I was playing a bit of video poker with a friend the other day and as she was dealt a Full House, a guy walked by and said "go for it". What he meant, of course, was to drop the pair and hold the three-of-a-kind in order to try to get the fourth. That's a dumb play. Or is it? Well, it all depends. What it depends upon is the pay schedule of the game where something like this happens. In this particular case, we were at a 9/6 Jacks or Better machine with a progressive Royal, so breaking up the Full House would be a dumb play. But, had we been at a 10/7 Double Bonus machine and the hand was 'Aces full' (3 Aces and another pair), then breaking up the Full House would have been the proper play. (If you're not sure about all this '9/6, 10/7' stuff, go to the archives of the Video Poker Bible and see the 'Pick A Game' series; it's all explained in there). Back to the story. The guy who likes to go for the 4K is what I call a gambler. Sure, he'll hit some of them (about 1 in 24), but that play is costing him money, not making it. As for me, I don't gamble at video poker, I invest. Pretty bold statement, isn't it? A video poker player who calls himself an investor. But it's true and the advantage I have over the average investor is that my returns are guaranteed and that's a word you'll never hear with stock market investments. Bonds, maybe. Savings accounts for sure, but video poker? Yep. And I'll prove it.

You see, I don't play video poker games; I play the 'expectation' game. Now, I do that at video poker machines (and at the Blackjack tables), but I'm not there for the game. I don't care about the cards, the graphics of the machines, the lights, the sounds or even the cocktail servers -- no, wait. I do like to look at the cocktail servers. My point is that I'm there for one thing and one thing only: the $$$. If video poker is a way to make money, I'll play it. If breaking balloons with darts was a casino game, I'd learn how to throw darts; it's not the game, it's the $$$. Some (though not all) video games allow the skillful player to gain an edge over the casino, AND AS LONG AS YOU HAVE AN EDGE, THE $$$ WILL EVENTUALLY COME. Do I win every time I play? No. Do I win MOST of the times I play? No. Have I ever lost 4,5 or 6 days in a row? Yes. But just like Little Bopeep, my sheep all come home. That is the power of having an edge over the casino. As long as my money management remains solid, I'll win. And what is my money management technique? Nothing special: I have a $30,000 bankroll for playing video poker (I play mostly dollar games) and that's all I use it for. And I play only those games where I have an edge and I don't make dumb plays. I believe in the mathematics of the game completely. Period, Amen.

If you want to win at video poker, you have to do the same thing. You must establish a separate bankroll of sufficient size and play only games where you have the edge AND play them properly. Each play I make is based upon the expected return of that play, as defined by the cold, hard mathematics of the transaction. I never confuse 'expectation' with 'hope'. Of course, I 'hope' to hit a Royal Flush every time I play, but I don't break a pair of Jacks to draw to a suited 10, Ace unless the mathematics tell me to do so. Let's go back to my friend's hand where she was dealt a Full House at a 9/6 Jacks or Better game. That Full House has a mathematical expectation of 45 coins for the 5 played. If she had just held the trips, (I think it was three Kings) the mathematics show the expectation was 21.5402 coins for the 5 played. Sure, she could have hit 4 Kings and that pays 125 for 5, or she could have hit a different Full House, but the 'odds' favored her ending with just three Kings. Since a video poker game uses just one deck of 52 cards, it's very easy for a computer to run through all the possible combinations and figure just what the 'expectation' of that hand is. In this case, my friend would have been risking 24 coins in an effort to win 125, about a 5 to 1 return. But the probability of actually getting that 5 to 1 return was 1 in 24 (the odds of drawing the fourth King.) Getting paid 5 to 1 for a 23 to 1 shot is no way to get an edge in this game.

Okay, enough preaching. You'll either accept the math of the game, or keep feeding it your hard-earned money . If you want to play it the right way, here are some 'dumb' plays to avoid. Now remember, a play which is dumb for one machine may be smart for another. The pay schedule is what determines the strategy of a game which is why most of us who write about video poker recommend that you specialize in, at most, two different games. If you have full-pay Jacks or Better and full-pay Deuces Wild in your area, those are probably the best two. If you don't have any full-pay games (again, see my series, "Pick a Game" in the Video Poker Bible archives) in your area, you cannot expect to gain an advantage over the house, unless some have progressives which will push the return over 100%. If that's the case, you're really better off saving your $$$ and taking a trip two or three times a year to some place which does offer full-pay games. To satisfy your urge to play (and to help you learn the game), get a video poker game for your computer, or download the program from an online casino; most allow play at home with no actual betting involved.