Video Poker is a beloved game that can be gambled on in casinos around the globe, or in your house on your home computer, through a web connection. The regulations are absolutely simple and consist of the player attempting to achieve the greatest mixture of cards possible in order to come away with cash. In this respect it’s much the same as a normal game of poker, without the line of contact with other players. Of course, techniques employed during a physical game of poker, such as bluffing, will be useless here.
The game of Electronic Poker starts when the player inserts credits (whether it’s tokens, credit slips or money) into the video poker machine and pushes the play button. A five card hand will be electronically ‘distributed’ on the screen.
The Video Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and enthusiasts should now decide which cards to hold and which to throw away. For the cards the enthusiast would like to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons must be pressed so that they light up. The player can decide to keep any amount of cards they want, from all to none.
After the gambler has selected which cards she wishes to retain, they should press ‘deal’, at which point any fresh cards are needed they will be dealt. The game is now finished, with the Electronic Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands listed in the payout schedule.
Normally, the lowest succeeding hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money increasing for each better hand. A common list of winning hands starts with jacks or better, moving 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 should be known that the payment schedule can vary from machine to machine, so that knowledgeable bettors are agile enough to choose the most profitable machine every instance.
Once the first round has played out, the player can either decide to remain on and try to to maximize their earnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any credits that they may have won. Further, several versions of the game allow the gambler an opportunity to increase their winnings, in which situation a further hand is played. There are also variations between specific games, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other differing aspects to enhance playability.