Strategy for Double Down Video Poker

If you talk about a tough game to beat, this is it. I don't recommend this variation at all. It's some long uphill battle because unlike the other video poker variations, where you can discard up to five and get five new ones, here, you only get five cards total and that is it. You have no opportunities to draw new cards. Whatever you get dealt is the hand you keep.

The interesting twist on this game, the doubling feature, makes for a lot of fun when the first four cards you're dealt are winners. And unlike the Jacks or Better games, the minimum winning combination is only a pair of sixes. But don't let that fool you into thinking it is easier to get winning combinations than the jacks minimum in Jacks or Better. In Jacks or Better you get a chance to draw multiple cards to improve. In Double Down, you must get a winner in the first five cards drawn. That makes for stretches of over 10 hands sometimes when you can't buy a winner of any sort, and the only pair you make at all, are of the fives and threes sort, the ones that pay you nothing.

The strategies for this game are fairly simple. You're dealt four cards and have to decide, based on their values, whether they are worth a doubling of the bet. The first obvious choices are to keep all hands that are automatic winners. Thus any pair of sixes or higher (remember this is not Jacks or Better), two pair and three or four of a kind are automatically doubled.

No matter, what the fifth card is, you can't lose. And with any hand of jacks or higher, you're effectively doubling the winnings. Additionally, you also have the chance that the fifth card will improve the hand further for a larger payout, again at double the payout. If the pairs of sixes through tens don't improve, since they pay back only what was put in the machine, the doubling of the bet returns the same even money anyway.

What hands should be doubled in addition to the automatic winners?

Four to a straight flush or four to a royal flush are a definite go. You want extra money out on those bad boys should you be so fortunate to get four cards lines up so pretty. The other two hands worth doubling are four to a flush, and four to a straight, but only if the four straight is consecutive, such as 5-6-7-8. You would not double 5-6-7-9 as now the chances of catching the four eights to fill are exactly half that of the four fours and nines of the 5-6-7-8 hand. I'll show this in chart form.

Double your bets if you hold: Any Paying Combination (Sixes or Higher) Four to a Royal Flush Four to a Straight Flush Four to a Flush Four to Consecutive Straight