Refine Your Jacks or Better Video Poker Game With Simple Tweaks

When it comes to video poker, you have to learn to play Jacks or Better really well before you can learn to play anything else because it gives you a foundation of strategy and an understanding of what the game of video poker is all about. However, most people play a sort of haphazard combination of very basic strategies with a number of misguided ideas about what hand values are worth, and this really hurts their overall payout rate in some major ways over the long run. What we want to do is help you to refine your game and get better by rounding out the basics with a more solid understanding of the game.

The best place to really start with this is to look at the relative value of the different types of pairs. All pairs of tens and below are worth a good bit less than pairs of jacks and above because the jacks or better pairs get a 1x payout. Along these lines, you have to play them somewhat differently in a number of situations because of the difference in value. This comes into play when you have to choose between a pair and some type of draw.

So if you have 55678 with no possible flush draw, do you keep the low pair, or do you go for the open-ended straight draw? In Jacks or Better, it’s actually better to keep the pair even though you’re not guaranteed a win, and your hand has to improve for you to get a payout. Along similar lines, if you have 5568T with a flush draw, you should go for the flush draw instead because that’s worth more than a small pair in this game. With that having been said, there are a few more things you need to know.

Three cards to a royal flush are worth more than four cards to a regular flush. This is a really atypical situation that doesn’t come up all that often, but it’s worth a big enough difference in value that you need to make sure that you take advantage of it since every little advantage counts in this game. With all of this having been said, a high pair beats three to a royal, four to a flush or four to an open-ended straight draw.