Electronic Poker is a beloved game that usually will be enjoyed in casinos around the world, or in your house on your PC, through a web connection. The game rules are very simple and involve the player attempting to achieve the highest assemblage of cards possible in order to win money. On this account it’s very similar as a normal game of poker, apart from the interaction with other players. Of course, tactics employed during a physical game of poker, like tricking, will be irrelevant in Video Poker.
The game of Video Poker begins when the player puts credits (either tokens, credit slips or money) into the video poker machine and pushes the deal button. A hand of 5 cards will be electronically ‘distributed’ on the screen.
The Video Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ written on them, and bettors will need to now decide which cards to hold and which to discard. For the cards the bettor would like to retain, the ‘hold’ buttons should be pressed so that they illuminate. The player can decide to keep any number of cards they wish, from all to none.
After the player has chosen which cards he or she would like to keep, the player will then press ‘deal’, which will mean that any new cards are dealt if desired. The round is now completed, with the Electronic Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands listed in the payout schedule.
Typically, the lowest winning hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the prize money growing for each better hand. A list of common winning hands starts with jacks or better, and moves on to two pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, four of a kinds, straight flushes and last but not least royal flushes. It goes without saying that the payout schedule can change from game to game, so that experienced players are agile enough to choose the most money-making machine each and every time.
After the initial round has completed, the player can either choose to remain on and try to to increase their earnings, or they can press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any money that might have been won. Additionally, some versions of the game allow the player an opportunity to double their winnings, in which case another game is played. There are also differences between individual machines, with some decks of cards including wild cards and other varying characteristics to increase playability.