Video Poker Strategy
Bonus Poker Deluxe is the simplest bonus game on this site: start from 9/6 Jacks or Better, bump every four of a kind to a flat 80 coins regardless of rank (instead of 25), and cut two pair from 2 coins to 1 to help pay for it. There is no rank tier and no kicker to track on the quad bonus, which makes it an easy first bonus game to learn after Jacks or Better, while still returning more (99.64% vs 99.54%). Perfect play returns 99.6417%, computed exactly by our engine and matching the accepted published figure to four decimal places.
| Hand | Pays (per coin) |
|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 800 |
| Straight Flush | 50 |
| Four of a Kind (any rank) | 80 |
| Full House | 9 |
| Flush | 6 |
| Straight | 4 |
| Three of a Kind | 3 |
| Two Pair | 1 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 |
Because the quad bonus is flat, the strategy shifts are smaller and more predictable than Bonus Poker or Double Bonus: quads are simply worth more across the board, which nudges a handful of close three-of-a-kind-vs-draw decisions in favor of holding the trips (chasing the bigger quad payout) compared to plain Jacks or Better.
Hold the highest-ranked pattern your hand matches. Every EV below is engine-exact for the specific example hand shown; the vs 9/6 JoB column shows whether this pattern's rank moved compared to the Jacks or Better baseline, which tells you exactly where this pay table's incentives genuinely diverge. A few hands near a boundary can shift slightly with the exact ranks involved, so check the hand analyzer for anything unusual.
| # | Hold this pattern | Example | EV/coin | vs 9/6 JoB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Four of a kind (pat) | 2c 7c 7d 7h 7s | 80.0000 | up from #2 |
| 2 | Straight flush (pat) | 6c 7c 8c 9c 10c | 50.0000 | down from #1 |
| 3 | Four to a royal flush | 10c Jc Qc Kc 2d | 19.6809 | unchanged (#3) |
| 4 | Full house (pat) | 4c 9c 4d 9d 9h | 9.0000 | unchanged (#4) |
| 5 | Three of a kind | 3c 8c 8d Kd 8h | 6.6429 | up from #6 |
| 6 | Flush (pat) | 2h 6h 9h Jh Kh | 6.0000 | down from #5 |
| 7 | Straight (pat) | 5c 8c 6d 9d 7h | 4.0000 | unchanged (#7) |
| 8 | Four to a straight flush | 6c 7c 8c 9c 2d | 3.5319 | unchanged (#8) |
| 9 | Two pair | 4c Jc 9d Jd 4h | 1.6809 | unchanged (#9) |
| 10 | High pair (jacks or better) | 7c Jc 9d Jd 4h | 1.5293 | unchanged (#10) |
| 11 | Three to a royal flush | 10c Jc Qc 7d 4h | 1.5042 | unchanged (#11) |
| 12 | Four to a flush | 4c 2h 6h 9h Jh | 1.2128 | unchanged (#12) |
| 13 | Low pair | 6c Kc 3d 6d 9h | 0.8165 | unchanged (#13) |
| 14 | Four to an open-ended straight | 5c 8c 2d 6d 7h | 0.6809 | unchanged (#14) |
| 15 | Three to a straight flush, no gap | 6c 7c 8c Kd 2h | 0.6078 | unchanged (#15) |
| 16 | Two suited high cards | Qc Kc 7d 4h 3s | 0.5692 | unchanged (#16) |
| 17 | Four to an inside straight, 3 high cards | 3c Kc Qd Jh 9s | 0.5319 | unchanged (#17) |
| 18 | Suited ten/high card (e.g. JT suited) | 10c Jc 7d 4h 3s | 0.4743 | unchanged (#18) |
| 19 | Two unsuited high cards | Kc 7d Qd 4h 3s | 0.4570 | unchanged (#19) |
| 20 | One lone high card | 3c Kc 2d 6d 9h | 0.4372 | unchanged (#20) |
| 21 | Four to an inside straight, fewer than 3 high cards | 5c 9c 2d 8d 7h | 0.3404 | up from #22 |
| 22 | Garbage (discard all five) | 2c 5d 6d 9h 3s | 0.3404 | down from #21 |
The pay table was checked against the accepted published return using the same exact inclusion-exclusion engine behind the return calculator, matching to four decimal places. Every row in the chart above is evaluated by the same engine behind every strategy page and the hand analyzer: for each of the 32 possible holds, it enumerates every real draw from the remaining cards and computes the exact expected value, then reports the best. See the methodology page for the full explanation.
The trainer deals real hands for this exact pay table and grades every hold against this engine.
Practice Bonus Poker Deluxe free →