Video Poker is a popular game that is able to be enjoyed in casinos all over the globe, or alternatively at home on your personal computer, through a web account. The game rules are very simple and involve the player attempting to achieve the highest assemblage of cards possible in order to acquire money. In this respect it is much the same as a regular game of poker, apart from the involvement with any other players. Of course, techniques employed during a real-life game of poker, like bluffing, will be useless here.
The game of Video Poker begins when the enthusiast puts credits (whether it is tokens, credit slips or money) into the machine and presses the draw button. A hand of five cards will be "distributed" on the video screen.
The Video Poker machine also has hold buttons, and players should now pick which cards to keep and which to discard. For the cards the gambler would like to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons must be pressed so that they light up. The player can choose to keep any number of cards they want, whether it is all or none.
After the enthusiast has decided on which cards he would like to keep, they should press ‘draw’, at which point any new cards are given out if desired. The game is now completed, with the Electronic Poker machine analyzing the hand to see if it is the same as any of the winning hands listed in the pay out schedule.
Generally, the minimum winning hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the prize money increasing for each and every better hand. A list of common winning hands starts with jacks or better, and moves on to 2 pairs, 3 of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, four of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It should be known that the payment schedule can range from game to game, so that skillful gamblers are able to choose the most profitable machine every time.
Once the initial round has finished, the player can either choose to remain on and try to to maximize their earnings, or they can press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any money that might have been won. Additionally, several versions of the game give the gambler a chance to increase their wins, in which case another game is played. There are also differences among specific machines, with some decks of cards including wild cards and other varying characteristics to increase playability.