 |
Video Poker Archive Basic Strategy Variations -Part 2 In the first part of this series, I listed some changes which should be made to the proper playing strategy when the progressive royal flush of a 9/6 Jacks or Better game is at 5000 coins or more. Most of those involved breaking a 'high' pair to draw to a 3-card royal. A less-common variation you will encounter is whether to hold a 3-card straight flush versus a 2-card royal. The 3-card straight flushes I'm referring to are those with no high cards involved, much like the hand below:
You can see that it's a close call, so if the royal is worth just a bit more than 4000, the Jack, Queen becomes the correct play. Rather than try to memorize the exact point at which J,Q becomes the preferred play, I conservatively figure it to be 5000 coins, in keeping with the way I presented the first series of variations. There are 10 2-card royals in total which we need to address, but for practical purposes, you can forget about those where the 10 is involved; the royal has to be so high that it's not likely you'll ever see such a situation. The other 2-card royals and the points at which they should be held over a 3-card straight flush are Hold 2-card Royal Over 3-card Straight Flush
Another situation is holding a 2-card royal which contains a 10 over an inside straight flush. With the royal at 4000 coins, proper playing strategy says to go for the inside straight flush draw. Here's an example:
If the royal is high enough, the 2-card royal becomes the preferred play. Remember that any 2-card royal made up of two high cards (J-A) is always the proper play versus an inside straight flush draw with no high cards; it's only when the 10 is involved that these plays matter. Hold 2-card Royal (X,10) Over Inside Straight Flush
Here's an updated strategy card for all the hands we've discussed in this series:
[Back to the top] ©copyright, 1998 The GameMaster Online, Inc. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
