The Outer Limits

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The Outer Limits

          Expert Strategy consists of three key components - (1) Know which games to play, (2) know the right strategy for those games and (3) know what to expect.   I find the third one to be the most intriguing.  When it comes to video poker, I realize I'm hardly the only source for video poker information.  There are other writers and there is a variety of practice software out there.  These will all help you to learn the first two.  But, I think it is a combination of my math skill and the ability to explain it to the masses that help to separate me from some of these other sources.  One doesn't really need to know what to expect in order to master the first two, but learning it is what keeps the Player disciplined to stick to the plan.

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Which Bonus to Play and Why

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Which Bonus to Play and Why

           I almost never play jacks or better video poker anymore.  It is to video poker what blackjack is to table games.  That is to say, relatively boring.  Unlike blackjack, whose strategy is more complex than most table games, jacks or better strategy is about average in complexity for video poker.  Overall, though, it is the least volatile of the video poker games.  This means that your chances for big wins (or big losses) is smaller than with many other versions.  There is only one big winning hand in jacks or better and that is the Royal Flush.  It hits about every 41,000 hands, it will take a few dozen hours of play to hit one, on average.  In between, there's a lot of High Pairs and Two Pairs.  And, even when you hit a Four of a Kind, it pays 'only' 25 for 1.

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Mom, Where Do Royals Come From?

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Mom, Where Do Royals Come From?

            In last week's column I discussed Four of a Kinds and the probabilities of drawing one from a Pair vs. drawing one from Trips.  It's interesting stuff, but not necessarily overly useful.  We very rarely throw away a Pair to go for Quads.  If you have a 4-Card Flush, a 3-Card Royal or the rare - J-Q-K-A you would do so.  But not a lot of thought needs to go into playing Pairs.

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