what every hold of a paying deal is worth, counted over every draw, and when the made hand is worth breaking.About 18 minutes
5. 8.5When nothing on the screen paysWhen the deal pays nothing, the cards you keep still decide what the hand is worth. Here is which draw is worth more, and when the answer is to keep nothing at all.About 18 minutes
6. 8.6Deuces Wild: a different gameDeuces Wild looks like Jacks or Better with four wild cards, but its pay table starts at three of a kind and the holds change with it. Here is how to read the table, and why every deuce stays.About 17 minutes
7. 8.7What mistakes cost per 100 handsThe return worked out for a video poker table assumes the hold worth most on every hand. Your price for a hundred hands is that table’s price plus whatever your own holds give up.About 14 minutes
8. 8.8Video poker mythsA count of hands since the last royal flush feels like a promise. Here is why the next hand is dealt from a fresh deck, and what a rate of once in so many hands does and does not say.About 14 minutes

What this track is for

Every figure in these lessons is worked out when the page is built, by the same engines as our tools, or comes from a source quoted on the spot. More on how we verify.

Nothing here is a way to win. The course explains what each game costs to play and what the rules on the table actually change, so that the money you take in is a decision and not a surprise.

Nothing you do in a practice table leaves your browser: what you answered is kept on this device and is sent nowhere. The course page lists what this device has saved.