Video Poker VP First Timer - Advice, please!

Haven't posted here in a long while--school and work has been absolutely nuts! But it's good to be back!

So... I'll pretty much be a VP first timer--I WANNA LEARN!

Been looking for strategies online--and even looked at videos, but it all seems to be so daunting. I have a VP app on my Android that I will be using to practice as I near my trip, which will be in the beginning of September, so I have a few weeks to cram!

I've decided to use Wizard of Odds' posted strategy but I think I will need a bit more explanation on a few things. I will be playing primarily at the Wynn and Venetian.

1. JoB or Full Pay Deuces Wild >> Are FP Deuces Wild harder to find? I would guess so because the theo is higher than JoB. Should I be able to find FP Deuces at a casino like Wynn/Encore or Venetian/Palazzo?

2. How can I tell the difference between what machine is the best one to use? I am assuming there are other Deuces Wild machines that are not Full Pay---how will I be able to spot the difference? Should I watch out for certain JoB machines as well?

3. I am planning to use the posted "Simple Strategies" for both games when I play since I am a beginner; however, I was having a bit of trouble with the terminology. I will post the "confusions" in the strategies below.

4. So when I am looking at this list of strategies, I basically should analyze my first 5 dealt then match it to the rank shown on the table, right? THEN, I hold those cards and those cards only--discarding everything else. Please tell me if I am wrong!

5. Here are the following strategies I am planning to use--I am planning to have a cheat sheet with me LOL. The terms that I am unfamiliar with will be in bold red--perhaps someone can help explain it to me.

Jacks or Better Simple Strategy

1. Four of a kind, straight flush, royal flush
2. 4 to a royal flush
3. Three of a kind, straight, flush, full house
4. 4 to a straight flush
5. Two pair
6. High pair
7. 3 to a royal flush
8. 4 to a flush
9. Low pair
10. 4 to an outside straight
11. 2 suited high cards
12. 3 to a straight flush
13. 2 unsuited high cards (if more than 2 then pick the lowest 2) **can someone give me a couple examples?**
14. Suited 10/J, 10/Q, or 10/K
15. One high card
16. Discard everything

Full Pay Deuces Wild Strategy

4 deuces

1. 4 deuces

3 deuces

1. Pat royal flush **What does "pat" mean?**
2. 3 deuces only

2 deuces

1. Any pat four of a kind or higher
2. 4 to a royal flush
3. 4 to a straight flush with 2 consecutive singletons,6-7 or higher **What is a singleton and can someone further explain this rule to me?**
4. 2 deuces only

1 deuce

1. Any pat four of a kind or higher
2. 4 to a royal flush
3. Full house
4. 4 to a straight flush with 3 consecutive singletons,5-7 or higher
5. 3 of a kind, straight, or flush
6. All other 4 to a straight flush
7. 3 to a royal flush
8. 3 to a straight flush with 2 consecutive singletons,6-7 or higher
9. deuce only

0 deuces

1. 4,5 to a royal flush
2. Made three of a kind to straight flush **Not too sure what this one means**
3. 4 to a straight flush
4. 3 to a royal flush
5. Pair
6. 4 to a flush
7. 4 to an outside straight
8. 3 to a straight flush
9. 4 to an inside straight, except missing deuce
10. 2 to a royal flush, J,Q high

Thank you very much for your help! It is much appreciated! After reviewing the Deuces Wild just now---it seems so complex and intimidating. I will probably have to start off with JoB.

 

Try bobdancer.com we use his practice software and I find it very helpful. Good luck trying to find a good pay table at Wynn or Venetian. For good paytables try station casinos or some of the downtown spots. You really need to look at the paytables and decide what game you want to learn. also try these sights to find the best paytable. www.a2zlasvegas.com, or www.lasvegasadvisor.com this one has a link for Bob Dancer. Good Luck

 

One thing I would recommend is to go to the Wizards site and play the VP trainer games with the warnings turned on, then when you "mis-play" a hand and get a warning use the strategy page to figure out what you should have done. (This is what I did and had my gf do when she was learning.)

Also, there is a site called vpfree2.com that compiles the current available games at each casino and has tons of useful VP info (check the tools section).

For your questions:
1. In general, you'll have a more difficult time finding FP or even close-to-full pay machines at the expensive strip hotels (esp. at non-high-limit denominations). I believe that site is "user-updated" so I'm sure it's not 100% accurate, but it seems pretty good.

2. You have to look at the single coin in pay table. When people say 9/6 they are referring to the payout for one coin for the full-house and flush respectively. Each game has different possible pay tables (i.e. one machine will have a "bad" pay table for JOB and one will have a "good one") You simply read the pay table to determine the "good" one. (Note that each game (i.e. JoB or Bonus Poker) will have different sets of pay tables.

Gotta run, but hopefully someone else will chime-in about that strategies. I think if you play on the trainer as suggested it will help clarify some of it.

 

OK, where to start?

As you are a 'novice' it makes no sense to try to learn strategy for 2 games with totally different approaches. Forget about Deuces Wild if you are staying on the strip. FPDW is a game that is mainly found in locals casinos, or off strip at least. I am not aware of the game on the strip, even with poor pay tables. FPDW will not appear at Wynn or Venetian/Palazzo this side of hell freezing over.

JOB is the obvious game to learn as a new VP player. Once you master JOB strategy it is a relatively small step to a number of other VP variations. Ideally you want to play 9/6 JOB but that is a rare beast on the strip. 8/5 is the (poor) standard but that's the way it is for low stakes VP players at almost all the nicer places.

