Suit Yourself Poker Video Poker Guide

Suit Yourself Poker video poker represents part of the brave new world of video poker games that add a lot of different features to gameplay. There are several ways you can earn both free games and bonus coins while playing this game. The key is understanding it all and trying to form a cohesive strategy to maximize your winnings.

You can play video poker in hundreds of different ways. Many people like it pretty simple, which is why Jacks or Better, the first video poker format, is still the most popular. But it seems like new variants are made each week. Most games add a twist, alter the pay table, or add wild cards. Still, other games might include a special feature which allows them to earn bonus winnings separate from the base game.

Suit Yourself Poker video poker represents one of the most radical changes in the basic format of video poker. The actual gameplay doesn’t really change, but Suit Yourself Poker video poker features a different way to think about your bankroll, with cash amounts being wagered instead of credits or coins. The pay table for the game is always changing depending on how much you wager.

But the big changes come with the special features. Suit Yourself Poker video poker takes its name from a feature that allows you to choose a designated suit of cards before you begin play. If you manage to make a flush with cards of this suit, you’ll end up in a bonus round which awards free hands of poker.

On top of that, the game features a feature known as “Card of the Day,” where different ranks are designated at the start of each day and are advertised on the machine so you know what they are. If you end up with four of a kind with one of those designated cards, you get to spin a bonus wheel. The bonus spin contains coin amounts that you can win on top of your original payback for the four of a kind.

In addition, the game requires a pretty substantial wager for you to attain payback that would let you potentially make a profit playing the game. And the bonuses, which only appear sporadically, make the game a bit of a bumpy ride. But Suit Yourself Poker video poker can be just what the doctor ordered if you’re tired of thinking of the game the same old way.

In the following article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about Suit Yourself Poker video poker. We’ll explain how to play a basic hand and how the different features come into play. And we’ll talk about how the pay tables work, payback percentage, and how you can learn the best strategy.

Why People Love Video Poker

Suit Yourself Poker video poker, as different as it may seem, is still basically video poker at heart. There are a lot of bells and whistles, so to speak. But the basic rhythm of play remains unchanged, and the same goes for the advantages of playing the game.

If you’ve never played video poker before, you might not understand what’s so great about it. It’s common for non-players to lump video poker in with slot machines, since both are often found near each other in casinos. Others might confuse the game somehow with poker they watch on television.

In actuality, video poker takes a little bit from both of those games. You get the same self-contained play as if you were playing a slot machine. But you also get the strategic element of table games.

It’s accurate to say that video poker represents the best of both worlds. How so? Take a look at all the benefits awaiting you when you sit down to a session of video poker, either in a casino or at a gambling website:

• Video poker requires just you to play. You don’t have to worry about other patrons or playing with proper casino etiquette. Instead, you can play at your own place without having to worry about what anybody else thinks.
• Video poker is simple to learn. Beginners who have never even played a single hand of poker should be able to figure it out in a few minutes. And you can play it pretty effectively after you learn some basic strategy.
• Video poker is extremely varied. Even though the way you play hands rarely changes, you can still find different ways to approach the game. Suit Yourself Poker video poker is just one of them.
• Video poker gives you some control over the action. Many people get frustrated with slot machines, the other main self-contained casino game, because they can’t have any impact on the outcome. But video poker gives you the chance to make decisions that will determine, to some extent, whether you win or lose.
• Video poker reveals all you need to know. The pay table tells you what to expect from winning hands, and playing card probability lets you know how often those winning hands will show up during gameplay. It all adds up to a completely transparent experience.
• Video poker is an excellent gambling investment. It ranks higher in terms of payback than slot machines by a pretty wide margin. And certain video poker games, including Suit Yourself Poker video poker, give you the chance of making a long-term profit.
• Video poker can be played online without losing any bit of the experience. A video poker game in a casino and one on one of the best online casinos pretty much look and play the same. And most gambling sites carry a wide selection of the top video poker games for you to play.

These are just some of the reasons that you should be looking into playing video poker, if you haven’t already. Now, it’s time to look into how the game is played.

Playing a Hand of Video Poker

Because the processes of building a bankroll and betting in Suit Yourself Poker video poker are a bit different than normal video games, we’re going to hold off on telling you about that for the moment. But we can go into the process of actually playing a hand, since that doesn’t really change.

For the most part, video poker replicates the card game known as Five-Card Draw. Five-Card Draw Poker lets you choose which cards you want to hold and discard from a five-card deal. Discarded cards will be replaced by others “drawn” from the deck as you to try to make the best poker hand that you can.

