Straight Flush Deluxe Video Poker

Straight Flush Deluxe video poker tells you where it’s coming from in the
name of the game. It is a variation of video poker that puts a heavy stress on
making a straight flush hand. That means you might have to change up your normal
strategy a bit when playing this game, especially if all you’re used to is other
forms of video poker.

In most forms of video poker, the royal flush is the be-all, end-all of
hands, the one that is hardest to get and pays the most. And, in most cases, it
stands so far apart from the rest of the hands that it probably seems like the
only way you can make real money. Considering it is an extremely rare hand to
encounter, that can be a daunting prospect for casual video poker players.

The next thing in the video poker world to try to change that up was
something called
Bonus
Poker. While still putting the royal flush above everything else on the pay
table, Bonus Poker games, which come in many variations, add payouts in the pay
table that come close to the neighborhood of the royal. In particular, four of a
kind hands can really bring in nice payouts on these machines.

Straight Flush Deluxe video poker creates another kind of a bonus game in
that it pumps up the payment for a hand that’s not the royal flush. As the name
suggests, that hand is the straight flush, which brings a payback of 500 to 1 if
you can hit it. In some cases, you’ll even see Straight Flush Deluxe referred to
as Straight Flush Bonus, since it is like the bonus games in how it brings
another hand into the orbit of the royal flush.

The key to succeeding at Straight Flush Deluxe video poker is to make sure
you keep the possibility of a straight flush hand in the back of your mind when
deciding which cards to hold and which to discard. And, as with most video poker
games found in casinos or online, you need to be aware of how the pay tables
work in conjunction with payback percentages. If you can do all that, you might
indeed enjoy Straight Flush Deluxe.

We’ll show you how Straight Flush Deluxe video poker is played in essentially
the same way as all other video poker games. We’ll then show you how it’s
different, particularly in regard to the pay tables and what each winning hand
pays out. Finally, we’ll go over how to come up with proper strategy when it
comes to playing the game and trying to earn the most money for yourself.

Why People Play Video Poker

Before we get into the specifics of Straight Flush Deluxe video poker and how
to play the game, it’s a good idea to talk about why video poker is such a
desirable game to play. If you’ve never considered it, we’re about to give you
several reasons why you should.

On the one hand, video poker resembles slot machines in that it is played by
a person standing alone at a machine. But it also comes near the experience of
table games in that there is a strategic element. Your choices actually impact
whether you win or lose, even though luck is still the biggest element of
success, or lack thereof, in the game.

Yet even as it combines some of the best elements of both table games and
slot machines, video poker can boast advantages over both. In terms of the
slots, video poker can claim much higher payback rates to players than most slot
machines. And the results of slot machines are completely random, while video
poker is beholden to probabilities and, therefore, yields more reliable results
for gamblers.

Meanwhile, inexperienced gamblers know how intimidating it can be to play
table games. If you don’t quite know the rules or the protocol for playing, you
can be hassled by casino patrons and employees alike. That’s not the experience
most people want in the casino, and it’s not something that they have to worry
about when playing video poker.

Video poker also holds an edge over table games in terms of online play. When
you are playing video poker online, and you look at the screen of a computer,
tablet, or smartphone, you will be seeing pretty much the same display as if you
were playing the game in the casino. As a result, there is a smooth translation
from casino to online play.

As you can see, video poker holds a lot of benefits. All you have to do is
learn how to play, which, as you’re about to learn, is a pretty simple process
for experts and newcomers alike.

How to Play Straight Flush Deluxe Video Poker

There is really no difference in gameplay between Straight Flush Deluxe video
poker and the most basic form of video poker known as Jacks or Better. You’ll be
pushing the same buttons and going through pretty much the same process. The
only difference arises in terms of how much each winning hand is worth, which
we’ll discuss when we get to the pay tables.

In its most basic form, video poker is simply a simulated version of the card
game known as Five-Card Draw. When playing that game, players are dealt five cards from a standard
deck of 52. They then can try to improve their hand by drawing new cards into
their hand to replace other ones that they discard.

