Video Poker Power
Perhaps the most abused and misunderstood word in casino gaming texts is strategy. While most critical writers use the word to connote the systematic application of skill in playing a game, the word has been so bandied about by more innovative writers, to the point where its use causes most casual players to conjure up an image of some nefarious scheme by which rigid mathematical laws can be subverted.
The issue of how any skill can be applied to a game which involves no skill at all is usually side-stepped. Players have been "tipped off" to the strategies of playing (reel) slots, the
strategies of shooting craps and the various roulette strategies. Armed with these "strategies" players are supposed to be able to overcome the perverse laws which give the casino an irreversible advantage. Many purveyors of these strategies have never presented any proof that the strategies are sound, but by constant repetition, the "strategy" apparently can be made believable.
Players must distinguish between good advice and strategy. It is certainly good advice to avoid the high "vig" bets in craps and to take advantage of the true-odds bets, but it is poor advice to suggest that some progressive system of betting can reduce the inherent house advantage.
There are only two casino table games, Blackjack and Video Poker which can claim to offer the skilled player a demonstrable advantage over the house, and I'm not so sure that the story on Blackjack is a closed book. Thirty years after Julian Braun developed his theories of "counting" there are still new books offering methods of overcoming newly discovered anomolies in the theory. The past few years have brought "clumping" and "shuffle tracking" into the picture, raising doubts about what really is required to attain a player advantage.
By contrast, in only 10 years, the story of Video Poker has been presented in
amazingly complete detail, with every writer in complete harmony about the meaning and application of Video Poker strategy. If there are any differences in their offerings, it is primarily in the tutoring approach, not in the subject matter per se. This is what they all agree upon...
- Video Poker machines are driven by random number generators which draw cards free from any external bias.
- The long-term distribution of pre-draw hands are predictable.
- The long-term distribution of post-draw hands is predictable if the player observes a set strategy in discarding.
These areas of agreement are truly profound, especially when translated
unequivocally into instructions which Video Poker players can relate to.
- Play the High Paying Machines
- Apply Expert Strategy
- Know what to Expect
The obvious question is: What will Video Poker players accomplish if they
follow these instructions? The answer is that they will get the highest
possible return (payback) over the long run.
Whether they can expect to win is solely dependent on how liberal the machines are where they can play. In many locales they will really have an advantage over the house. In others, they can only minimize their losses, but with other incentives such as slot
clubs, they can get to a virtual break-even point. In any case, they will know where they stand in terms of expected results and will be able to obtain the best possible deal for themselves.
Regardless of what machines players can find in their locales, expert strategy must be applied. In simple terms, Video Poker expert strategy can be defined as:
Playing each hand in the way which gives it the greatest WIN POWER
What could be a more reasonable definition--it is almost intuitive. But how does one put the strategy into practice? That's what this article is all about.
If we simply answered that players can apply expert strategy by creating (or buying) a strategy sheet, we would be 100% correct but we would be remiss if we didn't go further into the matter. We stress this because players must be armed with knowledge in order to have complete faith in the strategy. If they
don't, they are very likely to be "psyched out" of the game because they see (or think they see) patterns of card behavior which they interpret as showing the strategy to be in error.
Let us show a concrete example of how a strategy table is created. Consider the case of a Draw Poker machine paying on a pair of Jacks or Better, offering the following "per-coin" pay-table for 5-coin play:
Pay Schedule
| Hand | Payout |
| Royal Flush | 800 |
| Straight Flush | 50 |
| Four of a Kind | 25 |
| Full House | 8 |
| Flush | 5 |
| Straight | 4 |
| Three of a Kind | 3 |
| Two Pairs | 2 |
| Pair Jacks or Better | 1 |
This is a common machine found all over the midwest. Now suppose you are dealt the following hand:
There are three apparently reasonable options for what to hold:
| Option A | 6D | 7D | 8D | 9S | | The 4-Card Straight (No High Cards) |
| Option B | 6D | 7D | 8D | | | The 3-Card Straight Flush (No High Cards) |
| Option C | | | | 9S | 9H | The Low Pair |
The question of how to apply expert strategy now becomes a question of knowing which way will obtain the greatest WIN POWER.
If we play as shown in Option A, we know that there are 47 cards still in the pack. Only 8 will
produce a winner, a straight. These are:
Each straight will pay back 4 bet-units, so we can expect 32 bet-units back for every 47 trials, since each card in the pack is equally likely to be drawn. The WIN POWER can be derived by dividing 32 by 47 to get 0.68. This means
that if we draw one card to any 4-Card Straight (No High Cards) on this specific machine, we can expect to get back (only) 68% of our wagers.
If we play the hand as shown in Option B, we will draw 2 cards out of the 47 in the pack. There are 1,081 possible unique 2-card draws. They will result in the following post-draw hands,
| HANDS | PAYOUTS |
| 3 Straight Flushes | 150 |
| 42 Flushes | 210 |
| 9 Three of a Kinds | 27 |
| 29 Straights | 116 |
| 27 Two Pairs | 54 |
| 24 High Pairs | 24 |
| 947 Losers | 0 |
| 1,081 Draws | 581 Payback |
| WIN POWER | 0.54 |
The payback is 581 bet units, for a numerical WIN POWER of 0.54. Playing this way infers a return of only 54% of our wager on a two-card draw to a 3-Card Straight Flush (No High Cards) on this specific machine.
The third option is to hold the pair and draw three cards. There are 16,215 possible unique draws and these will result in the following post-draw hands paying back 13,191, giving a WIN POWER of 0.81. Again, this infers an 81% return on any low pair played on this specific machine.
| HANDS | PAYOUTS |
| 45 Four of a Kinds | 1,125 |
| 165 Full Houses | 1,320 |
| 1,854 Three of a Kinds | 5,562 |
| 2,592 Two Pairs | 5,184 |
| 11,559 Losers | 0 |
| 16,215 Draws | 13,191 Payback |
| WIN POWER: | 0.81 |
It is now apparent that the expert strategy dictates holding the pair. But we
have also demonstrated three elements of strategy for this machine by working
out the WIN POWERS of the three possible options.
If we were to calculate the WIN POWER of all possible pre-draw hands for this specific machine, we would conclude that there are 36 categories. The top rank is the Natural Royal with a WIN POWER of 800. The lowest category is actually a complete throw-away hand where we are better off drawing 5 than by holding any of the original cards. We call this a RAZGU, a shorthand way of describing many rag-tags.
The complete strategy for the "8 / 5 Jacks" game (Full House / Flush) is given
in my book "Winning Strategies for Video Poker".
The application of expert strategy is now clear. The pre-draw hand must be analyzed to establish the highest ranking it might fit in the strategy table. The hand is always played that way.
Novice players are urged to practice playing at home. Deal a hand, analyze it and then check the table to see if you have chosen the correct ranking. It is not necessary to memorize the numerical values of the WIN POWER. They are given primarily to identify the strength of the hand. However, the better you become at learning the rankings when hands can be played several ways, the more likely you are to attain top proficiency. Incidentally, the 8-5 game has a maximum payback of 97.3% and there is no strategy in the world to gain the advantage unless you get slot club awards and other comps. You can take that advice to the bank.