Guide to Flush Bonus Poker Video Poker

Flush Bonus Poker video poker stands as a unique twist on video poker that can easily be found as a part of lottery machines in the state of Oregon. The game puts an emphasis on achieving five cards of the same suit. If you can, you’ll be able to play a Fever Round where every card of that suit brings you bonus winnings.

One of the ways that video poker has expanded in recent years is as an offering on state lottery machines. Some of these games offer unique twists on the basic format. And one of these unique games is Flush Bonus Poker video poker, which can be found in the state of Oregon.

Flush Bonus Poker video poker, sometimes referred to as Flush Fever (although there is a popular game of that name with different rules from this one found in casinos) contains the same basic gameplay as most basic video poker games. Your goal is to make the best possible five-card poker hand.

And Flush Bonus Poker video poker doesn’t deviate from the discard and draw format in any way. You’ll have a pay table, and any sort of flush qualifies for a bonus. When you do, you qualify for seven games that are known as the “Fever Round.” During this fever round, you’ll be looking for cards from a certain suit.

The qualifying suit will be whatever was a part of the original flush. If you get cards in this suit during the Fever Round, you’ll automatically win however much was in your original wager for each one that you get. In addition to that, you’ll still accumulate any winnings from the hands you’re making during the Fever Round.

You can also activate more Fever Rounds while you’re in the midst of one. In other words, no matter where you are in the game, a flush will really give you a boost when you can manage one. Now, you can see why it’s called Flush Bonus Poker video poker.

Unlike many other games with twists added to them, Flush Bonus Poker video poker offers this bonus without having to bet extra. As a result, it’s almost like you’re getting something for nothing while playing this game. When you achieve the Fever Rounds, your bankroll should soar.

The drawback to Flush Bonus Poker video poker comes when you look at the pay table. It doesn’t offer anything for a pair of jacks or better, and it discounts payback for two pair and three of a kind.

These pay table specifics make Flush Bonus Poker video poker somewhat volatile. And the overall payback percentage is lacking. Still, the possibility of a lucrative Fever Round makes it an interesting offering.

In the following article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about the game known as Flush Bonus Poker video poker. We’ll explain how to play and how the twist works. Finally, we’ll look at the pay table and payback percentages as well as looking at how you can play the game with perfect strategy.

The Benefits of Video Poker

Even though it’s a part of a state lottery, Flush Bonus Poker video poker works in just the same manner as other video poker games, albeit with a bit of a twist. And, like other video poker games, it holds great advantages for gamblers over other casino-style games.

If you’re a newcomer to video poker, you might not know too much about these advantages. You might not realize that many people insist on video poker and nothing else when gambling in a casino or on gambling websites. Video poker combines many of the best elements of slot machines and table games.

Let’s take a look at some of the advantages that will be waiting for you when you play video poker.

• Video poker is one of the easiest games to learn to play out of all casino offerings. If you have a basic background on how poker hands are formed, you’ll learn it immediately. Even if you don’t, it’s a simple concept to grasp.
• Video poker offers excellent variety. Whether you’re in a casino or online, the offerings in the video poker section are almost limitless. Having such variety at your fingertips should keep video poker action from ever getting boring.
• Video poker can be played by one person alone. Most casino games require a casino employee to be in charge and can often include multiple players. For those who don’t want any hassles, the self-contained nature of video poker is a real plus.
• Video poker is a strategy-based game. Don’t confuse it with slot machines just because they’re often lumped together in the same section of the casino. With video poker, you actually have some control over the action.
• Video poker lets you in on all its secrets. Because the pay table is right in front of you and because the probabilities of attaining winning hands are calculable, you know everything you need to play video poker at a maximum level. There’s no guesswork.
• Video poker pays well. In terms of gambling investments, it ranks pretty high in the world of casino games. Both in the short term and long term, it can pay off very well.
• Video poker is an excellent game to play online. Nothing is lost in the translation from casinos to top gambling websites. The look and the gameplay is pretty much the same.

