As we continue on our journey in quest of speed and accuracy at this difficult game, I'll try to create some more easy-to-remember rules for playing various hands. I want to stress that my little rules don't guarantee that you'll extract the last 0.02% out of this game, but they'll get you close. And honestly, all I really want to accomplish here is to get you above the 100% return level. Remember that All American Poker, if approached with a strategy which is proper for Jacks or Better, will see you playing at a 2-3% long-term disadvantage so it's worth the time and effort it'll take to master these.

The Methodology

As I showed you in Part 2 of this series, I break down the hands dealt to me into three separate categories hands with all low cards in them, hands with all high cards in them and hands which have both high and low cards mixed in them. In this installment, I'll cover hands with all high cards (Jack, Queen, King, Ace) and include the 10s at times, even though it's actually a low card. Also, I'll cover hands that have some low cards, so long as those cards have no bearing whatsoever on the play of the hand. For example, you might get a hand like this:
You can see that the two low cards cannot be used as part of a straight nor as part of a flush, so they would certainly be discarded. But, I'm getting ahead of myself here, so let's take a look at hands composed solely of high cards and 10s.

The General Rules for High-Card Hands

Just like with hands consisting only of low cards, I like to use a pair as a "marker". So, if you're dealt:
you have a pair of Jacks, a two-card Royal (Jd, Ad) or an inside straight with 3 high cards (10, J, Q, A). The first rule is:

Rule #1 Never break a high pair, EXCEPT for
- A 4-card Royal Flush
- A 4-card inside straight flush
- A 4-card flush

But, when all the cards are high cards, each of those hands are actually 4-card Royals! That makes it easy to rewrite Rule #1 to this:

Rule #1 Never break a high pair, EXCEPT for a 4-card Royal.

You're not likely to miss such a hand, since it's very impressive when it pops up. And, although you may think they're rare, you'll average a 4-card Royal on the deal about once every 3300 hands. The odds on making it are only 1 in 47, by the way. But there's more, so let's look at the next rule.

Rule #2 Never break a high pair, EXCEPT for  - A 3-card Royal without both an Ace and 10 present

What I mean by this is that there is no suited Ace AND 10 in the 3-card Royal. So, if you are dealt this hand:
you would discard the pair of Queens to draw to the 10s, Js, Ks. But, if you had this hand:
you would hold the pair of Queens.

Let me make Rule #2 easier.

Rule #2 Always break a high pair to draw to any 3-card Royal, EXCEPT those with a suited 10 AND Ace present.

I know this switches the "tempo" of things a bit, but it's easier for me to remember it this way. And, believe me, it's not the worst mistake in this game to break a high pair to draw to any 3-card Royal. Here's a related rule:

Rule #3 Always break a hand of 2-pair to draw to any 3-card Royal, EXCEPT those with an Ace present.

Yes, you actually break up a hand of 2-pair at times. Here's an example:
As important as a full house is in this game, the proper play here is to hold the three spades. But, if you were dealt this,
then you'd hold the 2 pairs, because an Ace is part of the 3-card Royal. If you're a bit confused at this point, don't fret because I'll tie this all up in a neat little package very soon.

Rule #4 Never break a high pair, EXCEPT for
-A 4-card outside straight with two or more high cards

This also can get a bit confusing, but I'm not counting a 10 as a high card here. Take a look at this hand:
The correct play is to break the pair and draw to the 10, J, Q, K straight and it's a pretty big error if you don't. Here's another example to explain this concept:
Break the pair of 10s and draw to the 10, J, Q, K.

And another:
Your ol' pal is trying to trick you here. The correct play is to hold the Aces, because it otherwise would be an inside straight you're going after. But what if you have this hand?
Just go back to rule # 2 and forget about the 4-card straight because this is a 3-card Royal. That's what I like about All American; you go for the Royal a lot.

A Recap

Let's take a breather here and I'll sum up everything we've covered to this point.

If a hand consists of only high cards (including any 10s), and it has a pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces, I look at it this way:

Four-card Royal? If no,
Three-card Royal without a 10 AND Ace? If no,
Two pairs? If no,
Four-card open-ended straight? If no,
Hold the pair.

Obviously, if the answer is "yes", I hold that hand rather than the pair. This is the same type of "exclusion" method that I use for hands consisting only of all small cards. Just remember that it's very unlikely you'll be holding a pair of 10s with all that royalty around. It can happen as part of 2-pair, but that's about it, so don't let them confuse you.

Different Subsets

The primary hand below a high pair is a 3-card Royal where a 10 AND an Ace is present and you just need to fit it in here. Again, it's not the worst mistake to include these hands in with all the other 3-card Royals. Now let's look at some hands where we don't have a high pair and where we discard some obviously unrelated 'low' cards and have to choose which high cards to play. The criteria for dumping the low cards are that none can be part of a straight and none can be part of a flush.

Here's an example:
You'd toss the 2 and 4, but then what? Because the Jack and Queen are suited, the proper play is to hold only them. Jacks and Queens have a special relationship in this game, because you can make a lot of straights out of them, so they're seldom broken up. But when they're suited, they're even more special. What I like to do in situations like this is to ask myself, "What hand is the machine trying to give me?" The answer here could be either a Royal (Jc, Qc) or a straight (Jc, Qc, Kh). I'd rather have a Royal, so I hold the Jack and Queen. But what to do here?
Again, you'd discard the 2 and 4, but a Royal is a little tougher to get with a hand like this, so I hold all three high cards. This leads us to another rule.