In Five-Card Draw, however, you are playing against other players. With video
poker, it’s just you and the machine. Your goal is to make the best possible
winning hand that will pay you the most money.

So what are the hands that will pay you money? Here is the list of the hands
that pay out in Straight Flush Deluxe video poker:

• A pair of jacks or better
• Two pair
• Three of a kind
• Straight (five cards in order of rank)
• Flush (five cards of the same suit)
• Full house (three of a kind of one rank and a pair of another rank in
  the same hand)
• Four of a kind
• Straight flush (a straight and a flush within the same hand)
• Royal flush (ten through ace of the same suit)

In this case, the top of that list represents the easiest hands to make,
which are also the hands that pay out the least. As you go down the list, the
hands become harder to make and get progressively more lucrative in terms of
their payout.

Knowing that, let’s walk you through how to play Straight Flush Deluxe video
poker, all the way from inserting your money to walking away from the machine.

Step 1: Building Your Bankroll

You need a bankroll to play Straight Flush Deluxe video poker because you
have to risk money to possibly win money from the machine (or the online site.)
Most video poker machines have a slot where you can insert cash or a redemption
ticket. This will be your bankroll to begin play.

Online play requires you to create an account with the gambling website of
your choice. This will also mean funding the account before you can start to
play. Some websites offer free play to entice new gamblers, but you won’t be
able to collect winnings from this play in most cases without an account in
place.

Your bankroll will be shown on the game screen in terms of credits, or coins.
Each credit or coin is equal to the amount of the denomination of the machine.
Some video poker games are limited to a specific denomination, while others let
you choose between a nickel, a quarter, a dollar, and so on.

As an example, if you were to put 10 dollars into a machine with a
denomination of a dollar, you would have ten credits with which to begin play.
You should be aware of how long you wish to play before deciding on your
bankroll amount. Otherwise, you might find yourself blowing through it in a
hurry before you wished to quit.

Step 2: Deciding on Your Bet for Each Hand

Straight Flush Deluxe video poker, like most video poker variations, gives
you the option of playing between one and five credits each hand. You can play
the same amount every time, or you can switch it up from hand to hand. But you
have a compelling reason to simply play the maximum five credits every single
hand that you play.

That reason is the fact that most video poker pay tables, including those for
Straight Flush Deluxe video poker, change up the ratio of payment for the royal
flush hand depending on how much is bet. All other hands have payouts that rise
in direct proportion to the amount bet. That is not the case with the royal
flush, which jumps from 250 to 1 with one through four coins played to 800 to 1
with five coins played.

Think about that difference for a second. If you were playing at a dollar
machine, you would cost yourself at least $3,000 by not playing the maximum
amount if you manage to get a royal flush. That’s why you should either play the
max bet or move to a machine with a smaller denomination if the max bet is too
rich for your taste at the higher level.

If you do choose to bet lower, you can manually toggle through the amounts by
constantly hitting the “Bet” button. Or you can simply hit “Max Bet” if you want
to stick with our recommendation and play five coins every single hand of your
session.

Step 3: Seeing the Deal

Once you have your bet settled, you can hit the “Deal” button to start your
hand. Five cards will appear on the screen. These five cards will be the
starting point for the hand in question.

It’s a good idea to understand how and why particular cards show up on the
screen when they do. Think of the software inside the machine as a shuffling
device, constantly shuffling the simulated deck of 52 cards until you hit that
“Deal” button. Once you do, the top five cards in the digital deck pop up on the
screen.

It’s important to understand that so that you don’t make wrong-headed
decisions when playing Straight Flush Deluxe video poker. No machine is “due” to
win, and no cards are “due” to appear in a hand. Each deal is completely unique
and has nothing to do with any previous deals on the machine.

Ideally, your five cards will give you either a winning hand like the ones we
mentioned above or at least the start of one. Luckily, even if you don’t get
much on the deal, you’re going to have a chance to make your hand even better
with the draw.