The above list should give you a pretty good idea why video poker is coveted by discerning gamblers. Now, it’s time to learn to play. Let’s concentrate first on a basic hand of video poker before we concentrate on the twists offered by Flush Bonus Poker video poker.

Basic Video Poker Game Play

Step 1: The Bankroll

You create a bankroll by putting money into the appropriate slot on a machine offering video poker. Online video poker players can do it by creating an account at a gambling website. The bankroll allows you to make wagers and win money in return.

Your bankroll will appear on screen in units known as credits, or coins, which are the units you’ll use to bet and how you’ll be paid. These units will correspond to the denomination of the machine you’re playing. For example, on a 25-cent machine, a 10-credit win will earn you $2.50 (10 times .25).

Step 2: The Bet

Most video poker games award you if you bet the maximum amount available. That’s because the highest bet unlocks the best payback for the royal flush, which is the most lucrative hand in the game. The payback for a max bet royal flush rises in a much higher proportion than wins with lesser bets, at least in most video poker games.

Flush Bonus Poker video poker changes that formula a bit. There is no rise in the royal flush payback, so that incentive is removed.

However, as we’ll find out when we talk about the Flush Bonus Poker video poker special feature, you are rewarded more for betting more. Of course, you are putting more at stake in those situations, so it’s a bit of an even trade-off.

Some Flush Bonus Poker video poker games allow you to bet as much as 10 coins per hand. You can bet as low as one coin and raise the bet in increments of one. Since there isn’t really a reward for betting more, you should base your wagers on your budget.

Step 3: Your Hand

A hand of video poker plays out in much the same way as a hand of the card game known as Five-Card Draw. Both games feature a deal of five cards and the chance for the player to decide which cards they want to keep for the final hand. Discarded cards are replaced by others on the deal.

In Five-Card Draw, the winner of a hand is often decided by which player has the best five-card poker hand after the deal and draw. But it can also be decided when one player is the only one left in the hand after all others give up their hands. That’s where bluffing comes into play.

In video poker, there’s no need for bluffing, since you’re the only one playing the hand. All you have to do to win the hand and get some return from your initial wager is to form one of the winning combinations on the pay table. Here are the possible winning combinations available to you on a Flush Bonus Poker video poker game.

• Two pair
• Three of a kind
• Straight (five cards of consecutive rank, like 3-4-5-6-7)
• Flush (five cards of same suit)
• Full house (three of a kind and two pair in the same hand)
• Four of a kind
• Straight flush (straight with five cards of same suit)
• Royal flush (ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of the same suit)

At the top of the list are hands which are common during video poker play but don’t pay that much. As you move to the bottom of the list, you’ll find hands that come up rarely during game. They’re the hands that pay the most.

The cards that appear in your deal will come from a standard deck of 52 that’s simulated by the game. Your chances of receiving a specific card on the deal are the same as if you were using a freshly-shuffled deck at home. In other words, it’s completely random.

You have to assess the cards you have to see which ones you want to hold and which ones you want to discard. Any cards that you hold will be part of your final hand, which must have one of the above winning combinations in it to be a winner. Meanwhile, you can discard any cards you don’t want, which you can replace with new cards from the deck on the draw in an effort to make one of those wining combinations.

The draw is also completely random. There are 47 cards left in the deck for the draw, since the five you received on the deal are no longer included. You can’t receive one of your discarded cards back in your hand on the draw.

How do you choose what to hold and discard? Well, it should partly be based on your chances of making a winning hand based on what you have and what’s left in the deck. But you should also be considering how much you might earn from certain winning hands, as you go through a scenario of risk versus reward.

For example, let’s say that you receive the following five cards on the deal.

There are no winning combinations to be found in this deal. But you do have several smaller combinations which could be turned into winners with the right cards coming on the draw. You just have to decide which of those winning hands you want to pursue.

For example, you could onto the pair of fours and drop everything else. You’d thus be able to draw three new cards to improve your hand. Depending on what you get, you could end up with two pair, three of a kind, a full house or four of a kind.

