Video Poker Forum

Okay, nobody else talking strategy yet so I'll try another question.

Jacks or better and you have Q, 5, 5, 9, A.

What do you hold and why?

I hold the Q and A because you arer trying to get a pay off and stay in the game and you have more chances to do get one that way. You know "live for another day".

This actually answers part of my question in my newbie post.. So, it's better to hold the Q simply cause you'll have more new cards equalling more opportunity?

I don't know about that. I think the test your skills thing tells me to hold the 2 5's on this hand but let me try it again right now and I will post back to see what it says. One second please.

Okay here is what the test your skills thng says.

hand: Q, 5, 5, 9, A.

Holding the 2 5's gives an expected value (whatever that is) of .8237.

Odds (or expected payout?) of a 2 pair are .3197
3 of a kind: .3430
Full house: .0916
4 of a kind: .0694



The next best it says is hold the 5's and one other card.
But that doesn't give any extra options. So obviously jsut holding the 5's is best on this (for best expected value)

Holding the Queen and Ace gives an expected payout of .4790

So I think that means that if you held the queen and ace every time you would only win back .47 of your bet in the long run. But holding the 2 5's you would win .82 times your bet over time.

Holding just the queen gives .4679 and only the Ace gives .4563


Hope this helps. I don't know exactly how the numbers are calculated but it ceratinly seems to know more than I do?

But still it seems like holding just a queen should be good. Do the 2 5's really help that much more? I guess maybe so looking at these numbers but what do people think? Keeping the 5's limits your options but I guess the odds of drawing into something good with any other hold aren't that high either. So better to take the .82 and hope for a better deal next time around?

Anyone have a different opinion that would suggest holding the Q is good? You can win a lot more but the odds go down.

Bob dancer says keep the 5's. It is all calculated with odds.

Dancer is a machine! Don't know how he can keep it all together.

hold the 5,s besides the royal  the next best thing is 4of akind

The low pair is much more valuable than the unpaired high cards in Jacks or Better.  Hold the two 5's and nothing else.

All the strategies I've read say hold the pair even over two to the royal and three to the straight flush.