Video Poker

VIDEO POKER: Read ‘Em and Weep

When I was around 9 years old, my mom would play poker with me and my sisters (dad was a straight-shooting lawyer) and frequently would say “read ‘em and weep” after her deal. Normally, it applies to a card-reveal needling your opponents after you have a winning combination at the end of the game. My mom, however, was saying it after the deal, meaning cry now about your rotten hand. This came down from her high-roller father and her usage, coincidentally, applies to VP (video poker). Once the cards are dealt, you need to forget about pie in the sky possibilities and deal with the current reality; that means playing according to the precise and accurate holds indicated by WinPoker software creator Dean Zamzow back in the nineties.

Poker Versus Video Poker Psychology is a major component of poker, but not VP. That’s why the expression carries a different meaning for each game. Although I’ll mention the relevance in table poker, my focus is on the very different game of VP.

Poker: Some say half the game is based on psychology and half on the cards, while others will argue more or less on each component. Either way, playing mind games with your opponents separates the best players from the rest. In fact, there’s a photo of a well-known celebrity playing table poker while wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses. This is humorous because you’d never “read ’em and weep” during a live poker game because you want to keep any information about your cards unknown to the other players.

Video Poker: If you’re playing VP, however, it’s perfectly acceptable and irrelevant to “read ‘em and weep” after the deal. What’s unacceptable is to use that information to determine virtual card holds. It really doesn’t matter how many consecutive bummer deals you get on the device; you must still play according to the odds.

Past Hands Table 1.1 indicates the odds of getting dealt any hand, prior to the deal. This is a constant and is not influenced in any way by past hands, good or bad.

Table 1.1 Frequency of Video Poker Hands 1. No Pairs 1in 2 2. One Pair 1 in 2.4 3. 2 Pairs 1in 2.1 4. Trips 1 in 48 5. Straight 1 in 250 6. Flush 1 in 510 7. Full House 1 in 700 8. 4 of a Kind 1 in 4,200 9. Straight Flush 1 in 72,200 10. Royal Flush 1 in 650,000

Note: Odds represent being dealt these hands and have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Tutorial software indicates the holds that will result in the best long run return.

Hindsight We’ve all heard the adage that “hindsight is 20/20,” but it’s not quite true with video poker. That’s because it’s easy to remember a single event, say an auto accident, but unreasonable to remember thousands of VP holds.

Selective Memory If you tell somebody you remember being dealt a RF (royal flush) you’re probably telling the truth. Still, the odds remain as indicated on Table 1.1, that’s one in 650,000 hands. We all remember anomalies, and that’s precisely why you should be playing mathematically accurate VP and that means according to the software.

Close Calls While it’s true that some people have a better card sense than others, nobody can accurately know the best VP holds all of the time without home practice. This is especially true when the odds of two holds are mathematically close to each other. An example is when there’s a progressive RF and you have to determine the exact coin value of the Royal that makes it better to hold three to the RF over a paying pair.

Final Thoughts If you’re playing the felt game of poker, you have to show restraint after the deal and keep your weeping carefully hidden from the other players. (Mirrored sunglasses, for example, are verboten.) If VP is your game, you can cry a river after the deal and, other than annoying others, you’ll suffer no consequences. It’s simply imperative that video poker players practice using tutorial software and ignore hunches for the best long-term results.

by LINDA BOYD

Linda Boyd, a long-time table game player before turning to video poker, writes for Southern & Midwest Gaming and Destinations and other outlets around the country. You can see her videos on YouTube and her radio interviews are on iTunes. Boyd’s book, “The Video Poker Edge”, includes free removable pay schedules and her free strategy cards for the most popular games.

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