When you play multihand video poker games such as Triple Play, Five Play and Ten Play Poker, part of the attraction is that you get multiple chances to make a high-paying hand on the draw. Hold two pairs, and maybe you don’t pull the full house on hand No. 1, but the possibilities are still there on the draw for the second hand, or third, or however many you play.
Another big attraction is that sometimes a good hand will be a GREAT one, if a big-payer comes on the initial deal. That’s what happened to a reader recently on a Ten Play Poker game.
“I was DEALT a royal on the first five cards. I got the royal payoffs on ALL 10 HANDS,” he wrote. “Was I unusually lucky, or is there something different about video poker that makes it more likely to get a royal in the first five cards (than on table poker games, such as Caribbean Stud)?”
The answer is yes on both counts. It was an extraordinary stroke of luck. A royal flush on the initial deal happens only once per 649,740 hands, compared to about once per 40,000 or so for a royal after a draw.
If you play stud poker games such as Caribbean Stud, Let It Ride or plain old five-card stud, the chances of being dealt a royal also are about 1 in 649,740. But you’ll see it happen more in video poker for the simple reason that we play video poker faster. You’ll see about 50 deals per hour in Caribbean Stud, but 500 or more in video poker. That doesn’t make dealt royals common by any means, but it’s much more likely you’ll see one on the video screen than on the card table.