You might notice also that you have four cards of consecutive rank, which you could turn into a straight with one more. If you decide to pursue the hand in that way, you’d need to drop one of the fours and then draw a three or an eight. One problem with this approach is that your only chance at a winning hand is if you get the straight.

Finally, you could decide to keep the four, five, and six of clubs. Doing so would leave open the chance at many possible winning hands, including the high-paying straight flush. Don’t forget that any type of flush is extremely valuable in Flush Bonus Poker video poker.

This decision isn’t an easy one, as there are pros and cons to every choice. In actuality, one choice (holding the four, five and six of clubs) is ideal mathematically, and, therefore, it’s the one you should choose. We’ll talk more about this process when we get to strategy.

In any case, once you make your final decision, you’ll press the buttons underneath the cards you’re holding, if any. You’ll then press the “draw” button to initiate the draw, which will mean your discarded cards are replaced. That will complete the hand.

You can play hands in this manner as long as you have credits that allow you to bet. Another option is cashing out to claim your winnings. Keep in mind that any time you run out of credits, you’ll have to replenish your supply to keep playing.

As we said above, Flush Bonus Poker video poker plays out in this same manner. But there is a special feature which you need to understand to play the game at its highest level.

The Flush Bonus Poker Fever Round

Most Flush Bonus Poker video poker will play out just like normal video poker. You’ll try to form a winning combination and will get paid according to the pay table if you do.

But there is a bonus waiting for you if you end up with a flush after the draw. Any flush will qualify, meaning that a straight flush or royal flush will set this chain of events in motion just as a normal flush would.

• A flush begins the Fever Round. The Fever Round take place initially for seven hands. It can be restarted if you get another flush in the middle of the fever round.
• This process of restarting the Fever Round can continue in Flush Bonus Poker video poker for 56 consecutive hands (eight total Fever Rounds). While you’re in the midst of the eighth Fever Round, you won’t be able to restart it again.

What happens during a Fever Round? Well, first of all you still have to keep on making wagers. In other words, these aren’t free hands, which is a bonus perk sometimes found on video poker games with special features.

Whatever the suit was that was involved in the suit of the flush that first activated the Fever Round is the Fever Suit. That’s what you’ll be hoping to see as much as possible during these hands.

Every time that a card of the Fever Suit appears in the Fever Round, you’ll receive the equivalent of what you wagered. More than one of the Fever Suit means multiple payoffs. In other words, if you have three clubs in a hand and that’s the Fever Suit, you’ll be receiving three times your wager.

Let’s look at an example. Imagine that the Fever Suit is clubs and, after the draw in a Fever Round hand where you wagered 10 coins, you end up with the following:

There are no winning combinations in this hand. But you did end up with three clubs.

As a result, you’ll get three times your 10-coin wager for 30 coins. Minus the 10-coin bet, you came up with 20 coins of profit.

Let’s take a look at another example, again with clubs as the Fever Suit and a ten-coin bet:

Here you made a full house. With a ten-coin wager on a Flush Bonus Poker video poker pay table, you earned 100 coins.

But you also have two clubs in the hand. That means 10 coins times 2 for another 20 coins.

Add it up and you get 120 coins for this hand of Flush Bonus Poker video poker. Minus the 10-coin wager, it’s a 110-coin profit.

Here’s one more example, again with clubs as the Fever Suit and a 10-coin bet.

Here you’ve achieved a straight flush. The payback according to the Flush Bonus Poker video poker pay table is 1,000 coins.

And, for good measure, you’ve got five of the Fever Suit. 5 times 10 gives you 50 more coins for total winnings of 1,050 coins. Minus the 10-coin wager, it’s a profit of 1,040 coins.

On top of all that, this hand will set you up for another Fever Round at the completion of the current one. The Fever Suit for that Fever Round would again be clubs.

These examples show you what a nice bonus the Fever Round can be in Flush Bonus Poker video poker. Your chances of receiving at least one of a given suit at the end of a five-card deal are excellent, especially when you’re aware of the bonus and strategizing for the Fever Suit.

You should also realize that, when you get to the Fever Round, it will be worth it to maximize your bet. Fever Rounds will be the most lucrative points of your Flush Bonus Poker video poker sessions. It makes sense to try to milk them as much as possible.

