hi and welcome to our series of educational videos that are designed to
make
you a smarter gambler my name is Steve Bourie
and I'm the author of the American casino guide which is the number one
bestselling book in the US
on the subject of casino gambling and travel and the only book
that comes with more than one thousand dollars in casino coupons
If you want to know more about me or my book sure to visit my website at
americancasinoguide.com
in this video we'll be hearing from video poker expert Henry Tamburin
and we'll be talking about how to become a winning video poker player
Henry has written several books about all aspects of casino gambling plus he
writes a monthly column
on video poker for several gaming magazines Henry is also an experienced
card counter
as well as a seasoned blackjack tournament player and has appeared on several TV
documentaries about casino gambling in america
I'm sure you'll learn some great tips from Henry about how to become a winning
video poker player
And now here's Henry Tamburin A lot of players ask me
what's the difference between playing a video poker machine and playing a
slot machine
I mean after all you're playing a machine The quick answer is when you
play a slot machine you have no idea what that slot machine is gonna return
if you look at that slot machine and you look at the pay schedule
it doesn't give you any information as to what that machine is going to return
to players
however you can look at any video poker machine
and by looking at their pay schedule you have all the information you need to
know
what this video poker machine staring you in the face is gonna return
and most video poker machines I should say most but the better paying one's
have returns have ninety-nine percent or greater
and the smart video player poker players will play those machines
it's rare when you get a slot machine that pays ninety-nine
percent most of them are 95 percent or less
so if you're a gambler you play slot machines
if you want to be a winner you should sick and play with video poker
lot of players ask me are all the video poker
machines the same and the answer is No
generally they're all different types a video poker machines and video poker
games that you'll find in the casino
Generally you can group them into three major groups
the first group of video poker games are the ones that don't have a wild card
there are no wild cards for example Jacks or Better bonus poker double bonus
double double bonus
all these games based on jacks or better
don't have any wild cards Then you have the games
like deuces wild where all the twos or the deuces are wild and then you have
another group of games where the jokers are wild
so there are different types of video poker games and the casino in
you certainly should know the differences amongst the three
So now the question is what is the best video poker game to play and the answer
is
you wanna play a video poker game
which is called a full pay video poker game
by full pay i mean a video poker game that has the highest
payoff schedule for that particular game
for example there are many Jacks or Better video poker games in the casino
the ones that pay the highest are known as 9/6
Jacks or Better games The 9/6 refers to the upper
coin payoff for the full house and the flush
so you want to look at the 9/6 jacks or better game
look at the pay of schedule on the screen go down the first column
which shows the payoff for one coin and you want to make sure that that
machine pays nine coins for the full house and six for the flush
that's a full pay machine and those are the ones you wanna play
rather than the jacks or better machines that pay
8/5 or even 7/5
Now that I explained about a full pay machine the obvious question
you'll want to ask someone is where can I find these full pay machines are they
available
in every casino the US? And the answer is
yes and no. Some gaming jurisdictions like Las Vegas you'll find
many casinos that offer the full pay games
if you go to a place like Atlantic City there are only one or two casinos that
offer full pay
video poker games. One way to find out whether
a local casino that's close to where you live
has any full pay video poker games
is to go to this website
VPfree2.com
so that's VPfree2.com
and that site has lists of casinos and
different gaming jurisdictions in each of those casinos they will list
whether or not the casino has any full pay video poker games
but you have to be careful because some casinos will have full pay video poker
games sitting right next to lower-paying
video poker games so you've got to be able to
look at those pay schedules and make sure you're playing
only a full pay video poker game when you play video poker
once you learn how to read the pay schedules
and be selective and play only full pay video poker games
the next thing you have to master is the playing strategy for whatever game you
wanna play
for example if you're gonna play jacks or better there is a specific playing
strategy for that game
and it's important that you master it For example suppose you're dealt
a four card flush and the hand
also contains a low pair so as a video poker player you have to make a decision
do i hold a 4 card flush
or do I hold the low pair There is a correct basic playing strategy for that
hand
and the answer is you should hold the four card flush
So if you're gonna play video poker it's important that you learn the basic
playing strategy for whatever game you wanna play
now can you use the same basic strategy for video poker are all different video
poker games?
