Video Poker Video Poker for You Tourists and First Timers.

If you are new to Video Poker take the time to learn the game. There are lots of tutorials on various web sites and you can play for free.

You can download a play table that tells you the highest and best use of any dealt hand, IE which cards to hold and so forth. They may also be purchased
on line (win cards) or get them at the Gambler's General Store on Main Street on the way Downtown.

Check out the "Wizard of Vegas" (By Michael Shackleford) http://wizardofvegas.com/guides/ for more on this. (also see Wizard of Odds)

Then go to vpFREE2 web site to find the better games. Lots of info on VP there. http://www.vpfree2.com/

Catch the SDX express Downtown for better Gaming or better yet check out the locals casinos if you can. http://www.rtcsnv.com/ridethestrip/routes.html

Now you're ready! But just because a machine might say "Full Pay" or "Up To" doesn't mean you'll win every time. So take it slow and pay attention.

Set a loss limit so you won't get mad. Then you can win!

 

Thank you! I will be trying VP for the first time and downloaded a few app to practice with. The apps are probably more realistic than I anticipated as I have yet rcvd anything better than a full house...being playing for 2 wks now...

 

I played during one of my trips years ago but have another trip planned in a few days where I was going to jump back on the horse. My primary games are BJ and Craps but wanted to have another option for times when tables are full or too pricey. Been practicing myself and have visited vpfree2 to find locations with the best odds around my area. Not as good as they used to be but better than blindly picking machines. Thanks for the info.

 

I play video poker very rarely and recently downloaded a VP training app which I have been playing......can someone explain to me why you would hold a small pair instead of 2 high cards?? The way I see it with the small pair I have 2 chances of catching the card I need compared to 4 chances when I hold the 2 or more high cards?

 

If you go to the Wizard of Odds site, you can practise exactly that (small pair). If you don't hold it, it will show you the percentages for both your choice and the small pair (which is better). Essentially, don't forget the other three cards you will receive and all the combinations generated by them.

GG

 

The way video poker hold strategies are calculated are to take a given hand and then look at the possible outcomes for every possible hold. The hold that has the best overall return is the one recommended. The thinking is that if you played that same hand a million times over, if you always make the best statistical choice, you'll end up with the best statistical outcome.

When you hold a pair, you have three cards to draw. You could get three of a kind, a second pair, a quad... Holding two high cards, you also have three cards to draw. Because the cards are mismatched, it is much harder to make any of those hands.

On Jacks or Better, holding a low pair has an average return of 4.1184 coins on a 5 coin bet.

Holding two mismatched high cards has an average return of 2.4739 coins on a 5 coin bet.

Get a video poker trainer that will show you the returns for the hand you are playing (most do this I think). It's also very helpful to have a trainer that lets you analyze a particular hand of your choosing. I use WinPoker on the laptop and on my piPhone. (That's how I got these numbers).

 

Yeah this is important to realize. It's not about maximizing the chances of a making a paying hand, it's about maximizing the value of your draw. When teaching my gf to play, she often wanted to hold two high cards over a low pair because it wins/pushes more frequently. She would forget that a high pair only paid 5 while two pair paid 10 and quads paid 125 to more than make up for low pair hitting less often.

She still holds two high cards sometimes to spite me though. [emoji35]

A more obvious example is if you get a dealt flush with four to a royal in it. Do you take the guaranteed 25 or 30 coins or "go for the royal"? I've piped up a few times before and said, "Are you sure you want to hold that flush (terrible mistake)? And there are a lot of people out there willing to hold that flush. Maybe they don't always notice the royal draw?

Oh and for another resource, don't forget to check my bartop sticky at the top of the page!

https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?111193-A-Video-Poker-Primer-with-Bartop-Listings-and-Better-Nickel-Options!

[/shameless plug]

 

I've played JOB on and off for years and know basic strategy. I planned to increase my % of VP this trip as it is solo and i will have more time to concentrate. Here is my problem. I understand the pay tables and read a ton of information here and on other sites. From what I see, the best pay tables are games that are really expensive to play max. I don't want to play $60 a hand. What can play for under $10/ a game? Ideally I'd like to find a $1 machine and play max of $5. I have been studying DB and think I have that down. DDB and duces wild I am clueless. Would I waste money by doing good old quarter JOB or regular BP? I'd rather not leave Bellagio though I realize that most other casinos pay better.