But you have to remember that Five-Card Draw is a game for multiple players. To win a hand, you have to make sure your hand beats the hand of everybody else at the table. Or you have to find a way to bluff them into giving up their hands and folding.

Video poker, by contrast, is a one-person game. For you to win a hand and receive something in return for your wager, you simply have to achieve one of the winning combinations listed on the pay table. In the case of Suit Yourself Poker video poker, you’ll be trying for these winning hands.

• Pair of aces
• 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)

The pair of aces at the top of this list is the lowest-ranked winning hand in Suit Yourself Poker video poker. As you move down the list, the winning hands will occur less and less frequently during gameplay. Hands at the bottom of the list pay the most.

Once you hit the “deal” button after making your bet, you’ll see five cards appear on the screen. These cards will be sources from a simulated deck of 52 within the software of the machine that is always being shuffled. As a result, the five cards that appear will be completely random every deal.

Your job is to look at these five cards and decide which you should hold. The ones that you hold will be part of your final five-card hand. Remember, you’re trying to make a winning hand, so the cards you hold should be set up to help you in that regard.

Meanwhile, the cards that you don’t want to keep will be discarded. You’ll get to draw new cards to replace the ones that you discard. The draw will come from the same deck which provided the deal minus the five cards that were dealt, leaving you 47 cards from which to draw.

Let’s take a look at a sample hand to see how this all works. Imagine that you receive the following five cards on a Suit Yourself Poker video poker deal.

None of the combinations in this five-card deal is a winning one. But there are several potential winning hands to be found if you added one or two specific cards. You have to decide which of these potential winning hands you wish to pursue.

For example, you could hold onto the pair of threes. In this case, you’d be dropping three cards, meaning that you get to draw three new ones. As a result, you could possibly draw two pair, three of a kind, a full house, or four of a kind.

Another way to play the hand would be to go for the flush. All you would need to do is draw one more Heart after dropping the three of spades. This could be an especially lucrative play in Suit Yourself Poker video poker, as we’ll find out shortly.

One other major possibility would be to hold onto only the three, four, and five of hearts. By doing this, you would leave all of the following winning hands in play: two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, and straight flush. The straight flush is the real gem there, one of the highest-paying hands in the game.

As you can see, you’ll be judging risk versus reward when making your choices playing video poker. Not all hands will be so difficult in terms of your decision-making. But this example gives you an idea of how strategy can be tricky.

In any case, once you decide which cards you want to hold (if any), you’ll press the buttons corresponding to them. You’ll then hit the “draw” button. That will signal the game to complete the hand by drawing new cards to replace the discarded ones.

That’s how you play a hand of video poker, and, as we said, that will be your process in Suit Yourself Poker video poker as well. But there are many unique parts to this game that we’re about to explore.

Bankroll and Betting for Suit Yourself Poker Video Poker

This is one of the first major differences you’ll notice playing Suit Yourself Poker video poker, especially if you’re used to common video poker machines. The processes for how a bankroll is formed and how you make wagers are much different animals on this game.

When you play normal video poker, the bankroll is created when you put money into a machine. But that money is represented by units known as credits or coins. Each of those units is tied into the denomination of the machine.

Since there are no coins or credits, you simply make your bet for each hand of Suit Yourself Poker video poker in terms of cents or dollars. Bets start out at 5 cents and go as high as $25.

As far as increments, you can bet by the nickel up to $1. From $1 to $5, bets can be made in increments of 25 cents. And from $5 to $20, betting increments go up in $1 increments before taking one final jump to $25.

In normal video poker, we always advise the maximum bet per hand, since that also maximizes your potential winnings. As for Suit Yourself Poker video poker, the higher you bet, the more beneficial the pay table will be to you. Some of the bonuses also get a boost at higher wager amounts.

We’d recommend going as high as $10per hand with your Suit Yourself Poker video poker wagers. That’s when payback reaches a recommended level (more on that later) and plateaus a bit. A $25 wager is the most profitable for you in terms of the long haul, but it’s only slightly better than the $10 level.

The Suit Yourself Bonus

If you’re wondering where Suit Yourself Poker video poker gets its name, it comes from one of the major bonuses that it offers. Before each session, you’ll be asked to pick a certain suit.

You can keep that suit for the entire session or change it up every hand if you wish. There’s no advantage in picking one suit over another, since your chances of any suit appearing in a given hand are the same.

Once you choose the suit, you’ll be hoping and striving to achieve any kind of a flush with that suit. In other words, a standard flush, a straight flush or a royal flush would all qualify. As long as you have five cards of your chosen suit in your final hand, you get the bonus.

What is the bonus? Well, after you make the flush, you’ll see 12 cards laid face down in front of you on the screen. These cards are the 12 face cards in the deck (jacks, queens, and kings).

