Deuces and Joker Wild Video Poker

Deuces and Joker Wild video poker stands as the ultimate game for those
players who like their wild card action. It essentially combines the two types
of wild card video poker games that are commonly available in casinos and on
gambling websites. For those who like achieving hands they never thought
possible, this is the ideal game.

When video poker was first created, it was based on
five card draw, the common poker game that
people would play with friends and family members at home. When playing, the
lowest winning hand that would pay was a pair of jacks. Hence, the game came to
be known as Jacks or Better.

When Jacks or Better gameplay started to seem a bit stale, since it was
extremely hard to win a lot of money on a single hand, so-called “Bonus” games
were created. These games paid big amounts for rare but achievable hands like a
four of a kind. They appealed to those who wanted to go for big winnings, even
if it meant a better chance of losing their bankroll quickly.

Wild card games became popular for those who wanted something a little
different. A wild card is a card that is designated before gameplay starts and
allows a player to substitute any other card in the deck for it. Whatever card,
or cards if multiple wild cards are dealt or drawn, are most advantageous to the
player’s hand, that’s what the wild cards essentially become.

With Deuces and Joker Wild video poker, you have five different chances to
come up with a wild card from a special 53-card deck. Any of the four 2s in the
deck are designated as wild. In addition, the 53^rd card in the deck,
the joker, is also a wild card.

Thus, you have the potential of grabbing anywhere from one through five wild
cards in a single hand when playing Deuces and Joker Wild video poker. As you
might imagine, this puts into play all kinds of fascinating hands. The five of a
kind would appear at about the same frequency as a full house in common video
poker.

Still, you can’t get too carried away with thinking that the increased Wild
Card effect will make you rich. Deuces and Joker Wild video poker adjusts the
pay table so that the common hands that pay something back in normal video poker
games, like a pair or two pair, don’t pay anything at all. Other hands that pay
very well in most games pay very little in Deuces and Joker Wild video poker,
simply because they are so easy to achieve with the wild cards in play.

In the following article, we’ll take an in-depth look at Deuces and Joker
Wild video poker. We’ll talk about understanding the pay tables and percentages
for this game. On top of that, we’ll look at how the game stacks up in terms of
its benefits and drawbacks, and we’ll explain how to come up with the perfect
strategy for winning.

The Basics of Video Poker

Before you get bogged down with wild cards and different pay tables attached
to Deuces and Joker Wild video poker, you need to first get a grasp on common
video poker machines. As mentioned above, it’s basically the same process as
five-card draw, with
a deal and a draw. It’s just done in simulated fashion through the use of the
software inside the video poker machine.

Let’s break it all down step by step:

Step 1: Creating a Bankroll

You’re going to have to put some money at stake if you want to win real money
in return for playing video poker. That money is known as your bankroll. You
create your bankroll by inserting money into a video poker machine, or by
creating an account if you are using a gambling website.

You should base your bankroll on how long you wish to play and the base
denomination you choose. Denominations can be as low as a penny or as high as a
dollar. Every coin, or credit, in your bankroll is equal to the denomination
that you choose.

Step 2: Deciding How Much to Bet

You will have the opportunity when playing Deuces and Joker Wild video poker
to wager between one and five coins per hand. This is the case for most video
poker machines, and we advise you to bet the maximum amount of five coins per
hand.

For most video poker games, this is because it’s the only way to receive the
best ratio of payout for the royal flush. But for Deuces and Joker Wild video
poker, the max bet is important because the five-coin bet is the only way that
you can win the highest jackpot for a hand with all five wild cards in the deck.
You can bet lower than five coins, but it will hurt your chances of winning in
the long run.

Step 3: Getting the Deal

Once you make your bet, you are ready for the deal. On your screen, five
cards will show up. Your hope is that you can make a hand that’s a winner
according to the pay table for that game.

Here is a sample hand:

That hand, as constituted, is not a winner based on the Deuces and Joker Wild
video poker pay table. There are, however, the seeds to some winning hands that
are showing. There is a pair of fours, which can be improved in several
different ways, and there are also four cards to a straight in the four through
seven.

Step 4: Make a Decision for the Draw

Luckily, video poker gives you an opportunity to make a better hand than the
one you have been dealt if you need to do so. This comes through the draw, which
allows you to replace any or all of the cards you have been dealt. The machine
will replace the cards you discard with new cards from the same virtual hand
from which you were dealt.

Remember that the probabilities of your receiving certain cards are based on
the same probabilities as if you were playing with a deck of cards at home. In
this case, that deck is 53 cards because of the presence of the joker in Deuces
and Joker Wild video poker.

Remember also that the probabilities don’t change based on previous hands of
video poker because a new deck is used each hand. And that deck is constantly
being shuffled by a random number generator within the software. So, don’t make
any decisions based on the fact that certain cards have or haven’t come up in
recent hands.

