When the deal already pays something

The video poker screen shows J♠ J♦ 2♠ 9♠ K♠. The deal already pays a pair of jacks, and four of the five cards are spades. Which cards do you hold?

The deal is the same on both screens, and only the cards held over the deal change. The value under each screen is what that hold pays back on average, for each coin bet, over every draw that can follow.

Leoformer dealer · rules and maths

The deals worth slowing down for are the few where the made hand is worth less than a draw inside it: a flush with four cards of a royal flush in it, or a pair of jacks sitting in four cards to a straight flush. I ask people to look for those two before they press draw.

What already pays, and what a hold is worth

In Jacks or Better the lowest hand that pays anything is a pair of jacks, and a pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces is called a high pair. Any deal that holds a high pair or anything above a high pair is a made hand: the five cards pay before you draw a single new card.

The pays come from the 9/6 table printed in an online version of the game’s rules; the name 9/6 is ours, after the table’s Full House and Flush lines. The royal flush pays more for each coin at a five-coin bet than at a smaller bet, and lesson 8.3 is about that difference. The machine in front of you prints its own table on its glass.

After the deal you choose which cards to hold, and every card you do not hold is replaced by a new card from the 47 cards left in the deck. What a hold is worth is the average of what every possible draw pays, for each coin bet.

1. The dealJ♠ J♦ 2♠ 9♠ K♠Five cards, and the five cards already pay: a pair of jacks.
2. The holdHold J♠ J♦The other three cards are thrown away, and three new cards replace them.
3. Every draw1.537 betsAll 16,215 ways three new cards can come from the 47 cards left, each paid by the table, then averaged.

One deal, one hold, every draw. Each of the thirty-two ways to hold five cards gets a value the same way, and the hold with the largest value is the one worth making.

A high pair is worth more than four to a flush

Four spades look like a flush that needs one more card, but the pair of jacks is worth more, by 0.28 of a bet each time this deal comes up.

Every draw for the pair still pays at least a pair of jacks.

Other high pairs beside other draws come out the same way. In K♦ K♠ Q♦ J♦ 4♣ the pair of kings is worth 1.537 and the three diamonds to a royal flush are worth 1.488. In A♥ A♦ K♣ Q♠ J♥ the pair of aces is worth 1.537 and the four cards to a straight are worth 0.574.

Three cards to a royal flush look like the bigger chance, and the royal flush pays the most of any hand. The pair of kings is still worth more: the royal flush needs two exact cards, and the pair pays on every draw.

A kicker beside the paying cards costs money

A kicker is a card held beside a pair that pays nothing by itself, like the king next to A♠ A♦ in A♠ A♦ K♣ 7♥ 2♠. The pair alone is worth 1.537; the pair and the king are worth 1.416, which is 0.12 of a bet less each time this deal comes up.

The deal is the same in all three pictures, and only the cards held over the deal change. Every card held beside the pair is one new card fewer, and three new cards make three of a kind, a full house or four of a kind more often than two new cards do.

The same holds for the other made hands in the table below: keep the cards that pay, and let the spare card go. Two pair keeps four cards and draws one; three of a kind keeps three cards and draws two.

In every row the left-hand value is the largest.

When a made hand is worth breaking

Sometimes the made hand is the thing to let go. A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 3♠ is a flush, and a flush pays 6 for each coin bet. The same five cards hold four cards to a royal flush: throw away the 3♠ and the one new card can make a royal flush, a flush, a straight or a high pair.

The flush pays the moment the five cards are kept. Four to a royal flush gives the flush up for a draw worth 18.43 a bet on average, against the 6.000 the flush pays: the draw is worth more, even though most single draws pay less than the flush.

Keeping the made flush gives up 12.4 bets each time A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 3♠ comes up. On an example bet of $1.25, five coins of $0.25, that is $15.53 each time; the bet is only an example, not a suggested bet. Amounts are in Canadian dollars.

A draw to a straight flush is worth breaking a high pair for, and it is not worth breaking a made flush or a made straight for. Four cards to a straight flush pay nothing yet, so the made hand they sit beside decides.

Each block is one deal, and the longer bar is the hold worth more in that deal.

What the printed summary and the screen tell you

An online version of the game’s rules prints a short summary of holds for the 9/6 table: four cards to a royal flush first, then a full house or a flush, then a high pair, then three cards to a royal flush, then four cards to a flush. Beside each line stands how many cards to keep, and no value.

Wherever two of these lines meet in one deal in this lesson, the line higher in the summary is worth more.

Under the standard for machines in B.C. casinos, held cards and cards not held have to be clearly marked on the screen, and that includes holds the machine itself suggests, where suggesting a hold is allowed. The standard says how a hold has to be shown, and nothing about which hold is worth the most.

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

Knowing the right hold makes every hand a little cheaper, and every hand still costs money: even played without a single mistake, the machine keeps a share of what goes through it. Practise holds at home with the trainer on this page, not with money in the machine.

Decide before you sit down how much money and how much time the session gets, and stop when either one runs out. A hand that went wrong is not a reason to put more in.

Practice: which hold?

Every deal in the practice run already pays. Level 1 deals a high pair or two pair, with a draw or a spare card beside the paying cards. Level 2 deals a made hand beside a draw, and the question is whether the made hand is worth breaking.

Nothing is bet here, and nothing is drawn: each deal stops at the moment you choose the hold.

Check yourself

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.

Back to the question we opened with. In J♠ J♦ 2♠ 9♠ K♠ hold the two jacks and nothing else: the pair of jacks is worth 1.537 a bet, and the four spades are worth less.

Further reading

19+ (18+ in AB, MB, QC) · Play responsibly · the helplines are further up this page

Further reading

• Jacks or Better: game rules (online version) · Loto-QuébecA full pay table by number of chips and a printed holding strategy, from Loto-Québec’s online casino.

How it’s worked out