Jacks or Better Strategy Card

To use this strategy you simply look at the hand you've been dealt, then compare it the list. The highest hand on the list that it matches are the cards you should keep. So start at the top of the jacks or better strategy card list and work down until you've found a match. Keep the combination of cards that matches the listing and discard the rest.

If you're a poker player you may have to alter your lingo a bit. What poker players call an 'inside straight', video poker players often call a straight with a 'gap'. So if you have four cards of a five card straight, and the missing card is in the middle of the run (meaning the straight can only be completed with one card, as opposed to on either side of a straight) the straight is said to have one gap. If you have the makings of a straight with two missing cards, it's called a straight with two gaps.

Jacks or Better Strategy Card
Royal flush
Straight flush
Four of a kind
Four-card royal flush
Full house
Flush
Three of a kind
Straight
Four-card straight flush
Two pair
Pair of jacks or better (high pair)
Three-card royal flush
Four-card flush
TJQK: unsuited
Pair of 10s or less (low pair)
9TJQ: unsuited
89TJ: unsuited
9JQ (s)
9TQ (s)
Four-card straight, open, no high cards
Three-card straight flush, two gaps, two high cards
Three-card straight flush, one gap, one high card
Three-card straight flush, open, no high cards
JQKA: unsuited
Two-card royal flush, two high cards
Four-card straight, one gap, three high cards
Three-card straight flush, two gaps, one high card
Three-card straight flush, one gap, no high cards
JQK: unsuited
Two high cards: unsuited (when you have three don't keep the ace)
Two-card royal flush with 10 and no ace
One high card
Three-card straight flush, two gaps, no high cards
Nothing (draw five cards)