Step 4: Deciding on the Draw

Once you have assessed your five-card deal, you then have to decide how to
proceed with the draw. The draw is the one chance that you get to improve your
hand. You do this by holding onto certain cards and discarding the ones that you
don’t want, for which you get new cards from the deck in return.

If you love the cards that you’ve been dealt, you don’t have to draw
anything. By contrast, if none of the cards you’ve been dealt seem beneficial to
your chances of a winning hand, you can discard them all. Or you can obviously
hold and discard any combination of the five cards.

To make this decision, you have to weigh your chances of achieving certain
winning hands on the draw. You also have to factor in how much each of these
winning hands pay. It’s a kind of risk/reward situation in every hand that you
play.

For example, let’s say that you’ve received the following deal:

This hand is not a winner as it is. But the good news is that there are a
pair of potential winning hands within those five cards. You’ve got a pair of
fours, and you’ve also got four cards to a straight.

On the one hand, the pair of fours gives you far more chances to improve your
hand, since you’ll be discarding three cards if that’s the direction that you
choose to go. On the other hand, a straight pays out at 4 to 1, which is a
little higher than the payout for the three of a kind. And the three of a kind
hand represents your best chance of a winning hand if you keep the pair.

Let’s say that you decide to keep the pair. What you would do is press the
“Hold” buttons directly underneath the four of spades and the four of hearts.
Then press the “Draw” button to move on from there and see what you get.

Here is a possible outcome:

You didn’t improve the fours, but you did get a pair of tens on the draw as
well. That gives you two pair, which, as you can see in the list of winning
hands above, will return some money to you from your original bet. Check the pay
table to see how much you won.

Step 5: Continuing Play or Quitting

Now that you know how to play a single hand, you can play for as long as you
have credits left. All you have to do is repeat steps two through four to keep
going. No need to worry about step one again, since you already have money in
the machine.

Of course, once you run out of credits, you have to either quit or put more
money back into the machine (or, if playing online, your account.) If you’d like
to quit at any time while you still have credits remaining, simply push the
“Cash Out” button. You’ll get a redemption ticket which you can use elsewhere in
the casino or trade in for cash.

Taking a Look at the Pay Tables for Straight Flush Deluxe Video Poker

By looking at the pay table for a given video poker game, you can tell how
much you are going to be paid for each potential winning hand, based on how much
you bet. But you can also tell how you should strategize for the game in terms
of the cards you should be holding and discarding for each hand. A pay table
will even allow you to check out how much payback you can expect from a given
game.

First things first, let’s take a look at a pay table for Straight Flush
Deluxe video poker. This is the full-pay version of the game, which means that
it pays out more than any other version of the game on average.

Full-Pay Straight Flush Deluxe Video Poker Pay Table

Coins/Hands	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Royal Flush	250	500	750	1000	4000
Straight Flush	400	800	1200	1600	2000
4 of a Kind	50	100	150	200	250
Full House	10	20	30	40	50
Flush	6	12	18	24	30
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
3 of a Kind	3	6	9	12	15
2 Pairs	1	2	3	4	5
Jacks or Better	1	2	3	4	5

To read the pay table, simply follow the row which contains your winning hand
over to the column that includes the amount that you bet. For example, a full
house with five coins wagered pays off 50 coins. That includes the amount that
was bet, so the profit would be 45, or 50 minus 5.

You can see the evidence of the royal flush jumping in payment from four
coins to five coins, as we explained above in the betting section. That should
be all you need to see to convince you to play the max bet each and every hand.

You can also see how the straight flush pays off more than the royal flush at
every level except the five-coin mark. That’s an indication of how highly
Straight Flush Deluxe video poker values the straight flush hand. In most basic
pay tables, there is nothing anywhere near the royal flush in terms of payout.

To give you an idea of the other areas where the Straight Flush Deluxe
full-pay diverges from more common forms of video poker, here is a look at a pay
table for the full-pay table of Jacks or Better, which is the most recognizable
form of video poker around.

