Play VIDEO POKER - Jacks or Better GAME for FREE.
Jacks or Better is a version of mobile video poker that is wildly popular. It is an easy game to learn to play and youll quickly see how fun it can be!
If youre new to poker, heres what the names of the poker hands mean. If you know this already then skip to the next section.
A full house is a pair and a three of a kind, like 3? 3? 9? 9? 3?. Notice that it doesnt matter what order the cards are in. This is true for all of the different kinds of winning hands -- the cards can be in any order. As long as you could rearrange them to be in order, then its a winning hand.
A flush is a hand where all the cards are the same suit, like 9? Q? 10? 4? 6?.
A straight is a hand with consecutive ranks, like 9? 7? 10? 8? 6?. Notice again that the cards dont have to appear in order. The order of face cards, from lowest to highest, is Jack, Queen, King, Ace, which we abbreviate J, Q, K, A. An ace can also count as 1, to complete a straight where the other cards are 2, 3, 4, and 5. But it cant count as both a low and a high card, e.g., Q K A 2 3.
An outside straight is a set of cards that can be made into a straight with another card on either end. 9? 7? 10? 8? 3? is an outside straight because either a 6 on the low end or a Jack on the high end will turn it into a straight.
An inside straight is a would-be straight with a hole in the middle. 9? 2? 10? 8? 6? is an inside straight because only a 7 will turn it into a straight. The distinction between outside straights and inside straights is important because in Jacks or Better we will never try to turn an inside straight into a straight. Its too hard, since we have only one chance of completing the straight.
A straight flush is a hand that is both a straight and a flush, like 9? 7? 10? 8? J?.
A royal flush is a straight flush composed of the highest cards, such as 10? J? Q? K? A?. But of course they dont all have to be in order. Q? 10? A? J? K? is still a royal flush. The Royal Flush is the jackpot in video poker, and comes around about once out of every 40,000 or so hands -- or a week and a half of full-time play. Hey, it could be worse: The jackpot on a typical slot machine only hits about one out of every 262,144 spins.