Video Poker
Five Cards and One Decision
Jacks or Better. You bet one to five credits, are dealt five cards, choose which to keep, and the rest are replaced. A pair of jacks or better pays; anything less pays nothing. There is no opponent and no bluffing, only which cards to hold and, after a win, whether to risk it on a double-up.
What an Average Does Not Promise
Every hold has an expected value: the average return over all the ways the draw could come out. Playing the highest-value hold every time is the correct strategy, and it is completely compatible with losing all evening. An average describes a long run and says nothing whatsoever about the next hand. The gap closes slowly - to be reasonably confident that a small edge is real rather than luck, you need a number of hands far larger than most people ever play. Physics has the same problem when a signal is faint: the question is never whether you saw something, it is how many observations it takes before the something stops being noise.
How to play
- Click cards or press 1 to 5 to hold them, then Space draws the rest.
- Holding a low pair usually beats holding a single high card.
- Four cards to a flush are worth breaking a low pair for; four to a straight are not.
- A hand below a pair of jacks pays nothing at all, so marginal holds matter more than they look.