Full-Pay Jacks or Better Pay Table

Coins/Hands	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Royal Flush	250	500	750	1000	4000
Straight Flush	50	100	150	200	250
4 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
3 of a Kind	3	6	9	12	15
2 Pairs	2	4	6	8	10
Jacks or Better	1	2	3	4	5

You can see that, as is typical in Bonus Poker games, Straight Flush Deluxe
video poker boosts the payout for the four of a kind hand. That, on top of the
increased payout for the straight flush, means that this game gets a larger
majority of its payback from rare hands than a game like Jacks or Better does.

Jacks or Better, by contrast, includes a 2 to 1 payoff for two pair. With
Straight Flush Deluxe, the payoff for two pair is only even-money. Since you
will end up with two pair roughly once in every ten hands of play, Jacks or
Better really has an advantage over Straight Flush Deluxe in this area.

What all of that means is that Straight Flush Deluxe video poker is an
excellent fit for those people who like to get a little more bang in a short
period of time for their gambling buck. You have more opportunities for high
payouts. As a tradeoff, you will also have a harder time sustaining your
bankroll without those payouts because of the low pay for two pair.

In terms of those who like steadier play that is likelier to last longer,
Jacks or Better is a better choice. But what about if you plan on playing the
game for a long period of time? That’s where the payback percentages factor into
the equation.

Payback Percentages for Straight Flush Deluxe Video Poker

The payback percentage is the ultimate determining factor in which video poker games
are best to play over a long period of time. By a long period of time, we mean
people who make regular visits to a casino (or who play regularly online),
spending hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on a typical video poker variation
like Straight Flush Deluxe. A higher payback percentage means more money
returned to the gambler.

The payback percentage is a byproduct of the pay tables. Once you see how
much each winning hand pays, you can calculate the payback percentage because
mathematics determines the probabilities of reaching those hands. Others have
done that math for you, luckily, so all you have to do is look for the pay table
online and see the payback percentage attached to it.

Anything over 99% is an excellent payback percentage for serious players. It
still means that they’ll be losing 1% of their bankroll when they play the game.
But when you consider the casino rewards that go with playing video poker for a
long time, you can conceivably consider turning a profit if the percentage is
that high.

In the case of the full-pay version of Straight Flush Deluxe video poker, the
percentage sits at a healthy 99.12%. That is not quite as high as the full-pay
for Jacks or Better, which sits at 99.54%. But it’s still good enough to make it
a recommended game of video poker if you find it in a casino or online.

But that is a very big “if.” Casinos tend to stock lots of versions of video
poker that are less than full-pay to turn more of a profit. What you have to
decide is whether a particular game is worth playing at less than the maximum
payout potential.

For example, here is a lesser-paying version of Straight Flush Deluxe video
poker that you might encounter in a casino or online.

Coins/Hands	1 coin	2 coins	3 coins	4 coins	5 coins
Royal Flush	250	500	750	1000	4000
Straight Flush	400	800	1200	1600	2000
4 of a Kind	50	100	150	200	250
Full House	9	18	27	36	45
Flush	6	12	18	24	30
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
3 of a Kind	3	6	9	12	15
2 Pairs	1	2	3	4	5
Jacks or Better	1	2	3	4	5

You might be able to spot the lone difference on this pay table compared to
the one we listed above as full-pay. That is the fact that on this one, the full
house pays out at 9 to 1. But on the full-pay version, it is listed at 10 to 1.

What difference does that seemingly little change make? Well, this
lesser-paying version has a payback percentage of 98%. Just that one difference
changes a recommended game into one that is less than ideal.

That doesn’t mean that you should only play the full-pay and avoid Straight
Flush Deluxe video poker completely if you can’t find it. Remember that the
payback percentage really only takes effect over the long haul. Over a short
session playing the game, you probably won’t notice too much of a difference.

