Practice is important in developing and honing any skill. All of the greats in sports have rigorous practice sessions.

There is a whole lot of truth to what he said.

If you are like me, you marvel at how football players can make spectacular plays with ease. They do not even seem to be trying while making a header into the goal’s mouth just past the goalie’s outstretched hands. The pinpoint passes and deft maneuvers as they work the ball up and down the pitch seem to be made without effort or planning. They just make them happen. As the Nike ads proclaim, they “just do it.”

While all of their plays on the field of battle may seem to be effortless, they are developed only by the players submitting to an intense regimen of practice.

Playing video poker is by no means an intense physical sport such as football, rugby, American football, baseball, cricket, or golf. Practice, however, is none the less a very central and important part of becoming a successful video poker player.

You already know that you must follow a mathematically derived playing strategy to get the most from your video poker play. Imagine how your play would be if you simply take your strategy chart with you into a casino, plop down at your chosen video poker game and start to play. You put your initial playing stake into the currency reader. You hit the Max Credits button and are dealt your first hand. It could be a no brainer of a hand such as a royal flush, a straight flush, or a four of a kind.

It COULD be.

If instead you spend some time at home practicing your video poker play before heading to a casino to play for real, your experience will be much more pleasant and fun.

A few hours (it will most likely be more than just a few hours) spent in practice at home will dramatically speed up your play in the casino. By playing at a faster (and more normal) speed you will not only fit in with the usual video poker playing crowd, you will also be more relaxed. This will make your video poker playing experience a lot more fun.

Keep in mind that just because you have the playing strategy memorized well enough that you do not need your strategy chart for most plays, there is no problem if you pull out your strategy chart for hands about which you are unsure. During the live casino playing sessions you will have shortly after practicing the strategy at home, you may find you will have to refer to your strategy chart quite often. However, as you play more and practice more at home, the instances where you will need to reference your strategy chart will become fewer and fewer. Before you know it, you may find you do not need to refer to it at all.

You now know why practicing your video poker playing strategy is a good idea. But what is the best way to practice it? It is a well know axiom that bad practice produces bad results and only good practice produces good results. In this section you will learn how to practice your video poker strategy in a way that will produce the good results.

Practicing without a computer program or a smartphone / tablet app is more diffcult than practicing with the aid of one. The main reason for this is when you practice without a computer program or smartphone / tablet app you are never absolutely sure that the choice you make for the hold is the correct one. You may have misread the chart or you may not have interpreted what the chart says properly. When this does happen, you have no indication that you have indeed made an error.

It is entirely possible that by practicing without the aid of a computer program or smartphone / tablet app that you will be doing exactly what we are trying to avoid. That is, you will be engaging in bad practice which will produce bad results.

With all that said, you should seriously think about purchasing a video poker application for your computer or smartphone / tablet if you do not already have one. Most of them cost around $50 or less. The added benefit you get by using one is well worth the relatively minor cost.

If you already have a computer or smartphone / tablet app and plan to use this to practice, you should still continue reading this section. Do not go straight to section 7.3 as this current section contains some good information about memorizing the strategy charts.

Okay, you have made the decision to practice your video poker playing strategy without the help of a computer or smartphone / tablet application. That is fine. You may not get all the possible benefits from your efforts, but practicing manually is better than not practicing at all.

It makes no dierence whether you practice manually (without the aid of an automated application) or not. The first thing you should do to achieve your goal is to memorize the strategy chart.

But, you might ask, where can I find a strategy chart for the game I want to play? You could search the internet. There are several places where strategy charts are available. Better still, however, you can go to the chapter in this guide that details the play for your game of choice. Each game that is covered in this guide includes the pay table, the odds of completing each of the paying hands, and the playing strategy chart for the game. Check the index to this guide in order to locate the section that describes how to play the game the interests you. It will also have the strategy chart for that game.

In order to demonstrate more clearly just what is involved in memorizing a strategy chart, I will use a simplified strategy chart for the 9/6 Jacks or Better game. A simplified chart combines some hands that have a very close return into fewer lines. Very little return is sacrificed in order to significantly simplify the strategy. The chart is shown immediately below.

While memorizing the entire chart may seem like a daunting task, it is not quite as bad as it seems. In the top line of the chart are the words “4-of-a-Kind or Better.” This includes all four of a kind hands as well as the straight flush and the royal flush. It is very easy to remember these as they appear rarely and pay handsomely. These are hands that you would no doubt hold even without memorizing any strategy.

