When Brian Christopher plays video poker in videos, players will call out how he plays, generally to tell him he’s doing it wrong:
I was taught by professional gamblers on this game. If you are on a low budget you must play differently, play the odds for your money back.
Natalie P.
In all our years of video poker we’ve never encountered a specific strategy driven by bankroll. So we passed the question to Flip The Switch contributor John Mehaffey and asked if there’s any examples he can think of where you’d change strategy because you’re low on money? This was his response.
Video poker can be one of the most profitable games for casino players. Its low house advantage and ability to earn slot points can swing in the player’s favor.
Mastering video poker requires learning the strategy. Basic games like Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker are simple to learn. Wild card games and ones with high variance like Triple Double Bonus Poker require more advanced studying to reach the expert level.
One unique aspect of video poker is all the possible outcomes. There are almost 2.6 million different 5-card hands that can be dealt out of a 52-card deck. While some combinations are similar, there are still many individual draws to learn. In some cases, the choice is obvious. For example, you are dealt a winning straight or have three of a kind. Other situations can be more difficult.
It can be tempting to deviate from the strategy. This adds to the house edge and it may also increase variance. Some hands present almost a 50/50 choice. This may be an opportunity for you to choose whether to go for the royal flush with increased variance or play conservatively by going for a flush or other hand. Your decision may be based on the size of your bankroll.
Examples
In Double Bonus Poker, when the flush pays six coins, as opposed to seven on the full-pay version, three-card royal flush draws and four-card flush draws have nearly the same expected value. The difference is only about a penny on every dollar wagered.
For example, getting dealt three royal flush cards, a card of the same suit that does not make a straight draw, and a fifth card that is a brick, gives you two nearly equal opportunities to draw. One is to hold the three-card royal flush. The other is to hold all four of the same suit and go for a flush. A more conservative situation is to go for the flush. When a flush pays seven coins, that is always the correct play unless the royal flush draw is QJT.
Wild card games like Deuces Wild and Joker Poker are full of these opportunities. This mostly applies to straight and flush draws when holding a wild card.
Holding Small Pairs Versus High Card
One play that feels like a conservative player should do but hurts in the end is holding a face card over a small pair. When dealt a pair of 5s with a face card and two mismatched ones 10 and lower, holding the pair is the best bet for a significant margin. In fact, you would be the same or better off holding the face card AND the pair of 5s than holding the face card by itself. The same applies to holding one of the other small unpaired cards with the pair.
Not Accounting for Royal Flush Draws
Conservative players often miss two royal flush scenarios. One is when a machine has a large progressive jackpot. In that scenario, hands like queen/jack, king/queen, and king/queen/jack suited may need to be broken out of small winning hands like pairs or draws like straights and flushes.
Another common mistake is not going for a three-card royal flush draw on four-card flushes when it is the proper play. When dealt a three-card royal with a four-card flush draw in full-pay jacks, the proper play is holding the three-card royal flush. This is true in most games that do not pay 7 coins on a flush, especially on games with inferior paytables that only pay 5 coins on a flush.
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