9/6 or 8/5 refer to the returns for a single coin for a full house and a flush. These are the payouts that are adjusted by the casinos to determine the total percentage payout for the game. You want to play max coin (5 coins, $1.25 per spin on a $0.25 machine) to maximise the return if you hit a Royal Flush.

Your understanding of how to use the strategy sheet is correct.

"2 unsuited high cards (if more than 2 then pick the lowest 2) **can someone give me a couple examples?**"

AKJ, keep KJ. AQJ, keep QJ.

If you have trouble finding 8/5 JOB, do not play at a worse payout machine. Bonus Poker (BP) is a very similar game, can be played with the same strategy as JOB and is sometimes easier to find. 8/5 is full pay for that game with 7/5 being the standard strip pay table. At some casinos decent BP is easier to find than decent JOB. I would always play 7/5 BP ahead of 8/5 JOB as it has a higher overall payback and only slightly higher variance. You accept the lower payout on the full house for a higher return on 4 aces or 4 2-4.

Master the simple strategy on Wizard of Odds and try http://www.freeslots.com/poker.htm for practise before you hit the machines. Good luck.

 

That was spooky! When I posted my response there had been no previous responses. Now two have appeared, posted well before mine.:alien1:

 

For playing VP I would suggest:

- print out the simple strategy for JoB.
- play according to the simple strategy.

Its really that simple and eventually you will memorize the correct plays, and unless you are a professional video poker player (one who makes his/her living from playing video poker) you don't need to worry about the advanced and more complex strategies.

After you have put in a fair bit of time in to Jacks or Better then is when you should be deciding if you want to explore other variations of video poker. You are asking about JoB and deuces wild, but its a lot hard to remember the strategies of two games being learned at the same time.

As for your questions from the strategies:

2 unsuited high cards (if more than 2 then pick the lowest 2)
"high cards" are jack, queen, king and ace.
So what they are saying here is if you have something like Ah Qs Jc 7d 5s (the h, s, c and d are suits) then you would hold the QJ because they are high cards, they are unsuited and they are your lowest two high cards.

Pat royal flush
"Pat" means a dealt hand, you don't need to draw any cards.

4 to a straight flush with 2 consecutive singletons,6-7 or higher
For this they mean you have four cards to a straight flush where at least two are consecutive. "Singleton" just means single card.

Made three of a kind to straight flush
The wording is a little clunky on this one, it would be easier to understand if it was: Any made hand, three of a kind to a straight flush
So what they are saying here is if you were dealt a "made hand", that is a hand that will pay, then you hold the cards that make that made hand (in Deuces Wild three of a kind is the minimum made hand)

 

I feel that the first priority in VP is to decide on one game. The next is to understand pay schedules. I list 7 different returns for 9/6 JB. For an explanation of my statement read the first two paragraphs of my “Pay Schedules” page at http://videopokerhelp.net/pay-schedules.html .

 

That was spooky Tubbs! I noticed it too.

I agree with what Tubbs and the others have posted. Dueces Wild is a complicated game to learn. From what I've read, it requires a bigger bank roll because you give up some of the smaller wins in return for large wins. JOB is a better game for a beginner because you often get smaller wins which keeps you in the game without becoming discouraged - or broke.

If you are going to purchase a training video, I recommend Bob Dancer's Video Poker for Winners ($50 plus $10 for backup CD). You can train at the beginner's level and then once you've mastered that you can move on to intermediate, then advanced. From there it's an easier step to learn DBP or DDBP.

One other thing to mention, once you've got the hang of it, try it sometime when you've had a few drinks. It might surprise you to see how well/or not you do. This information can be useful in a casino setting.

Good luck to you, ssfblue! You're on the right track.

 

It was his posts too: when I wrote my reply I had scrolled back and checked and thus far nobody had replied to him about the strategy guide questions...

After my post was made I still didn't see anything... but when I come back now i can see a post from about 5 hours earlier finally show up answering the questions from the strategy guide.

 

I think I can explain the "spooky", both the other posts had links to websites which sent the posts into be checked out. Sorta like you beeped as you went through security.

Doesn't happen often, but sometimes I kinda feel smart.

 

Out of curiosity, can someone explain what benefit there is to holding the two lower of the high cards if you have 3?

Why not hold the ace and the king as opposed to the king and the queen?

 

Out of curiosity, can someone explain what benefit there is to holding the two lower of the high cards if you have 3?

Why not hold the ace and the king as opposed to the king and the queen?

 

King and Queen have more chances to make a straight verus Ace King.

 

Thank you all for your input! I'll definitely be sticking to JoB for now--especially since I am more likely to find it in a casino that I will be playing at. Also, based on the strategy, I won't have to worry about the pesky terminology I asked about in DW. There should totally be a +Rep function for this forum so I can give you all additional reputation!

 

I too am a relatively new VP player. On my last trip to Vegas in May I played JoB at the Cosmopolitan on a $1 machine for a short period of time. I was unaware of the differences in pay tables back then, so I have no idea what the house edge was.

Luckily I hit a couple of Four of a Kinds so I was happy, even if I wasn't getting the maximum return that I could have been at a casino with better pay tables.

 

............

 

yeah i only played 9/6 JOB. hard to find the couple of machines with 9/6 in each casino.

 

Try VPFree -- they have reasonably up to date VP pay tables by casino