Super Hand Video Poker

The game of Super Hand Poker video poker is a product of leading casino game manufacturer International Game Technology (IGT), and it first appeared at the 2015 Global Gaming Expo (GGE).

IGT filed a trademark application on the term Super Hand Poker in April of 2014, and shortly after the GGE appearance, machines began appearing in Las Vegas venues like the Red Rock Casino.

Super Hand Poker is based on the popular video poker variant known as Triple Play.

In that game, players receive a single five card hand and decide which cards to hold and/or discard as per usual. From there, regular Triple Play machines hold the selected cards and apply them to two additional hands, for three total, before dealing out completed hands from three separate decks. In this way, Triple Play gives players three unique draws to try and improve the same cards, and each of the three completed hands pays out according to the traditional pay table.

Super Hand Poker can be played as basic Triple Play, but by betting the maximum of five coins per hand, the premium “Super Hand” feature can be activated at an additional cost. With the Super Hand feature activated, Triple Play is dealt out quite differently, and in this game you’ll receive three different five card hands to begin with. At that point, the game automatically selects the strongest hand, places it at the bottom, and allows players to make their usual hold / discard decisions.

Both Triple Play and Super Hand Poker offer highly entertaining gameplay experiences, because winning hands can be made more than once per deal, creating the potential for major payouts when the cards align. If you were dealt a pat flush as your best of three hands in Super Hand Poker, for example, you’d earn the standard payout for that hand, before holding all five cards and creating two additional flushes (along with three additional payouts).

Adding to the intrigue, players can toggle between most of the popular video poker games, including standard Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, and Deuces Wild. So in essence, one Super Hand Poker machine includes all of the major video poker variants in one, while spicing each game up by turning it into the Triple Play or Super Hand version.

You’ll find a full walkthrough on Super Hand Poker rules and gameplay designed for beginners, followed by a discussion on pay tables, and even a section on optimal strategy.

As we mentioned above, Super Hand Poker machines actually offer several popular forms of video poker for players to choose from.

The nine video poker formats available on Super Hand Poker machines are as follows:

With this in mind, we won’t cover each of these classic video poker games on their own, but rather how Super Hand Poker manages to update the originals. So if you’re not 100 percent up to date on your Jacks or Better, Double Double Bonus, or Joker Poker rules and gameplay, check out our main pages for each variant by clicking on the links.

But to get yourself started, check out this table provided by IGT within the Rules section for the online version of its Super Hand Poker game:

Video Poker Variants Playable in Super Hand Poker

Many of these nine games are also made available using different pay tables, adding more dimensions to Super Hand Poker gameplay. We’ll discuss the pay tables and how they affect the game in the subsequent section.

In order to explain how Super Hand Poker gameplay shakes out, we’ll start at the very beginning, which involves choosing your game. To make things as simple as possible, we’ll select the standard video poker variant of Jacks or Better.

In this game, the objective is to use a single round of discard and drawing to improve a five card poker hand. The final five card poker hand formed is judged according to one of several commonly encountered pay tables, but the hands themselves stack up like so:

• Royal flush: 10 J Q K A, all in the same suit
• Straight flush: any five card straight (4 5 6 7 8), all in the same suit
• Four of a kind: four of the same card rank (6 6 6 6 X)
• Full house: three of a kind AND one pair (7 7 7 4 4)
• Flush: any five cards all in the same suit (2h 4h 8h Jh Ah)
• Straight: any string of five consecutive cards (4 5 6 7 8 or 9 10 J Q K)
• Two Pair: (5 5 Q Q X)
• One Pair (Jacks or Better): (J J X X X)

As you can see, the minimum hand strength that qualifies for a payout is one pair of Jacks or Better, which is where the game takes its title.

Super Hand Poker is based on the Triple Play model, so the game screen you’ll be playing with will show a total of 15 card silhouettes or spaces – five in a row for one hand on the bottom, five more in the middle, and five more on top.

To begin playing, you’ll select you’re preferred coin denomination as per usual, toggling between $0.01 (penny), $0.05 (nickel), $0.25 (quarter), or $1 (dollar) plays. Going forward, we’ll opt for the nickel coin denomination that most recreational video poker players prefer.

As the game’s rules specify, you must play five coins per hand at a minimum to enjoy the game as basic Triple Play, or you may pay an additional five coins per hand to activate the Super Hand feature. Because this page is dedicated to Super Hand Poker, and not Triple Play, we’ll assume that the Super Hand feature is always activated.

At five nickels per hand, just playing the basic game would cost $0.75, but we’ll need to double that to turn on the Super Hand function. This puts the cost per play at $1.50 at the nickel stakes, but we’ve listed the various cost per cover rates at each of the four common coin denominations below for clarity:

Super Hand Poker Cost to Cover by Coin Denomination

As you can see, the cost to cover when playing Super Hand Poker will always be 30 times your chosen coin denomination – with 15 coins going to the base game and 15 coins to the Super Hand feature.

We’re playing for $1.50 per deal though, so we set our coin denomination to nickel and bet the maximum of 30 coins to get the game started.

