Video Poker Strategies

The best Video Poker strategies in the world fall flat on their face if you try to apply them to the wrong machine. Video Poker machines come in a thousand different variations, and each variation should be played with specific strategies for that machine. The nature of the machine is revealed entirely by its pay-schedule. Much like a slot machine's pay table, it lets you know in plain numbers what you will be paid for achieving particular hands.

But you can't tell if a machine is a rip off just by looking at the pay-schedule, unless you are familiar with what a proper pay-schedule for the variation of video poker you're playing should look like. Most people take the simple route of learning what makes a Jacks or Better machine's pay table 'just right' and then they look for those.

When a machine is just right, it means the pay schedule is paying you the most it could for that variation of video poker. This is usually referred to as a "full-pay" machine. To know if the less common video poker variations are full pay or not, check your strategy card for the machine. If you don't have a strategy card for the machine, you likely don't want to play it anyway, since you won't know how to play with perfect strategy.

So the best video poker strategies are the ones that follow a pro strategy card, on a correct full-pay version of the machine, with a good understanding of your bankroll. The natural extension of this is, how to get a pro strategy card, how to identify a full-pay machine, and how to get your head around bankroll management (as it aught to be different per machine variation, as each variation has it's own unique characteristics).

To find a pro strategy card, we recommend you do a search for 'bob dancer', who is one of the more well-known characters when it comes to pro Video Poker strategies. He sells strategy cards for a decent price, usually less than $10 a pop for any game.

Figuring out if a pay-schedule is full-pay or not isn't an intuitive task. Memorize what makes a Jacks or Better game good, then just 'borrow' the knowledge about other machines when you need it. There are many software programs now available to analyze a pay-schedule and give you the theoretical return percentage of the machine. If you've got a favorite game and you're not sure if any of the strategies you try on it are appropriate, you should run its pay schedule through one of these pieces of software.