Pay Table for Flush Bonus Poker Video Poker

It’s always important to take a look at the pay table for whatever brand of video poker you might be playing. The pay table will show you how much you can expect to make for each winning hand. But savvy players will be able to tell if the pay table is going to be beneficial to them or not.

In the case of Flush Bonus Poker video poker, there really is only one style of pay table. This boxes you in a little bit in terms of versatility. In any case, here is the standard pay table for this game:

Coins/Hand	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Royal flush	400	800	1,200	1,600	2,000
Straight flush	100	200	300	400	500
Four of a kind	25	50	75	100	125
Full house	10	20	30	40	50
Flush	7	14	21	28	35
Straight	5	10	15	20	25
Three of a kind	2	4	6	8	10
Two pairs	1	2	3	4	5
Jacks or better	0	0	0	0	0

How do you read the pay table? Simply combine the rows and the columns.
For example, imagine that you get a flush on a five-coin bet. Follow the “flush” row over to the “5-coin column” and you’ll see the number 35, which is how many coins you’ll win. The amount of the bet is included in the number, which means your profit in that case is 28 coins.

If you’re new to video poker, it might be hard to get a handle on whether or not the Flush Bonus Poker video poker pay table is good or bad. For that reason, let’s provide some context. Let’s take a look at the pay table for Jacks or Better, which is the most common form of video poker available in casinos and online.

Jacks or Better Pay Table

Coins/Hand	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Royal flush	250	500	750	1,000	4,000
Straight flush	50	100	150	200	250
Four of a kind	25	50	75	100	125
Full house	9	18	27	36	45
Flush	6	12	18	24	30
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
Three of a kind	3	6	9	12	15
Two pairs	2	4	6	8	10
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

If you only looked from the middle of the pay table upward, you actually might think that the Flush Bonus Poker video poker is much better. The straight, flush, full house, and straight flush all pay more on that pay table than they do on the Jacks or Better pay table. Only at the top with the royal flush does the Jacks or Better pay table come out on top.

But you have to remember that the hands toward the top don’t appear nearly as often as the ones on the bottom. Because of that, any changes on the lower levels tend to have a much bigger impact on overall payback.

In that department, the Jacks or Better payback is much better. Take a look.

Hand	Jacks or Better	Flush Bonus Poker
Three of a kind	3 to 1	2 to 1
Two pairs	2 to 1	1 to 1
Jacks or better	1 to 1	Zero

As you can see, the Flush Bonus Poker video poker pay table discounts pay for all of the common hands. It doesn’t even offer payback on a pair of Jacks or Better.

What does all this mean for gameplay? Well, much of the payback for Flush Bonus Poker video poker is tied up in the Fever Round. During that Fever Round, which won’t come up very often unless you get very lucky with flushes, you can expect your bankroll to really soar.

But when you’re just grinding out game play without any of the bonuses, Flush Bonus Poker video poker will be very tough on your bankroll. The lower-paying hands won’t keep you afloat in the same way as Jacks or Better.

For those reasons, Flush Bonus Poker video poker is considered to be a video poker game with high volatility. It means that you might see stretches where your bankroll surges well past its starting point. But you’re also likely to see spans where it sinks extremely fast as well.

Because of that, Flush Bonus Poker video poker forces you to beef up your starting bankroll. If you don’t, you might find that you take on the risk of running out of money to wager in rapid fashion. That would deny you the chance of making up those losses during a Fever Round.

Flush Bonus Poker Video Poker Payback Percentage

If you’re planning on playing any video poker game with regularity and hoping to make a profit, you need to be aware of the payback percentage of that game. It is calculated by combining the probability of winning hands with the payback for those hands. Payback percentage also factors in special features like the one included in Flush Bonus Poker video poker.

The payback percentage measures the average result that you will get playing a certain game. At 100% payback percentage, you can expect to break even. Most casino games have payback lower than 100%, which is what maintains the house edge.