You will start turning over the cards by touching them on the screen. The goal is to turn over all three face cards of the designated suit you originally chose for your Suit Yourself Poker video poker session.

The best that you can do is to turn over the three face cards on your first three tries. That will earn you 25 free hands. But the longer you take, the less free hands you’ll earn. For example, four tries to turn over the three cards you need would earn you 20 hands. Five tries to do it would earn you 15 hands, and so on down the line.

The worst that you can do would be to turn over all 12 cards before turning over the three that you need of the chosen suit. That would earn you five free hands.

During the free hands, you’ll be paid off based on whatever your original wager was for the hand that triggered the Suit Yourself Poker video poker bonus. But you won’t actually have to make wagers in that span. You’ll just get the winnings, so it’s all a bonus.

On top of that, all the free hands are played with aces as wild cards. In other words, whenever you end up with an ace in your hand, it can be turned into whatever card in the deck improves your hand the most. That will give you the opportunity for rare hands to turn up, ones that you wouldn’t normally be able to make without wild cards available.

In addition, you can continue to earn flush bonuses while you’re in free hand mode. The hands that you earn in that case would simply be added the ones you’ve already earned.

What all this means is that achieving a flush with the Suit Yourself Poker video poker special suit can really jack up your winnings in a hurry. Having up to 25 free hands with a wild card is a really valuable bonus. You should be aware of this possibility the entire time that you play.

Card of the Day Bonus

Another way that Suit Yourself Poker video poker adds some spice to the proceedings is by the Card of the Day bonus. As opposed to the special Suit bonus, which you select, the designated cards of the day are determined by the machine itself. The ranks of these cards will generally change from day to day.

Usually, you’ll have two of these designated ranks which you’ll be looking for as you play your hands. For example, one day the cards in question might be any five or six. Another day, it might be eight or nine.

Once you identify these cards (they’ll be advertised prominently on the Suit Yourself Poker video poker screen), your goal will be to make four of a kind with them. If you do, you’ll obviously win whatever the pay table determines for four of a kind right off the bat.

Here are the coin amounts on the wheel, which contains 16 different spaces:

• 7
• 7
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 9
• 10
• 10
• 12
• 15
• 20
• 25
• 30
• 35
• 50
• 100

You could imagine how you can benefit from this specific Suit Yourself Poker video poker bonus. The payback for Four of a Kind depends on how much you wager. But at the very least you’re looking at payback in the neighborhood of 30 to 1.

Then you would be adding whatever you win on the wheel. These amounts will be meted out in proportion to your original wager. It can be a huge, quick boost to your bankroll.

Much like the special suit bonus, this Suit Yourself Poker video poker bonus requires you to be aware of what cards you need to make this happen. Make note of what the Cards of the Day are so you can take advantage.

Mystery Bonus Wheel

As if the first two bonuses weren’t enough, Suit Yourself Poker video poker also includes a so-called Mystery Bonus. It’s a mystery because you won’t even know when it’s going to show up during game play. But it can be a real advantage to you whenever you get to partake in it.

The Mystery Bonus appears completely at random. And you shouldn’t expect it to appear very often. But, much like the Cards of the Day bonus, it gives you a wheel to spin.

In this case, you won’t be able to do anything to earn that wheel spin. You just have to keep playing Suit Yourself Poker video poker and hope that it suddenly shows up.

For bets below $4, here is what’s waiting on the Mystery Bonus Wheel during Suit Yourself Poker video poker play:

• 5
• 5
• 5
• 8
• 8
• 8
• 8
• 10
• 10
• 10
• 20
• 50
• 75
• 100
• 250

For bets of $4 or more, the Suit Yourself Poker video poker Mystery Bonus Wheel contains these bonuses:

• 25
• 25
• 25
• 40
• 40
• 40
• 40
• 50
• 50
• 100
• 200
• 300
• 500
• 1195

You can see that a bet of above $4 is really beneficial if the Mystery Bonus shows up. Of course, you might play Suit Yourself Poker video poker for quite some time before you see the wheel show up. But it will be worth it to have made the extra wager when it does arrive.

Suit Yourself Poker Video Poker Pay Tables And Payback Percentages

Normally, video poker pay tables are constructed to show you how much you get depending on the coins that you wager. For example, this is what a Jacks or Better pay table looks like:

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
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 pair	2	4	6	8	10
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

But remember that we told you above that Suit Yourself Poker video poker doesn’t work with coins or credits. You make your bets in monetary increments. For example, you might bet 25 cents one hand and then $5 the next if you choose.

