[ English ]

Video Poker is a favored game that is able to be gambled on in casinos across the world, or alternatively at your house on your personal computer, using a net account. The rules are absolutely simple and consist of the player trying to achieve the greatest assemblage of cards possible in order to acquire money. In this respect it is much the same as a regular game of poker, minus the interaction with competing players. Of course, methods employed during a real-life game of poker, like bluffing, will be irrelevant here.

The game of Video Poker begins when the player puts credits (either tokens, credit slips or money) into the video poker machine and pushes the play button. A 5 card hand will then be electronically ‘distributed’ on the screen.

The Electronic Poker game also has buttons with ‘hold’ written on them, and bettors should now choose which cards to keep and which to throw away. For the cards the player wishes to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons must be pressed so that they light up. The player can decide to keep any number of cards they want, whether it is all or none.

After the gambler has decided on which cards she would like to retain, they should press ‘draw’, at which point any new cards are needed they will be handed out. The round is now completed, with the Electronic Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it is the same as any of the winning hands printed on the pay out schedule.

Typically, the minimum succeeding hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money growing for each better hand. A list of common winning hands starts with jacks or better, moving on to two pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, four of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It definitely goes without saying that the payment schedule can range from game to game, so that knowledgeable gamblers are agile enough to choose the most profitable game each time.

After the initial round has completed, the player can either choose to remain on in an attempt to increase their winnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any cash that they may have won. Further, several versions of the game give the player a chance to increase their winnings, in which instance a further round is played. There are also differences among individual machines, with some virtual decks including wild cards and other varying elements to enhance playability.