Flush Bonus Poker video poker is problematic in the payback department for a couple reasons. First of all, its average payback percentage sits at just 95.66%. In other words, after playing $10,000 worth of bets through the machine, you should expect to have $9,566 remaining, or a $434 loss, based on average results.

That is not a very high percentage, although it still does better than most slot machines. But it reveals that even with perfect play, you are most likely going to lose money playing Flush Bonus Poker video poker over the long haul.

What makes it even trickier is the fact that the nature of the game is such that no rewards will come your way for playing it often. Remember that it doesn’t come from a casino or online website. Instead, it’s part of the Oregon lottery system.

Does all this mean that you can ignore Flush Bonus Poker video poker if you happen to be travelling through the Beaver State and see it in a bar or restaurant? Not necessarily.

As a long-term option, it pales in comparison to the most lucrative video poker options. But the chance of a hot streak thanks to a Fever Round or two makes it enticing for those who are looking for quick, significant payback from their video poker selection.

Strategy for Flush Bonus Poker Video Poker

No matter what type of video poker you happen to be playing, strategy is an important part of the equation. For long-term players looking to maximize their winnings, it is crucial to learn perfect strategy.

The key is understanding what means. In every deal of video poker, there are 32 different combination of holds and discards which you can make out of your original five cards. Only one of those 32 is the play you should make.

And that one out of 32 never changes, no matter how many times that deal comes up. After all, the probabilities and the payback don’t change. As a result, the correct play is set in stone.

For that reason, strategy can’t be something you decide on your own. It has to be based entirely on the math. And, because of the nature of Flush Bonus Poker video poker, the math is a little bit trickier than it would be playing other games.

Importance of Flush

You have to put a premium on making a flush of sort. As we said, much of the payback for the game is tied up in the Fever Round. And the only way you can get to that is to make the flush on a regular hand.

As a result, you’ll be leaning a bit more to the flush than you otherwise would. Once you get to the Fever Round, you have to pay close attention to the cards from the Fever Suit. Except on rare occasions, they’ll be automatic holds for you when they come up in your deal.

Going for High-Paying Hands

All of this has to be included as part of a basic strategy that is based on the pay table. Keep in mind that the pay table for Flush Bonus Poker video poker is much different than other video poker games. No payback for any pairs and reduced payback for two pair and three of a kind will alter your normal strategy.

It will make more sense to take chances on high-paying hands when playing Flush Bonus Poker video poker, simply because the common hands don’t offer that much back to you. You’ll find yourself reaching a bit more for these high-paying options.

How can you figure all of this out? You’ll need some help. Trying to do it on your own in the heat of a game will only lead to mistakes, which, in turn, will lower your potential payback.

Luckily, there are resources which will process all of this information to give you the right plays for Flush Bonus Poker video poker. The math will be done for you. You just have to do the work to learn the results.
Check out the following two methods of learning strategy for Flush Bonus Poker video poker:

Strategy Charts

Make sure that the chart that you find makes some sort of recognition of the Flush Bonus Poker video poker special feature. If you can’t find one, you might be able to form your own by consulting a video poker calculator. Just make sure to weigh the flush hands accordingly.

Once you find a pay table, you have to memorize it. It will tell you which of the combinations in your hand is most valuable heading into the draw. In that way, you’ll know what to hold and what to discard in every single situation.

Video Poker Training Software

Training software can be useful with a relatively rare game like Flush Bonus Poker video poker because you can program a lot of the specifics right into it. That will allow you to get instruction that is much more tailored to the game than other sources. It will just take a little time for you to learn it all.

Video poker training software works by simulating play as if you were playing the game for real. Whenever you get to a point where you aren’t sure about what to hold and discard, the software will give the right advice. After time, you’ll be able to achieve perfect play on your own from experiencing all possible scenario within the software.

Flush Bonus Poker Video Poker Pros and Cons

Conclusion on Flush Bonus Poker Video Poker

Flush Bonus Poker video poker could surprise you if you ever happen to come upon it. The Fever Round will have you enjoying the heat while it lasts. Just be prepared for things to get quite cold when those rounds don’t show up with regularity.