When
playing video poker, you need to be careful not
to make mistakes that will reduce your chances
of winning. Making mistakes in video poker can
cost you a lot of money. And the sad part is,
for the most part, you won’t even realize
what you missed out on.
A lot of people try to play video poker as quickly
as possible to increase the number of hands they
can play. This is fine as long as you can do it
without making mistakes. However, going too fast
can often cause you to miss things. Make sure
you are really good at the game first before you
try increasing your speed.
If you get going too fast, you might catch yourself
drawing before you have really thought about what
are the best cards to hold. These errors sometimes
happen due to a sticky hold button, but it doesn’t
matter what the cause is. You must make sure that
you check everything before you hit the draw button
to avoid these types of problems.
Although mistakes in video poker can cost you
money, playing too slowly can also cost you money.
Think about it, if you usually make a certain
amount per 1000 hands played, then the faster
you play those hands, the faster you will make
that amount of money. If you can double your speed,
you can play twice as money hands and make twice
as much money.
However, it is still important to strive for accuracy
when playing quickly. You will make the most money
if you can play quickly and accurately.
If your accuracy remains the same regardless of
your speed, you’re your return per hour
of playing will increase as your speed increases.
Here’s an example to help you understand
this principle.
In full-pay Deuces Wild, the payback is 100.75%.
At this rate, you should expect an average gain
of $2.81 per hour if you play 300 hands. You can
figure this out by multiplying the .75 percent
by the bet amount of $1.25 (5 credits on a quarter
machine). If you can play 600 hands per hour,
your expected return would double to $5.62 per
hour.
Of course, any mistakes you make as a result of
the increased speed will cause the return to drop.
So how do you determine how quickly you can play
without having your errors cost you more than
the increased speed gains for you? One method
is by recording your results to evaluate them
later. You can then determine how much per hour
you average when you are going fast, and how much
when going slow. However, you would not a lot
of hands to evaluate. There is another method
that is much easier. If you catch yourself making
mistakes, it’s time to be a little more
careful. |