In addition, the outcome of a short session, or even several short sessions,
will be dictated by luck more than anything else. If you are a casual player,
payback percentages might not factor as much into your decision as the style of
the game. But those players who want to play video poker at a high level and
possibly turn a profit over time should really stick to the games, like the
full-pay version of Straight Flush Deluxe, that maximize their profits.

Learning Strategy for Straight Flush Deluxe Video Poker

Another way that you can maximize your profits is to play Straight Flush
Deluxe video poker with perfect strategy. That means making the right decision
every single time that you’re dealt a hand in terms of every single hold and
discard.

The right decision is the one that brings the highest expected value to the
hand. Like the payback percentage, expected value is something that can only be
measured over a long period of time.

Let’s go back to that sample hand that we played out above.

We played the pair of fours. As it turns out, that is the mathematically
correct play based on the probabilities to which one can draw and the payouts
for those hands. But let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that you decided to go
for the straight and dumped one of the fours.

You might get lucky on the draw one time and pick up the five that you need.
You might even get lucky two or three times in a row with that draw. But over a
long period of time, the odds would eventually even out.

If you played the hand an infinite amount of times, the play that would
return you the highest amount is to hold onto the pair of fours. Again, casual
players might get away with not knowing this, since luck will win out on a small
sample size. But a serious player needs to know the play with the highest
expected value on every possible combination of the cards that they might
receive on the deal.

That might sound like an impossible prospect for anyone who isn’t a genius at
math and probability. Luckily, there are some resources out there that can help
you out in this difficult quest. Here are the two most important and effective
methods for you to consider.

Video Poker Training Software

You can pick up free video poker training software as an app for your phone
if you’d like. For a game like Straight Flush Deluxe video poker, which isn’t as
common as some variants of video poker, your best bet is to buy software. The
software that can be purchased and downloaded on your computer usually includes
a feature that lets you customize the instruction you receive based on a
specific pay table.

Once you have a version that is tailored to Straight Flush Deluxe video
poker, you can play out sample hands as if you were playing for real money. As
you come around to a difficult decision in terms of holding and discarding on a
certain deal, you can ask for help from the program. Or you can try to guess
yourself, knowing that the software will alert you if you make the wrong
decision.

You’ll need to practice with the software for a good amount of time before
you can get the full effect. But after a while, you’ll find that you don’t need
suggestions anymore and that you’re not making any more mistakes. That’s when
you’re probably ready to come extremely close to perfect play.

Strategy Charts

Sometimes called strategy cards, strategy charts are essentially lists of all
the potential combinations of cards you might receive on a deal. These
combinations are then ranked from best to worst.

You can usually find a strategy chart for just about every version of video
poker if you look hard enough. Just make sure that the one you find is meant for
Straight Flush Deluxe video poker and not some other form of the game.

Let’s go back to that sample hand one more time to see how a strategy chart
works:

What you’ll see as you go down the chart from top to bottom are various
combinations of cards. At some point, you’ll run across something like these
two:

One Pair, Tens or Lower
Four Cards to Straight, Inside

An inside straight draw is one where the card you need comes in the middle of
the string of cards that you already have in your hand. This is opposed to an
open-ended straight draw, which is easier to make.

In this case, you can see that your pair of fours is higher on the chart than
the four cards to the straight. As a result, you know that the pair is what you
should be keeping and that the others in your hand should be discarded.

The best way to work with a strategy chart is to memorize it. If you try to
bring it in the casino with you, it will slow down your play and might upset the
casino, who might consider it a form of cheating. Memorizing it, while it might
take you a long time, will ultimately lead to fast, perfect play.

Pros and Cons of Playing Straight Flush Deluxe Video Poker

Conclusion

If you’re tired of your average Bonus Poker variation, Straight Flush video
poker might be just the tonic for you. Whether you’re playing the game at your
favorite casino or online casino website,
it gives you another hand that should be your goal beyond the royal flush. But
keep in mind that, like all bonus games, you have to give something up for any
extras that you might get on the pay table.