From there, three separate and independent decks, each representing a standard 52 card deck of playing cards (53 card decks in Joker Poker) are used to deal out three separate hands. As such, you can expect to see the same card appearing in multiple hands, because you’re really using three different decks.

As an example, let’s imagine we’ve been dealt out three hands in the following arrangement across the screen:

• 3 of diamonds / 5 of hearts / 5 of spades / Ace of diamonds / King of clubs = Pair of 5s
• 9 of hearts / 10 of diamonds / Queen of spades / King of clubs / Jack of clubs = Straight
• 2 of clubs / 7 of hearts / 7 of spades / 7 of diamonds / 3 of diamonds = Three of a Kind (7s)

These example hands show how the duplicate card issue works, as the King of clubs appears in the top and middle hand, the 3 of diamonds appears in the top and bottom hands, etc. Remember, each hand comes from its own deck, so conceivably, you could line up a royal flush on two or even three hands on the same deal.

At this point in the game, Super Hand Poker offers its first bonus of sorts to the player, as you’ll immediately be paid out on the highest hand on the screen. In this case, that’s the 9 10 J Q K straight found in the middle hand.

Although the Jacks or Better game option comes with two different pay tables (more on this in the next section), in both cases the payout for making a straight comes to 4 coins. We’ll dive into the pay table details later, but for now, take a look at the standard “30 9 5” Jacks or Better pay table used in Super Hand Poker:

30 9 5 Jacks or Better Pay Table

These pay amounts are applied per coin, and in this game you’re betting five coins per hand, so the pay amounts should always be multiplied by five. Remember, we’re playing at nickel stakes and betting five coins per hand, so one hand costs $0.25 to play. If we landed one pair of Jacks as our best hand of the three, we’d earn a payout of “1” according to the pay scale – meaning one coin. But we’re betting five coins on that hand, so in effect our payout is actually five coins – or $0.25.

Once the best hand of the initial three starting hands you receive is identified and paid out, the game will dub it the Super Hand, and move it to the bottom of the screen. This process is performed by calculating the expected value of each hand, and ranking the three in terms of overall profitability. Thus, a strong combination draw like the 9 10 J Q in hearts would be ranked as the Super Hand over something like one pair of 5s, despite the pair technically being the best hand at the moment.

This means that the automatically selected Super Hand will always offer you the best odds of winning. Even so, the game offers players the choice to “Swap” out the chosen Super Hand for one of the two others. Of course, doing so will result in a loss of equity, but players generally prefer to have the element of choice whenever possible.

In the case of our example hand, we now have the straight as our Super Hand, and as this is a pat five card hand, we’d simply hold all five cards 9 10 J Q K and play the straight while declining to draw. By doing so, those five cards would be transported to the other two hands, essentially giving us three straights rather than one on the screen.

Once all three hands are completed the game pays out each according to the chosen pay table, so we’d collect another 4 coin reward for each of the three straights. At $1 each, we’d win $3 total on this stage of the hand, and combined with the earlier $1 win, we’ve collected $4 total. That comes to a profit of $2.50 on our original $1.50 wager.

In terms of coins, we bet 30 nickels on this deal, and won 20 nickels (4 coin payout times 5 coins) on the initial deal. Once the three straights were registered, we added another 60 nickels to our haul, making it 80 nickels (or $4) for the whole deal.

Of course, making a pat five card hand like a straight won’t happen as easily as this example made it seem. Additionally, the beauty of a game like Super Hand Poker is drawing three separate times on the same held cards, so let’s run through a more typical example hand to see how that works.

We’re betting the same coins, so for $1.50 a deal we get the following three hands:

• 4 of clubs / 5 of hearts / 6 of spades / Ace of hearts / Jack of clubs = Ace High
• 2 of diamonds / 9 of diamonds / Queen of diamonds / King of diamonds / Jack of clubs = Four to Flush
• 3 of clubs / 9 of hearts / 8 of spades / Queen of diamonds / 4 of hearts = Queen High

In this case, we have no better than Ace high in any of the three hands, but the one with the most potential is the four card flush in the middle. That will become our Super Hand and move to the bottom of the screen, and from there we’d hold the four diamonds while discarding the Jack of clubs.

Doing so would move the four diamond cards 2 of diamonds / 9 of diamonds / Queen of diamonds / King of diamonds  into each of the three hands, leaving one draw per hand to complete them. Upon clicking the “DRAW” button, the next card would be dealt from the first deck to complete the first hand, then from the second deck to the second hand, and the third deck to the third hand.

For our sake, we’ve drawn the Ace of diamonds on the bottom hand, the King of spades on the middle hand, and the Queen of hearts on the top hand. Thus, our final completed hands would appear as follows:

• 2 of diamonds / 9 of diamonds / Queen of diamonds / King of diamonds / Queen of hearts = One pair of Queens
• 2 of diamonds / 9 of diamonds / Queen of diamonds / King of diamonds / King of spades = One pair of Kings
• 2 of diamonds / 9 of diamonds / Queen of diamonds / King of diamonds / Ace of Diamonds = Flush

We’ve landed our flush draw on the bottom hand, which is good for a payout of 5 coins on each coin bet for that hand (5 coins bet x 5 coins paid = 25 coins)

On the middle hand, we’ve missed the flush draw but spiked a King to make one pair, good for a payout of 1 coin on each coin bet for that hand (5 coins bet x 1 coin paid = 5 coins)

On the top hand the same thing occurred, as we missed our flush and hit the Queen to make a payable pair, good for 5 more coins.

