video poker slot machines

Calculating the Perfect Strategy

One of the famous slot versions of poker is video poker. There are not other players or opponents when playing video poker, it's up to the lone player and the computer to contend for the best hand. The objective is to get the best ranking five card hand as possible.

Playing the Game

It is easy to play video poker. Cards will be dealt from a single deck. The player should place his bet and after which, five cards will be dealt for him. The player should choose which cards to hold and which cards to discard. A player is allowed to draw a maximum of five new cards to improve his hand. The cards which he discarded will be replaced with new cards.

The Perfect Play

Playing any card game requires skill, and so does video poker. Practicing the game and mastering the skill is important to have more advantage during the play. Other video poker machines would offer a 100% payback for playing a perfect game.

Any player can have a high advantage of winning at video poker over time if they will choose to hold with a high Expected Value (EV). The Expected Value, or the mathematical expectation, is the projected statistical average of all possible results for a specific game. To simplify, EV is the sum that a player can expect to win or lose if his moves and choices were to be repeated many times.

There are thirty two ways of holding any five-card hand that has been dealt. In each holding, the player needs to calculate the expected value of the outcome and then draw to the combination with the highest EV.

Calculating the EV is not so complicated. Computing for the EV of a specific draw, a player needs to multiply the odds of each possible result by its value and the result will then be totaled.

For instance, the dealt hand is 8 of clubs, 9 of diamonds, 4 of hearts and 8 of spades; assuming the player chose to play the Jacks or Better video poker machine. The holding for this hand with the highest EV is 89 98. The deck has 47 cards remaining; 4 of which would make a full house with a payout of 8; the remaining 43 would make two pairs with a payout of 2.

A simple equation: EV = 4 x 8 / 47 + 43 x 2 / 47; hence EV= 2.51064 It is a very straightforward calculation but quite boring to most players. However, the technology of gambling is proved to be fast paced and player-friendly. There are some programs and software that are designed to calculate the best strategy for every hand. The software can also give suggestions on how to increase the odds.