Rules for playing Video Poker

Video Poker is one of the easiest five card game played in every online and land based casino. Although it became popular as a monitor like machine game in 1970s, it soon entered the casinos in 188os and since then it has been successfully attracting card players looking for easy games. Today found in some of the finest internet based casinos, online Video Poker has successfully managed to become one of the highly played online games.

Video Poker is quite similar to other Poker games like Texas Hold'em. Played with five cards drawn by the machine, online Video Poker is also considered a close relative of Slots as the game is played on machine screen with all the payout and rules given on the screen itself.

Rules

Video Poker has a simple game play, where the only rules involved are the bets and hand ranking. While minimum bet allowed in this game is $1 the maximum is always $5. No matter what variant you play, the payout table according to bet made is clearly given on the screen which makes the game simpler.

Each Video Poker variant has its own winning hand combination which must be created in using the given five cards or by replacing them with new ones. As per the requirement, you can always try to create a winning hand using either the first five cards or the power to hold them or replace them with second set of cards.

Online Video Poker starts when you choose your machine or variant, insert money in the game, make a bet by clicking on the bet button and then draw cards by clicking on the Deal/Draw button. Controlled by Random Number Generators, online Video Poker machines have a Deal or Draw button which when clicked draw five random cards. Each drawn card has a Hold button underneath it. In order to replace one or more cards, you must click the Hold button underneath the card you want to keep. The hand created on clicking the Deal button for the second time makes the outcome of the game and if your hand matches one of the winning combinations, you get paid accordingly.

Winning hand combinations

The outcome of Video Poker is always based on the hand created by you. a basic understanding of different hand rankings or combinations involved in this game helps in making the right decision when dealing with the five cards 'Hold' button.

The most common winning hand combinations in Video Poker are:

Royal Flush (five cards of same suits with a sequence of ace, king, queen, jack and ten), Straight Flush (any five consecutive cards with same suits of clubs or diamonds or spades or hearts), Four of a kind (any four cards of same ranking ; for example, four Kings), Full House (a set of three cards with same ranking and an another set of two cards with similar ranking; for example, three cards of 2 and two cards of 5), Flush (any five cards of separate suits),
Straight (any five consecutive cards with mixed suits), three of a kind (any three cards with same ranking), Two Pair (any two cards of one ranking and another set of two cards with one rank; for example, two cards of 10 and two cards of Aces), Pair of Jacks or Better (a pair of jacks or kings or queens or aces).

Card Ranking

The cards in Video Poker are ranked from high to low with Ace being either low rank or high rank as per the hand combination. the hand ranking goes descends from Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two and Ace.