All told, we collected 35 coins on the drawing round in this hand, or $1.75 on our $1.50 wager.

As you may have surmised by now, the addition of a Super Hand component to traditional Triple Play video poker gameplay turns the game into something else entirely. Now, instead of simply drawing to a single dealt hand three times, you can choose between the best of three hands and then draw to it thrice.

Each of the nine video poker variants made available on the Super Hand Poker machine offers its own unique pay table. Generally speaking, these pay tables conform to the industry standards for each video poker format.

Additionally, five of the games have two different pay tables to choose from: Bonus Poker Deluxe, Deuces Wild, Double Bonus, Jacks or Better, and Triple Double Bonus. The alternative pay tables are based on tweaking the payouts for three hands, four of a kind, a full house, and a flush. In video poker vernacular, you’ll see these three numbers listed as “X – Y – Z” to differentiate between alternative pay tables.

To get a better idea of how a few of these pay table variations work, we’ve compiled the full data for your review below:

“30 9 5” Jacks or Better Pay Table

“32 6 5” Jacks or Better Pay Table

“90 – 60 – 30 – 6   5” Bonus Poker Pay Table

“82 – 8 – 6” Bonus Deluxe Pay Table

“82 – 7 – 5” Bonus Deluxe Pay Table

“83 – 6 – 5” Bonus Deluxe Pay Table

“25 – 16 – 13” Deuces Wild Pay Table

“20 – 10 – 8” Deuces Wild Pay Table

“55 – 9 – 6” Double Bonus Pay Table

“52 – 9 – 5” Double Bonus Pay Table

“6 – 5” Bonus Poker Pay Table

“9 – 6” Triple Bonus Pay Table

“8 – 5” Triple Bonus Pay Table

As you can see, each of these pay tables appears to be mostly the same for each video poker format, but payouts for two or three hands are slightly adjusted.

Read on to the next section to see how these payout adjustments impact your expected return, also known as payback percentage, along with the edge enjoyed by the house.

Super Hand Poker machines contain nine different video poker games, and each one is played quite differently in terms of how to approach discard and drawing decisions. Deuces Wild is played with its own strategy, and that won’t work for Jacks or Better and so on.

For this reason, if you’re searching material outlining actual strategies for how to play your hands in these games, we humbly refer you to casino game analyst Michael Shackleford’s legendary Wizard of Odds page. His primer on video poker http://wizardofodds.com/games/video poker/ includes detailed strategy guides for every major variant, and even a few oddballs, so head there to brush up on the basics.

First, always keep the game’s selected Super Hand at the bottom. You may disagree with the computer’s assessment of each hand’s expected value, but rest assured, the most profitable hand to play over the long run will always be chosen as the automatic Super Hand. Any deviations you make due to the desire to chase draws – three card Royal Flush draws are a favorite for casual players – will necessarily result in your expected return rate being reduced.

Second, always be mindful of game selection theory when playing Super Hand Poker. With nine different games to choose from, some are inherently more favorable to players than others. Jacks or Better, for example, has become the standard video poker offering around the world because it offers one of the lowest house edges on the casino floor, while niche variants like Double Bonus incur more volatility and a higher house edge.

Throw in the alternative pay tables listed for many of these games, and an uniformed player can easily click their way into a high house edge, low payback percentage game.

We’ve compiled the payback percentages and corresponding house edge rates for each of the variants and pay tables found on the Super Hand Poker machine, so check the table below to see how each one compares:

Payback Percentage and House Edge by Game and by Pay Table

A close examination of these numbers should be illuminating for any video poker player. Remember, you’re looking for the highest possible payback percentage, and the lowest possible house edge whenever possible.

Take a look at the Jacks or Better pay tables for a good idea of how game selection strategy works.

By clicking on the 30 – 9 – 5 pay table for Jacks or Better, you’ll enjoy a high payback percentage of 98.51 percent, while the house’s edge is a low 1.49 percent.

But when you click on the 32 – 6 – 5 alternative pay table, your payback percentage plummets to 95.04 percent, while the house edge against you spikes to 4.96 percent.

We’ve taken the liberty of putting asterisks by the best bets on the Super Hand Poker machine, and in both cases, you’ll actually enjoy the rarest of scenarios in casino gambling: a positive payback percentage and a negative house edge.

By playing Deuces Wild with the 25 – 16   13 pay table, you’ll have a payback percentage of 100.03 percent and a house edge of negative 0.03 percent – essentially making the game a breakeven proposition over the long run.

And the best game on the board is Triple Double Bonus using the 9 – 6 pay table option, which offers a 100.58 payback percentage and a negative 0.58 house edge rate.