As a result, you’ll see a different pay table for each amount that you wager. And that pay table gets more beneficial to the player the higher that you bet. You can tell this is the case because the payback percentages steadily rise depending upon the amount wagered for Suit Yourself Poker video poker.

When you wager $10 per hand, you can expect to earn 99% in payback percentage. That total factors in the pay table available to you at that level as well as all the bonuses you’re capable of earning.

We generally recommend any video poker game that pays back at 99% or better. Such games give you the chance of possibly eliminating the house edge. You can do that by maxing out your winnings and atoning for your losses by earning casino or gambling website loyalty rewards.

For the most part, pay tables on Suit Yourself Poker video poker will offer less in payback for each specific hand than normal video poker tables. Why is that? Well, don’t forget about all of the bonuses you’re receiving when playing the game.

Normal video poker games might require you to make an extra bet to earn those rewards. Suit Yourself Poker video poker doesn’t ask you to do that. All of those bonuses are in play whether you’re betting a nickel or $25 dollars per hand.

If Suit Yourself Poker video poker didn’t adjust the pay table to account for that, gamblers would make a ton of money playing the game. And no casino is going to want a game like that in their establishment.

As a result, don’t be surprised to see even common hands like two pair or three of a kind pay out less on a Suit Yourself Poker video poker pay table than they would on Jacks or Better or other basic pay tables. You have to balance that out against the bonuses you receive.

Because the bonuses only come on rare hands and don’t come around that often, Suit Yourself Poker video poker is a particularly volatile form of video poker. You have to be prepared for long stretches where your bankroll suffers. But the flipside is the possibility of a big bonus that can send your bankroll into the stratosphere in a hurry.

Strategy for Suit Yourself Poker Video Poker

One of the drawbacks to games that add special features onto basic video poker play is it confuses strategy a bit. And video poker strategy is already pretty complex to start. That’s why people use video poker training software and strategy charts to get some help with their process.

But using such resources to learn Suit Yourself Poker video poker is a relatively futile exercise. There are so many bonuses floating around that skew the results. It is extremely difficult to factor all of that it into a strategy chart or training software somehow. Even video poker calculators would struggle in this respect.

The problem then is that it is difficult to know what the ideal mathematical play is for each hand of Suit Yourself Poker video poker. In other words, what is the combination of holds and discards that brings the highest expected value to the hand? Without being able to precisely determine that, your expected payback percentage will start to dwindle.

We do have some suggestions for devising a good Suit Yourself Poker video poker strategy though. First of all, the flush bonus is extremely valuable. You should really be thinking about going for that whenever possible.

Remember our sample deal from above. Here it is again to refresh your memory.

There are pay tables you can play where the wisest play here would be to hold the pair of threes. And you might come up with a pay table where it’s best to hold the three, four, and five of hearts.

But in Suit Yourself Poker video poker, it’s smart to go for the Flush here if your chosen suit was hearts. The chance of getting free hands with wild cards involved is just too valuable to pass up. If, however, the chosen suit wasn’t hearts, it would be best to go in another direction.

On top of that, you have to consider the importance of the Four of a Kind bonus spin waiting for you if you can manage the quad with one of the Cards of the Day. Take a look at the following deal:

Normally, it would be hard to pass up the outside chance of a royal flush. As a result, you’d usually be holding onto the jack, queen, and king of clubs, giving up on the pair of fives in the process.

But what if Fives were one of the Cards of the Day for a session of Suit Yourself Poker video poker? You’d be wise in that case to hold onto them and discard the other three cards. After all, you’d be giving yourself a chance for a four of a kind with that valuable card, which would give you that lucrative bonus spin.

It’s understandable that you might be a bit leery about betting something like $10 a hand if you’re a casual video poker player. After all, you’d need to come into play with a significant bankroll to help fight off the volatility.

But playing hands of Suit Yourself Poker video poker with bets of a dollar or less is going to leave you with a pretty paltry payback percentage. For those not planning on playing video poker that often, this game might not be for you. It just might be too pricey to play it well.

The only exception would be if you’re in it to try and win a lot of money in a hurry. With all of the bonuses that are in play in Suit Yourself Poker video poker, your chances of a quick, significant strike go up drastically from the common video poker game. If that’s what you’re seeking and you’re not worried losing all of your bankroll quickly, this game certainly could work for you.

Suit Yourself Poker Video Poker Pros and Cons

Conclusion on Suit Yourself Video Poker

Suit Yourself Poker video poker gives you a lot of different twists of which you have to keep track. It might leave your head spinning trying to account for it all. But, for those who appreciate novelty, it certainly qualifies as a different way to look at video poker.