If the most basic of poker principles excite you but the prospect of playing the game among ruthless strangers repels you, then consider trying video poker. Perhaps you already have. For poker fanatics that want strictly to play their cards and test the odds, it doesn't get any better than video poker. The game of video poker pares poker down to the bare essentials. No betting strategy, bluffing, or player observation will help you here; when it comes to video poker it's just you and the game.

More specifically, it's you and the poker game of Five Card Draw. For some poker players this alone is a pleasant surprise as the quick and simple game of Five Card Draw is rarely seen at the live poker tables. It's the variation most of us learned to play first as children at the family table. In video poker it appears in an even more elemental form. You're not playing your hand against your opponent's; you're not even playing the dealer. As we said before, in video poker it's just you and the game.

So how can you win if you're not competing? Again, it's simple. Each video poker game attaches specific values to certain combinations. Just don't expect to win on a kicker. A majority of video poker games are based around a jacks or better qualifying hand. A rare few will return your bet for tens or better. Hand rankings increase as usual from there with two pairs doubling your money and a three of a kind tripling it. Beyond that point, most games' pay schedules vary slightly. Casinos post specific pay schedules in the details for each game, making it easy for you to determine which offer the best payouts.

The object of the game then is to choose the cards that offer the most outs toward a winning combination. Once you've selected and placed your wager using the game's betting buttons, you'll be prompted to click the deal/draw button. Five cards will appear on your game screen face up. You now have a limited amount of time to select which cards you'd like to keep. This is done by clicking directly on the cards you want to hold—be sure that that status is reflected on or below the cards prior to proceeding. Once you've decided which cards to keep (it may be all of them; it may be none of them), click the deal/draw button again. Your unselected cards will disappear to be replaced by new cards. While you can study this hand as long as you want, the game will immediately announce whether or not you have a winning hand and will apply credits to your account as necessary.

Video poker games are always based on Five Card Draws, but other variations do exist. For example, different types of “Bonus” video poker offer higher pay schedules for specific combinations. Some games also offer a wild (usually the deuce card). While these games have lower pay scales overall to compensate for their being easier to win, they also have a lower house edge. One way to reduce house edge and increase winnings is to bet the maximum number of credits. Most video poker games offer a higher pay schedule for max credits; with a perfect strategy, some video poker games have no house edge at all, and a rare few have a negative house edge. With numbers like these, it's easy to see how the game can be profitable to serious players.

Serious or not, if you want to experience poker in its truest form, then why not try a few games of online video poker?