In general the answer is No you can't
and you shouldn't use a basic strategy for jacks or better
if your gonna play a deuces wild game that's a big mistake
So there is a specific basic playing strategy for deuces wild which is
different
than a basic strategy for jacks or better which is different than say a basic
strategy for jokers wild
there are some exceptions if you learn the basic
playing strategy for jacks or better you can use it for example to play
bonus poker and you're not going to decrease your return on those games
because you're using a jacks or better
playing strategy but that's the exception rather than the rule
as a general rule you should learn the correct basic strategy for whatever
video poker game you want to play
Now i talked about the importance of learning the video poker basic strategy
and the question is how can I learn this strategy?
Fortunately nowadays we have tools that will help you learn this
video poker basic strategy really easily and that's this
video poker training software you can buy
one of these CDs and you pop it in your computer
and while you're playing video poker at home these CD's and software will help
you learn the strategy because what they'll do is they'll alert you when you
make a playing mistake
and they'll tell you what the correct play is and more importantly they'll keep
track of your
playing accuracy and you want to be able to get your accuracy at 99 percent
playing at home before you risk any money in the casino
So there is plenty of video poker software available that
can help players learn the basic strategy
The other thing you should do is bring along strategy cards
there are several commercially available video poker strategy cards
so we're playing in the casino you can refer to the card
and you'll always have the strategy at your fingertips when you play
most of the time when you play video poker you're going to have an
a return of somewhere between 99 and 100 percent
so the question is how can I get my overall return over a hundred percent
if I'm playing a machine that say only pays 99.5 percent
The answer is as a smart video poker player
you must take advantage of the benefits that are available through the Players
Club
so if you're gonna play video poker you wanna make sure you get the players club
card and you always use it when you play video poker
some other benefits that are available to video poker players
are cashback, freeplay
comps in the form of free meals free show tickets
free rooms even free spa treatments Now this'll vary from one casino
to another but it's important that you make sure you know what benefits are
are available to you at a casino that you're going to play video poker
Now if you wanna be a long-term winner at video poker
there's three components that you have to monitor and be aware of One is obviously
the return on the game
and there it's a simple matter of only playing the full pay
scheduled games the ones that return ninety nine percent or greater
the second is what percent cash back am I gonna get when I play video poker
and a lot of casinos they give .1 .2 .3
sometimes .4 percent in cash back
the third component is what am I gonna get in the mailers that the casino is
gonna mail me
because I'm a loyal player playing their video poker games
and a lot of these mailers include bounce-back cash or bounce back
freeplay
bounce back meaning you have to bounce back to the casino to get these benefits
those are the three components which if you add up
should exceed 100 percent and if you can get those three components
over 100 percent you're going to have the long-term
edge over the casino Now players always ask me
okay Henry you tell me that I can be a long-term winner
at video poker if I read play full pay, get the cash back and the bounce back
am I always gonna win
and the answer is No you're not always going to win when you play
video poker
Your edge is again very small and the edge you have is a long-term average
so on any given playing session you could lose money
and you could also lose money over several playing sessions over weeks and
even a month
so you have to be prepared and you have to have a bankroll
when you play video poker A lot of players ask me
where they can get more information that i write about video poker
and the answer is I write a column on video poker for
strictly slots magazine if you don't get a subscription to
strictly slots then you can go to their website
casinocenter.com and they usually have
articles written by me on video poker
you can also go to my website smartgaming.com
and I generally post a lot on my video poker
articles and advice on that website
don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on our
YouTube channel
just go to youtube.com/americancasinoguide