How Video Poker prepared me to play live poker

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How Video Poker prepared me to play live poker

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When I first started playing, poker was intimidating to me and was a game I avoided. There is something about it that makes me feel overwhelmed.
I tried playing poker with friends and played online poker a few times, but I found it really hard at first.

Every time I thought I was catching the bug, something else confused me.

It wasn’t entertaining or fun for me because I was so busy worrying about which hands I could make and trying to figure out what other players were doing.

That all changed when I found something that allowed me to practice the basics of poker without the pressure of competing with other players.

Video poker helped me understand the concept of standard poker hands and their odds. It has honestly made me a better poker player.

If you’re new to poker, and especially if you’re a little overwhelmed by it all, I want to share some of the lessons that video poker has taught me.

I want to show you how you can use video poker as a useful tool to learn other types of poker games.

But before I explain these helpful lessons, you must first understand how video poker is different from live poker, even if you play online.

Difference between poker games and video poker

You often hear people say that video poker is like a version of slot machine poker, but you may not understand what that means.

  • Let me explain to you how video poker works and why they make such a comparison.
  • Modern slot machines use a random number generator to spin the reels and randomly land on the symbols associated with the game.
  • Video poker machines work the same way, but instead of different images, they use a standard deck of fifty-two cards.
  • The video poker machine will randomly deal you five cards. At this point, you can choose which cards you want to keep and which you want to replace with a new card from the deck.

They are similar to slot machines, but I like video poker more than slot machines because you get a chance to swap some cards to try to get a better hand.

More importantly, there are some similarities and differences between video poker and regular poker games.

Video poker is similar to other poker games in that the possible hands of cards are the same as those you would use when playing in a poker tournament or cash game.

The main difference between video poker and regular poker is that video poker does not give you the chance to compete against other players.

This is an important difference because competing with other players is one of the features that sets poker apart from other types of casino games.

Poker experts know how to manipulate other players to win even when they have a terrible hand. When you play video poker, there is nothing you can do to change the results of a bad hand.

Even when you play online poker, you are competing against other players. You can’t see their faces, but the computer records their actions, so you know when they raise, call or check.

Sometimes these are computer-generated players, but if you’re playing in an online poker tournament, you’ll be competing against real players from all over the world.

Another significant difference between regular poker and video poker is the lack of betting rounds.

When you play regular poker, each player has several opportunities to fold, raise or call depending on their cards and the actions of other players.

In video poker, there is only one bet and it is set before the cards are dealt. You can’t practice raising or know when to fold when you play video poker.

Don’t expect to become an expert or master poker player by playing video poker.

It does not allow you to practice strategies for competing with other players or deciding when to raise the stakes.

Memorizing poker hands

The reason poker was so overwhelming for me was that there was so much to learn at one time.

You have to memorize standard card hands, learn the different rules for each game you play, know when to raise or fold, and figure out how to analyze other players.

It was a lot for me to grasp, especially during a fast-paced game. I couldn’t enjoy the game because I felt like I was constantly going through a mental checklist.

Video poker can’t teach you all the things you need to learn to play normal poker. But it can remove some of those factors so you can master the basics.

As silly as it sounds, it was really hard for me to remember all the different poker hands and which ones were better than others.

The first few times I played poker cash games, I kept a list of hands in front of me so that I could remember all the options.

  • Even with this list, I was so focused on analyzing other players and whether I should raise or not that I still couldn’t understand why I lost specific hands.
  • I needed a way to simplify the game and that’s what video poker did for me.
  • By removing other factors, I was able to focus solely on learning standard hands.
  • In video poker, you can play as slow or as fast as you want, which helped me learn at my own pace.
  • When I had to decide which cards I wanted to hold, I had time to think through all the possibilities without anyone rushing me.

There were a few hands where I initially thought a pair was the best I could do.

Learning the odds and practicing poker hands

Playing pokerSince I learned the hierarchy of poker hands, I began to realize that I needed to consider the odds of getting each hand.

However, after a few hands in which I traded cards trying to get a flush, I realized that the odds were not very good.

In fact, for every hand that has a flush, there are 508 hands that don’t.

It is quite obvious that the hierarchy of hands is based on the probability of getting a given hand.

The royal flush is the highest paying hand because it is the hardest to get.

I realized that the better hands were harder to get, but I had to play a few rounds before I began to realize how unlikely it was to get some of these hands.

Part of the problem was that I was trying to play poker with the same mentality I had when playing other games.

When I was growing up, my family played a version of rummy where the goal was to try to get a three of a kind or a straight, except that you could have a straight with only four numbers instead of five.

So, when I played poker, I thought it would be easy to get a straight, because I grew up playing a game where that was my only goal.

But the difference is that in rummy you have several rounds of discarding and drawing new cards to create your straight.

Get practice at poker without losing so much money

You need to practice dozens, if not hundreds of times to learn poker hands and get a feel for how likely you are to get them.

But that’s hard to do when there’s so much going on during a traditional poker game, and more importantly, it’s expensive.

Video poker allows you to practice without depleting your bankroll, because you can play dozens of rounds without raising the stakes.

When you first learn, you should use the minimum possible bet, but cash games don’t allow you to do that.

Even if I lost dozens of hands when I tried to make a flush, I’m not angry about losing those hands because I only bet $1.25 each round.

Had I been playing in a cash game, that $1.25 could have quickly become a total loss of $25 or more, depending on how much other players decided to raise.

I don’t like other people influencing my bankroll, especially when I’m just trying to learn the game.

Some might suggest that another alternative is to play practice cash games for free. But that doesn’t work for me, because I realized that when I play for free, I’m not as attentive to my bankroll.

Conclusion

Video poker is a simplified version of poker and I think it’s a great tool for beginners.

I like to think of it as a group of college classes.

Video poker is an introductory Poker 101 class that you must pass before moving on to courses that focus on a specific game or tournament level.

Introductory classes are required because they make sure you have the foundational knowledge needed to succeed in higher level courses, and video poker works the same way.

This introductory class will help you master the basics before moving on to regular poker play.

Those of you who feel overwhelmed by the complexity of tournament poker or cash games need a clear way to learn the basics.

You will appreciate the simplicity of video poker and it will help you master the basics so you can eventually play other forms of poker.

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