Let’s get back to that hand. While the straight may be enticing, it only pays
off at 2 to 1 on the Deuces and Joker Wild video poker pay table. You are better
off keeping the pair of fours and going for anything from a three of a kind, to
a full house, even to a five of a kind; the last of which is possible with the
Wild Cards included.

Once you make the discards, you press the draw button. Here is what you
receive for your final hand:

Congratulations, you made a full house on the draw! You can check the pay
table to see what you’ve won.

Step 5: Continuing Play or Cashing Out

Once you’ve gone through this process, you can do it all over again if you
want to keep playing and there is money still in your bankroll; alternatively,
you can quit at any time. When you do, simply hit the button on the machine to
get your ticket and then redeem that ticket for cash elsewhere in the casino.

As you can see, it’s a simple process; one that takes only a minute or two to
learn. Video poker is wonderful because you can play at your own pace with no
pressure as if you were playing a slot machine. But it also contains the
probabilities and strategies that make playing table games so compelling as
well.

In many ways, you are getting the best of both worlds. Now, read on to find
out how Deuces and Joker Wild video poker stands out a bit from common video
poker.

Playing With Wild Cards

Deuces and Joker Wild video poker maxes out your chance to receive a wild
card during gameplay. That’s because there are four twos and a joker in the
53-card deck which governs gameplay. Your chances of receiving at least one wild
card on the deal are just under one in ten.

How does a wild card work? Imagine the following hand:

On its own, this hand would not get you anything in most basic forms of video
poker. If you were dealt it, you could choose to keep the pair of twos and build
off that. More than likely, you would keep the queen through ace of clubs since
that would give you a fighting chance at a royal flush, the hardest hand to
achieve in all of video poker.

If you drew to that hand in normal video poker, it would be a loser. But if
you were playing Deuces and Joker Wild video poker, where twos and jokers are
wild, the hand would be transformed.

Because the twos can be turned into whatever cards help the hand the most,
one would become the ten of clubs and the other would become the jack of clubs.
That would mean that you have achieved the royal flush with the help of the wild
cards.

Keep in mind that the royal flush is the one hand on the Deuces and Joker
Wild video poker pay table where there is a distinction between a natural royal
flush and one achieved with wild cards. The natural (ten through ace of the same
suit) pays much better, as you’ll see when we examine pay tables.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to figure out what the wild cards
should be when the draw comes. The computer in the machine will automatically
convert the wild cards into whatever cards make up the most lucrative hand for
you.

When you get them on the deal, however, you will have to think about how they
might be used with the other cards that you were dealt. You obviously won’t be
discarding any wild cards that you are dealt, but knowing what cards to hold
with the wild cards is a big part of Deuces and Joker Wild strategy.

Reading Pay Tables for Deuces and Joker Wild Video Poker

When you sit down to play Deuces and Joker Wild video poker, either in a
casino or on your favorite gambling website, you’ll be confronted with a chart
containing all the possible winning hands in the game. Along with that, you’ll
see how much those hands pay out compared to what you might have bet. This chart
is known as the pay table, and it’s the most crucial piece of information that a
video poker player can have at their disposal.

When you see the pay table, you should immediately think about basing your
decisions on holding and discarding based on the winning hands and how much the
pay is. In addition, the pay table will be the piece of information you will
reference when you look up the payback percentage for each machine. You can even
figure out the payback percentage on your own if you know all the probabilities,
but it’s easier just to look this information up online.

Let’s take a look at a common Deuces and Joker Wild video poker pay table,
one that will actually pay off, on average, more than any other variations you
might encounter (more on what that means when we get to the section on payback
percentages). This is known as 9/6 Deuces and Joker Wild, based on how much the
machine pays off for a five of a kind and a straight flush.

You might notice that there are no numbers listed for the hand of four deuces
and a joker, also known as five wild, when one through four coins are played.
That is because you can only access the top payout if you bet the full five
coins on the hand. If you should come up with that hand with less than five
coins played, you would get the payout for four deuces instead.

Along the same lines, you’ll see a big jump in the payout for the natural
royal flush (achieved with no wild cards) at five coins compared to one through
four. These two examples should show you how important it is to commit to
playing five coins each and every hand. If that’s too expensive for you, you
should try to move to a lower denomination.

For those who are used to Jacks or Better video poker, you might notice that
there are a few winning hands involved in Deuces and Joker Wild video poker that
you won’t find in that game. That’s because the wild cards make them possible.
You couldn’t, for example, make a five of a kind hand in Jacks or Better without
wild cards.

What you’ll also notice is that there are a couple of hands that pay off in
Jacks or Better that don’t pay anything back to the player in Deuces and Joker
Wild video poker. You won’t get any return for a pair of jacks or better or two
pair in Deuces and Joker Wild. Those hands are simply too common with wild
cards, and if they paid out in this game, it would consistently lose money to
the players.