The second and third lines add a little wrinkle. They say to hold four cards of a royal flush before holding a three of a kind or better. Three of a kind or better hands include the three of a kind, flush, and full house. The only one of these three that actually matters is the flush because there is no way to have a three of a kind or a full house while at the same time having four cards of a royal flush.

Continuing down the chart the next line reads four cards of an open straight flush. This is followed by two pair which in turn is followed by four cards of an inside straight flush, with a high pair listed after that.

Breaking the chart up into sections of three to six lines that make sense to you will simplify the memorization process. Notice in the line that says “4 Cards of an Open Straight Flush – 2345-9TJQ Suited” that even though the chart shows the top of the range as 9TJQ, you do not need to remember the high range because the TJQK would already have been selected as four cards of a royal flush. Where the ranges are shown, it is simply to make sure the player understands what is being referenced. You already know what an open straight flush is. The additional information does not need to be memorized. In this case simply remembering “4 Cards of an Open Straight Flush” will suffice.

When you begin memorizing the chart, break up the memorization process. Concentrate only on the first several lines for a while. Then concentrate on the next group. Continue this until you feel fairly confident you have the entire chart mastered.

Once you are confident in your knowledge of the strategy chart you are ready to test yourself. Proceed as follows:

Shuffle a deck of cards several times in order to make sure they are thoroughly mixed.

Deal a five card hand face up.

Decide which card(s) you would hold, if any.

Look at the strategy chart to see if you made the right choice.

If you made a mistake, look closely at the chart to see where you went wrong and make an eort to remember the correct play.

Continue dealing five card hands face up and repeating the steps above.

Shuffle as necessary.

Keep it up until you get tired or frustrated then take a break for a while.

Continue the testing / learning process until you get all of your holds for two consecutive shues correct.

You should now be ready to go to a casino and play for real money. By practicing in the manner described above you will have gained the confidence that you know what you are doing. You will also know what type of hands give you a bit of trouble. When those hands appear while playing a live game, you can pull out the strategy chart to make sure you handle each of them properly.

Practicing video poker playing strategy by using a computer program or smartphone / tablet app is far more eective than practicing manually as described in section 7.2. The only real problems that might get in the way of you doing so are that you need a computer or smartphone / tablet and you need the program or application. As mentioned previously, there are several good video poker programs and applications available. They are also quite reasonably priced. If you do not have a video poker application, I strongly suggest you purchase one as soon as you can. You can practice manually for a while until you receive it, so you will not be just sitting around and doing nothing while you wait.

The program / application can be configured to issue warnings when you make a strategy mistake as you play. Most of the programs allow you to set what the program / app will do when an error is encountered. The options include simply issuing a warning, issuing a warning along with the cost of the error, or stopping play when an error is made to allow the player to correct the hold. Some of the programs / applications allow the action to be different depending on the seriousness of the error. Some of the better applications even have an option to repeat hands that you have previously held incorrectly in order to drill the proper holds into your memory.

A video poker program / application will automate much of the practice routine. One thing it will not do, unfortunately, is memorize the strategy chart for you. Just as with manual practice, the first thing that you need to do is memorize the strategy. You can use the same trick of breaking the chart into several sections and memorizing them a section at a time, but no matter how you do it you will need to memorize the chart.

Actually, that may not be entirely true. Because video poker programs / applications are very quick to shuffle and deal hands, you just might be able to get away with relying on your logic to decide which cards to hold and then learn from your mistakes. As you make mistakes the program / application will tell you what you did wrong and sometimes how much the mistake actually cost you. If you repeat the same mistake often enough, you will be corrected so often that eventually you will learn the correct hold.

Memorize the strategy chart until you are confident you have it committed to memory.

If available, set the application option to stop when you have an error and allow you to correct it. It is helpful to also see the cost of your error so also set this option, if available.

Practice for 15 to 30 minutes or until you become tired or frustrated. A tired or frustrated player does not generally make good decisions.

Continue for several 15 to 30 minute sessions until you are making very few errors.

If the application has the option to repeat samples of your most common errors, make sure to go through that exercise, also.

Once you can go for 15 to 20 minutes without any errors, you are most likely ready for live casino play.

Even though you have practiced hard and achieved a high level of skill, there may still be times when you are unsure of what to hold. It is perfectly alright to bring a copy of the strategy chart to the casino so you can reference it when you are uncertain. The casino uses all the tricks it can to relieve you of your money. You can and should also use all the tricks you can (provided they are not illegal) to maximize your take from the casino.