First I’ll set the scene – the game here is Jacks or Better video poker and you draw a pair. The first thought is “hey, I should hold this pair” but hopefully you aren’t playing so fast that you don’t pause to take a look at the rest of the cards. That’s when you notice you’re sitting one card away from a flush. Now what do you do? It’s a good dilemma to face.
Let’s take the easiest answer first and say the pair isn’t a high pair of jack, queen, king or ace, but a low pair of twos through tens. Well, our answer comes from looking at the pay chart and considering the odds. If I hold the low pair, I’ll need to get either another pair or another matching card to win. Generally, the odds of that happening aren’t bad, but the pay out is considerably less than the a pay out for a flush. You’d have to hit four of a kind to really make holding that low pair worth while. And hitting four of a kind is a rare event. Meanwhile, you have four cards to a flush. You only need to draw one more suited card and every fourth card in that deck is a matching card. So, hold the four cards toward a flush because it is the better option.
Now let’s make the choice trickier. The pair is a pair of high cards, which means a winning pair. So now you have to discard one card of a winning pair if you want to go after that flush. Is it worth it? Yes. Really, it is the move you should make. Holding those high cards will only keep your money even. It won’t move you ahead. So while it may seem counter-intuitive to sacrifice a winning hand for a potential win, that’s exactly what you should do in this case. So hold those four cards and hit that draw button.