I appreciate all the info I've found here and the wiz but I'm a bit overwhelmed. Any advice on what to play at Bellagio?

Thanks in advance.

 

I'll second the bar by the sports book at Bellagio. It's one of my favorite places to play and catch a game. At $10 a deal you could play a 100 play at the .02 level.

Mark

 

At the actual bartop or just nearby? Never seen 50/100 play on bartops.

And the sportsbook bar USED to have the best JoB options for quarter+ at 9/5 (98.45%), but it's been downgraded. I haven't looked at the Superstar multigame machines since the downgrade, but vpfree2 says they still have 7/5 Bonus (98.01%) spin poker for quarters. For that game you can choose how many lines you want and bet 5 credits per line.

Away from the bar, the same ideas apply for the triple spin poker games near the buffet which offer 8/5 Bonus (99.17%) for quarters. Also if you would like to try Dream Card, there should be a Spin Poker with Dream Card game halfway between the Baccarat Bar and the Hermes store. At quarters, this game offered 9/5 Bonus Deluxe (98.55%; 99.05% with DC) last time I checked. Dream Card requires 10 credits per hand so 3 lines would cost $7.50. The machine also offers slightly poorer paytables at the nickel level. Here's a pic of me playing a single line 8/5 Bonus Deluxe for 50c total (98.12% w/DC).



Strategy for Bonus Deluxe is close to JoB, but you also sometimes hold inside straights with zero or two or more high cards (e.g. 3467 or QJ98) since two pair is only 1 for 1.

 

I have never played spin poker. So you can play one line at full max coins?

I've tried to find those quarter bonus poker games at Bellagio twice and never managed it.

 

Yes. You also can with Super Times Pay and 50/100 play games. But with Spin Poker, playing just one line can be frustrating though. Pretty easy to notice the top and bottom lines as well.

 

I think there is good advice here for those learning how to play VP. You won’t find good VP paytables on the Strip so if you follow that hunt you may not want to try it, especially at quarter. My wife and I have probably played millions of hands of VP each over the past twenty years. It became our favorite game long ago because we could play together at our own pace without any outside influence. We quickly learned to focus on the VP bars which were a superior experience for us compared to what we found on the casino floor. The service and camaraderie that we enjoyed far surpassed anything we found at the other banks of machines. We have loved it and made good friends with some of the bartenders who have became like concierges to us. Unfortunately, you won’t find good paytables at any of them. Nonetheless, we have enjoyed many 4OAK’s on the quad games and have had well over a hundred royals come to us in every conceivable manner including those dealt and after discarding five cards on the draw. We have spent many early mornings at the Bellagio Sport Book on the quarter inside of it drinking several pots of coffee. We have loved it and I hope you do too.

 

So, one of your best bets on the strip is in the high limit room at Luxor at the bar. Full pay dollar jacks, bonus poker, 9/6 double double. Single line, that's $5 a hand. The Jacks is 99.54% return.

 

This sounds very much like our story too, except we migrated downtown about 10 years ago. Neither of us have ever had a royal on the redeal though.

 

For non-wild games it's pretty rare, for single line, maybe one every 350 single line royals or so? It's a lot more likely in deuces since you toss all a lot more. Dealt royals are about 1 in 16 for single line games.

 

As for discarding all five cards on a bust hand and drawing a royal, it has actually happened to me twice. A few months back, I had been playing a 9/5 TDB sequential machine for several hours with little luck. My favorite machine opened up and I moved to it. It does not pay for a sequential royal but it pays 9/6 on TDB which I have been lucky on. About fifteen minutes into play, I was dealt yet another bust hand and I discarded all five cards. I was quite surprised to have drawn a royal. I looked at it closer, it was a sequential royal from left to right. I was at fifty cents. Had this happened a few minutes earlier, I would have collected $25K instead of $2K. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that one. When you think about it, you see very remote things happen fairly often. One of the most comical things was a decade ago when a very young fellow sat down at the Breeze Bar a seat down from me at TI. He stuck a Franklin into his machine intending to play quarters but spent the next several minutes trying to get the bartenders attention. Once he did, he hit max coin and watched a royal pop up on his screen. It took him a few seconds to get his next huge surprise, he was at $5 play!

 

Holy crap. I would definitely tip the bartender an extra dollar.

 

I had a three-line RF dealt at Silverton. Terri had a flush-five redraw RF at Rampart.