When to Hold a High Card in Video Poker

You are playing Jacks or Better video poker at our star rated mobile casino South Africa.  Just when you think you have got the hang of how the game works; you are dealt a hand containing a high card and a low pair.  The question now is, do you hold the high card and discard the pair?  Conventional wisdom suggests you do… but is that the correct strategy?

High Card or Low Pair?  

If you have played video poker at Springbok Casino you will know that the lowest available payout is for a pair.  To qualify, it is not any pair, it is a pair of jacks or better.  In other words, any pair with a face value below that does not feature on the pay table.  Surely then it makes more sense to hold a high card over a low pair?

Strategists and tacticians will tell you loud and clear that there is never a good time to hold a high card… unless of course there is the possibility of a straight, flush, straight flush or a royal flush in the equation.  In the context of high card over low pair, the latter always gets the nod… and here is why.

Jacks or Better Pay Table  

Before we get into the why, how and when of high versus low, let’s take a look at what you can win when you play Jacks or Better video poker at Springbok mobile casino South Africa:

Possible Three Card Draws to a Low Pair  

Now that you know what you are playing for, here is a bit of number crunching to prove the point made by the statisticians.  What was the point again?  When it comes to holding a high card versus a low pair, the pair is theoretically the best play.  Why?  When you hold a pair to a three card draw there are 16,125 possible combinations, of which 4,566 are winners and 11,559 are losers.  Break the numbers down a bit further and it looks something like this:

• 45 x four of a kind
• 165 x full house
• 1,854 x three of a kind
• 2,592 x two pair

As you can see there are no winning pairs as they are too low to fit the Jacks or Better payout structure.  Similarly, there are no straights or flushes.  In essence when you hold at low pair playing video poker at the best mobile casino South Africa, you only win a little over 28% of the hands. 

With that in mind, why would you hold two low matching cards when you lose around three quarters of the time?  That’s easy.  In the context of gambling online at Springbok Casino, it is not the frequency of wins that count.  It is the average payout rate - and that is calculated at around 4 coins on every maximum five-coin bet you make on a hand that has a low pair to the draw.

Possible Four Card Draws to a High Card   

How does the high card stack up when it comes to statistics?  When you elect to hold a high card over a low pair there are 178,365 possible draws.  That is more than ten times the number of potential combinations associated with a low pair.  Why the massive discrepancy?  When you hold a high card all the paying poker hands featured on the pay table are in-play.  Having said that, only 67,047 of the total number of possible draws are winners:

• 1 x royal flush
• 3 x straight flush
• 53 x four of a kind
• 297 x full house
• 492 x flush
• 668 x straight
• 4,177 x three of a kind
• 9,033 x two pair
• 45,324 x jacks or better

By comparing the respective draws one thing is clear - the high card generates a higher frequency of wins when compared to the low pair.  In fact, when you keep the high card at the expense of the low pair, you will win more than 33 percent of the hands playing Jacks or Better video poker at Springbok mobile casino South Africa.  When it comes down to rands and cents, however, the average payout rate plummets to 2.42 coins per maximum bet.

The Verdict 

What the facts and figures are telling us is that it is never a good idea to hold a high card over a low pair.  Although you are likely to hit more winning poker hands, the actual real money returns are significantly lower.  The next time you fire up Jacks or Better video poker at our mobile casino South Africa and are faced with the same conundrum, toss the high card and hold onto the low pair instead.  It is statistically the correct decision to make.

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