Rule #5 Always hold J, Q, K, EXCEPT when the Jack and Queen are suited.

With me on this? Obviously, if all three are of the same suit, that's a 3-card Royal, so you'd hold that. But, if none are matching or if only two are matching, always hold J, Q, K unless it's the Jack and Queen which are suited. Here's another example of that rule:
The Jack and Queen aren't suited, so hold all three. And another:
Only the King and Queen are suited, so hold all three.

What do you think about this hand?
The deuce goes, no doubt about it, but the Jack and Queen are suited, so just hold them or all four high cards? In this game, with a "super-pay" on straights, it's not even close. The proper play is to go for the inside straight. That gives us another rule:

Rule #6 Hold any 4-card inside straight of all high cards, EXCEPT if 3 or more are suited.

See what I mean here? If the J, Q and Ace were suited, you'd also discard the King. "What is the machine trying to give me?"

Let's toss some 10s in here and see what rules we get. As I said earlier, the only time a low card will play a part is if it's a straight play or a flush play. In this lesson, I'm going to include only 10s, since we'll be covering "mixed" hands next time. Here's a quick review:
Four-card straight or 3-card Royal? Remember? This is a variation of rule #2. If we would break a high pair to draw to a 3-card Royal, we'd sure as hell throw away a King and a 3. Plus, it's ranked higher than an open-ended straight on the list above. Take a shot at this one:
Three-card Royal, or hold the straight? It's not even close and it leads to another rule:

Rule #7 Hold any "made" straight (consisting of all high cards and 10s) EXCEPT for - A 4-card Royal

Three to a Royal doesn't do it. Need four.

You needn't worry about "made" flushes with all high cards and 10s, because that's a Royal and the machine will (or should) "auto-lock" on you so you won't be able to discard anything. We should all be so lucky!

Here's an interesting hand:
Two-card Royal (10, K) or 3-card inside straight? This is what I call a "skipping" Royal (weird, huh?) and the question is: Do you skip the Queen? The answer is: No. The correct play is to hold the 10, K, Q and that leads us to yet another rule:

Rule #8 Never break up a 10, Q, K, EXCEPT when the King and Queen are suited.

I'm fudging a bit here in order to keep things simple because if the Queen and 10 are suited, it's proper to hold just them and discard the King, so try and work that into your game. But it's not a huge mistake to hold all three in that case.

Here's is a variation of that:
This is an easier rule and it'll make you some $$$ when you follow it.

Rule #9 Never break up a 10, J, Q, EXCEPT when the Jack and Queen are suited.

I seem to get this hand a lot:
This is basically like the others. If you have two suited high cards (no 10s) it's usually proper to hold only them. Let's make this a rule.

Rule #10 Always hold two suited high cards, EXCEPT for
- A four-card outside straight
- A four-card inside straight
- A three-card hand of Jack, Queen, King

There are a LOT of exceptions to this rule when low cards of the same suit are involved, but we'll cover them next time. I want to stress that, except where I've added the 10s in, these are hands with all high cards. But, this hand "proves" the rule:
The proper play is to hold the Jack and Ace only. But, if none of the suits on the high cards match, we always hold all three. This isn't done in a Jacks or Better game (if you're playing it properly) when an Ace is involved, but this game is a different animal. So, we get our last rule:

Rule #11 Always hold three unsuited high cards, EXCEPT (you knew there'd be one of these in here, didn't you?),
- Discard an Ace with a Jack and Queen in the hand

To claify, this means you'd hold J, K, A, or Q, K, A but would discard the Ace in J, Q, A.

Some "No-Brainers" I won't even give these numbers:
Never break up a Straight Flush
Never break up Four-of-a-Kind
Never break up a Full House
Never break up Three-of-a-Kind

I really wish this was simpler and I further wish that I could be positive I didn't leave anything out, but as I've said before, I'm not really perfect; I only act that way. But let's see if we can sum all these up into a condensed version that makes sense and if you see anything I've missed, please, please let me know.

The Grand Recap

If a hand is composed ONLY of high cards (and perhaps a 10) and has a pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces, ask yourself:

Four-card Royal? If no,
Three-card Royal without a 10 AND Ace? If no,
Two pairs? If no,
Four-card open-ended straight? If no,
Hold the pair.

If there is no pair (or better, i.e., trips, a full house, 4K or a straight flush) but all the cards are high cards and 10s, hold any hand consisting of a 3-card Royal with a 10 and Ace as part of it and if not, ask yourself this:

4-card outside straight with 2 or more high cards? If no,
4-card inside straight? If no,
Jack and Queen suited? If no,
10, Jack and Queen unsuited? If no,
Jack, Queen and King unsuited? If no,
Two other suited high cards? If no,
Jack or Queen with a suited 10? If no,
Three unsuited high cards (except J, Q, K)? If no,
King or Ace with a suited 10? If no,
Hold any high cards in the hand (and 10s, according to the rules).

Now remember the rules set above as you go through this. What I mean by Jack, Queen, King unsuited is that they may all be of different suits OR just the Queen and King are suited. Also bear in mind that some of these hands are mutually exclusive; you won't have to make a choice of holding a Js and 10s OR a Kc and Ac in the same hand, because that's an inside straight. And, as my friend Steve would say, "It's no big deal to mess up some of these 'bottom-feeder' hands".

This was tougher than I thought, to tell you the truth. But, this is how I do it, and it's actually easier to do than to explain. So, give it a whirl.

See you here next time.