What's The Big Deal

» With the advent of more advanced computering technology in the 1970s, video poker became an increasingly popular alternative to traditional, table-based poker. Perhaps predictably, many of the major casinos decided to modernize their establishments in the wake increasing consumer demand not only for casino-derived earnings, but for the simple novelty of playing on a computerized system.

» It was like playing with a new piece of industry technology: many patrons wanted to toy around with the device just for the sake of it.

» In essence, video poker stands as something of a hybrid game, sitting half way between the slot reels and the poker tables. Rather than dealing physical cards, video poker is all about arriving at optimal combinations on random-number generated card values.

» Players will tend to play between 1 and 5 coins. The machine will deal you five on-screen cards and you choose which cards to hold and which to discard. The machine will then pay on your final hand based on the final card combination results.

» There are a variety of reasons why many casino patrons prefer video poker to the regular kind. For one, poker has historically been a forcibly social form of recreation.

» You need to play with other players for the rules and dynamics of the game to even operate. But just because it is recreation does not mean you are playing with friends. In fact, most tournament-level poker players will be playing against those who are for all intent and purposes their opponents and antagonists. This can be stressful for those who might love the game but who are not necessarily socially skilled in the art of deception, mass-scale bluffing and gambling subterfuge.

» For these players, it is the core elements of poker that excites them, not the wheeling and dealing aspect. This explains at least in part the attraction of video poker. It’s a way to play what is by nature a social game on your own, where you’re only really playing against yourself and the randomness of chance. Is there any strategy involved? Yes, a bit. Unlike a slot machine reel, which is comprised exclusively of appeals to luck, video poker requires that you select your discard values and card selections carefully, with a good understanding what combinations work and what don’t.

» It’s important to remember that approaching a game of video poker with completely random approach, which is really another of saying having no approach at all, can wreck havoc on your finances. Take a moment to carefully study of how some of odds operate before you put your cash in the slot reel. It may seem like hard work, but let’s be honest here: we’re talking about your hard-earned cash and we’re talking about potentially multiplying your bank roll exponentially.

» Played correctly, video poker can give players a very liberal pay table, and some strategies can even net you a very slight advantage over the house. But stay away from video poker if pushing random buttons at random points of play is what you’re after. That’s why the slots are there.