Obviously, no casino will want a machine losing money, so those hands get
knocked out of the picture. On the whole, you have to adjust your expectations
for Deuces and Joker Wild video poker if you are used to playing Jacks or
Better. You need to make sure that you are trying to get those big hands that
the wild cards make possible.

Payback Percentages for Deuces and Joker Wild Video Poker

We briefly mentioned above the concept of payback percentages. These figures
tell you what you can reasonably expect from a session of any casino game. If,
for example, the payback of a game is 99%, it means that $100 into the machine
will, on average, bring you $99 in return or a $1 loss.

You have to realize, however, that this figure is an average. Luck and skill
will play into your return, especially if you are playing the game in question
for a short period of time. Over time, the game will eventually start to level
off in terms of those other factors and the payback will come in around what is
expected.

For the version of Deuces and Joker Wild video poker that includes the pay
table we listed above, the payback percentage comes in at 99.07%. That is a
relatively competitive payback for video poker, but not out of this world. As a
comparison, the highest-paying Jacks or Better game comes in at 99.54%.

That illustrates something you should realize about wild card video poker
games. Many people think that they have a better chance to win with these games
because of the presence of the wild cards. But the pay tables are always
adjusted so that the payback resembles other games and the house edge is
maintained.

Speaking of pay tables, the one that we listed above isn’t the only one you
might find when you encounter Deuces and Joker Wild video poker either in a
casino or online. There are many others that you might find, each with slight
variations in the pay table. Those variations will affect the payback
percentages.

Take a look at this table, which shows the different versions of what you
might find, where they differ in terms of payback, and how those differences
affect payback:

It’s always good to go into a casino armed with all of this information when
considering which version of the game to pick. For example, you might see the
9/9/1 version of Deuces and Joker Wild video poker and think you’ve stumbled
onto a bargain, considering the high payout for the royal flush. But the lower
payoff for the extremely common (in this game) hand of a straight more than
negates that.

Always choose the game that gives you the best possible payback percentage.
It won’t matter too much if you only plan to play Deuces and Joker Wild video
poker for a session or two without much money at stake. But if you do want to
play it often and get the most winnings possible, knowing payback percentages
will ensure this occurs for you.

Deuces and Joker Wild Video Poker Strategy Information

The payback percentages in place above only come into play if the person
playing can make the right decision every single hand in terms of the holds and
discards. This is known as perfect play, and it’s the only way you can reach the
listed totals.

For every incorrect decision you make, the totals go down a bit. You could
lose several percentage points per session by making poor choices.

Luck on the deal and the draw can make up for a lot of this, especially if
you’re only playing for a short time. But knowing the mathematically correct
play each time out will maximize your chances of winning, not just at Deuces and
Joker Wild video poker, but at any video poker machine.

How do you get to the point where you can know which hold and which discard
will give you the best chance on each and every hand? Here are two surefire
ways:

• Video Poker Trainers: If you can find video
  poker training software that either contains Deuces and Joker Wild video
  poker as one of its preset modes or allows you to program in a pay table,
  you can play the game as if you were in the casino. More importantly, you
  will be alerted every time you discard the wrong cards. After drilling in
  this fashion for a while, you can get very near perfect play.
• Strategy Charts: These charts run through all
  the possible combinations of cards with some promise of winning in them that
  you might receive on the deal. The chart ranks these hands from best to
  worst and leaves out the inessential cards. Simply look at your hand, match
  the combination you have to the highest on the chart, and discard the ones
  that aren’t included.

Achieving perfect play is something that the casual player might not feel is
necessary. But, again, those who really want to become the best, and richest,
Deuces and Joker Wild video poker player they can be, should undertake one of
these two methods. This goes for those who play in a casino as well as those who
frequent the top gambling websites
available.

Pros and Cons of Deuces and Joker Wild Video Poker

Quick Deuces and Joker Wild Video Poker Tips

• Go for Broke: Remember that you’ll need to get
  hands that would be extremely rare in Jacks or Better poker on a regular
  basis in this game to stay competitive. So, don’t be afraid to throw out the
  seeds of hands that might have promise on other pay tables.
• Throwing It All Away: When playing Deuces and
  Joker Wild video poker, you should be much more inclined to discard all of
  the cards you receive on the deal than you would in other versions of video
  poker. That is because the wild cards carry so much weight. If you don’t
  have one on the deal, the likelihood of your discarding all will increase
  dramatically.
• Max or Nothing: We talked about it above. If you
  bet less than five coins when playing Deuces and Joker Wild video poker, you
  are giving yourself a double whammy. Not only are you short-changing
  yourself on a natural flush, but you are eliminating the possibility of a
  2000 to 1 payoff for five wild cards.

Conclusion on Deuces and Joker Wild Video Poker

When playing Deuces and Joker Wild video poker, you will get to know the rush
of seeing those wild cards in your hand. You might also know some disappointment
when your payback for common hands doesn’t compare to other video poker games.
Nonetheless, the opportunity for big, wild-card-aided scores makes this a
must-try video poker game.