Video Poker: the Basics

This page is for those unfamiliar with video poker. If you already know the game pretty well, you can get started with the details by clicking the “next” link at the top or bottom right.

There are several variations on video poker. This implementation is one known as Jacks or Better. It doesn't have any wild cards or other oddities - such features are left as an exercise to the reader. If anyone comes up with a variant like that, I'd be thrilled to hear about it.

The very very basics

Video Poker, in this implementation and many found in actual casinos, uses a single 52-card deck which is shuffled before every game.

Every card in the deck has two important properties:

Rank: There are thirteen ranks. These are, in ascending order: Ace (A), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack (J), Queen (Q), and King (K). Aces have the unique property that they're either the highest- or lowest-ranked card.
Suit: There are four suits: Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and Diamonds. Unlike with ranks, Video Poker doesn't attach any ordering to suits, i.e. Spades are not “worth” more than Hearts, or anything. All that matters with suits is whether all the cards in the hand have the same suit.

Each “game” of video poker is very short. It follows these steps:

The player makes a bet. In this implementation, the currency is the abstract “coin” and you can pretend that is any currency or multiple you like - pennies, quarters, shekels, euros, or if you're a high roller, you can say that each coin represents five billion British Pounds (even allowing for the fact that the British billion is 1000 times the size of my native USA billion). Or you can play for bragging rights, or number of noogies you're allowed to give your kid brother. In any case, a bet is the first step, and it can be from one to five coins. The more coins you play, the higher the potential payoff, but also the faster you go through your supply.
The computer deals five cards to the player. A set of five cards constitutes a “hand”. At this point, as a courtesy, the computer analyzes the hand and reports whether it is a winning hand. If so, it displays what kind. Winning hands are shown below.
The player chooses cards to hold. Video Poker is a species of “draw” poker, in which the player is allowed to discard some or all of the initially-dealt cards and get new ones dealt, if it seems likely to improve the hand to do so. Cards which are not discarded are “held”. It is also OK to hold all the cards, if the initial deal happens to be favorable. (This situation, holding all the cards, is known as a “pat hand”.)
Cards not held get replaced by new cards from the deck. This action is known as “drawing”. A new hand is thus formed.
The computer analyzes the new hand and, if it's a winning hand, pays the player the appropriate number of coins.

The Winning Hands

Jacks or Better	AKA High Pair. Hand contains only one pair whose rank is Jack or higher (including Ace)
Two Pair	Two pairs of differing rank.
3 of a kind	Three cards of the same rank.
Straight	All 5 cards' ranks form a sequence, such as 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Aces can be either high or low, so both A, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10, J, Q, K, A are straights. However, that is the only “wraparound” straight; Q, K, A, 2, 3 is not a straight.
Flush	All 5 cards have the same suit.
Full House	Three of a kind plus a Pair: three cards with one identical rank, and a pair with a different rank.
4 of a kind	4 cards with the same rank.
Straight Flush	A straight made up of cards that all have the same suit.
Royal Flush	The coveted Royal Flush is a special case of straight flush, consisting of the cards 10, J, Q, K, A all in the same suit.

Note that not every hand is a winning hand. In fact, just over half the possible hands aren't, and that is the key to Video Poker's house advantage. The winning hands described above are the only ones that pay back money when you get them; the rarer the type of hand, the higher the payoff.