To many in the under-30-something crowd, a computer is as much a part of life as television. But to many of their parents and grandparents, a computer is a new-fangled contraption that is probably useful to some, but much too complicated for the likes of them personally.

The video poker game itself is a computer, programmed to deal out hands when prompted by a coin or a button, to respond appropriately to "hold," "deal" and other commands, and to make the appropriate payoffs according to the pay schedule. It is not a very complicated computer, but it is a computer nonetheless.

Every hand at video poker has a unique "best play." There can be several possible definitions of what "best play" means, but the most useful one is this: the best play is the one that has the highest "expected value" before the draw. Expected value, or EV, is a precise mathematical term, but the common sense explanation is close enough: EV is the average amount you would receive if you were dealt every possible combination of different cards.

Let’s do a simple example to show what I mean by best play, and how it is calculated. Let’s look at the hand 9s Ts Js Qs Ks, and assume we are playing Jacks or Better. In this game, high pairs are worth 1, straights are worth 4, flushes are worth 6, straight flushes are worth 50, and royal flushes are worth 800 (which is 4,000 coins divided by the 5 coins it takes get them).

We want to choose between holding all five cards for the straight flush, or pitching the 9s and going for the royal. The "best play" is the one with the highest EV. The EV of keeping the straight flush is 50. To calculate the EV of holding the TJQK, we have to look at each of the 47 possible draws:

This adds up to 47 cards, which is the 52 original cards, minus the five we started with. The formula for EV is (1x800) + (7x9) + (6x4) + (9x1) + (24x0)/47=18.62. Since 18.62 is less than 50 (which we get if we hold on to the straight flush), the best play is to hold all five cards.

This was pretty tedious, and we only had to draw one card. When we draw two cards, we need to look at 1,081 combinations. Three cards have 16,215 possibilities. And four or five cards? Forget about it. The arithmetic isn’t difficult, but it’s boring, prone to mistakes, and very time consuming. In short, it’s simply too complicated.

So how do you know how to play the hand? This hand wasn’t a close decision at all, but many people miss it. Many plays are much closer, and are missed by many more people.

Of course, you could buy a strategy chart, examine it, and get the correct answer. This works fine for Jacks or Better, but what about Double Double Bonus? Or Aces and Faces? Or Nevada Bonus Poker? Or Double Double Jackpot? Or Loose Deuces? Accurate charts are not for sale for these games.

And even when you find the strategy charts, you’ll find other problems. All Double Bonus charts, for example, show that 3-card straight flushes with one high card and two gaps are superior to four card inside straights with one high card, and both of these are higher than either one or two unsuited high cards. Say what? Different strategies use different words or symbols, but they all give this information. Now, go ahead and apply that to this hand: Ad 2s 3d Kc 4d. The rules above say that the top three plays are A34, A234 and then AK, in that order. These rules are correct, but were you able to go from the words to the correct play? Some people can, but most people cannot.

Now bring on the computer program. To be sure, I sell "Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker," for which you’ll see ads elsewhere, but in this article I’m speaking more generally. There are other video poker computer trainers on the market and this discussion applies equally to all of them.

Computer programs are much easier to understand than strategy charts. Recently, on the Internet, a beginning player was trying to make sense out of the following hand in Deuces Wild: 2s 2d 6c 8c Th. He had a computer program that told him to hold just the Deuces. He also had Skip Hughes’ strategy cards, which said to hold SF 4 hands from 67 to 9T. (Don’t think that I am picking on Skip. His card explained perfectly how to play this hand.) The player decided that this rule said he should hold 2268, and since the program said otherwise, he was confused. Elsewhere, Skip explained that the straight flush cards need to be adjacent in order to qualify for this rule, but this player didn’t notice that explanation. He was positive that he was playing according to Skip’s card. The error (worth almost 70¢ to the dollar player) happened to a serious player who was trying as hard as he could. But until he had a computer to correct him when he erred, he would continue to make this same mistake.

If you are practicing Deuces Wild on the computer and are dealt 8c Ad Jc Ks Qc, most players will consider whether to hold AK, QJ, or AKQJ. They will look at their chart and pick one of them. Most players won’t even see that QJ8 is a possibility. What a computer will do is hit you over the head with the correct answer. You don’t see something? No problem. The computer will correct you. Once you’ve been corrected several times on the same type of hand, you’ll have it down.

I’ve heard several players tell me that they do not need a computer because they’ve been playing for several years and know it all by now. Sure. Video poker is much more complicated than they think it is. Experienced players merely make their mistakes faster than inexperienced players.

They say that people learn from their mistakes. True. But do they learn the right lesson? Take 10-7 Double Bonus again. Assume you are dealt Ad Ac 5s 5h 8c. The correct play (as the computer will tell you) is AA55. Many people play AA. And about 1 in 360 times, they connect to four Aces. Oh, Happy Day! Once this happens, people always hold just the Aces. It is still the wrong play! A computer program will tell you the right play.

Do you have to go along with what the computer tells you? No. Of course not. This is a sport where "you pays your money—you takes your chances." If you want to hold AA even after the computer tells you it’s the wrong play, fine. You’re making a relatively minor mistake—but now you know it’s a mistake. But most of the time the computer tells you how to play a hand, you’ll go right along with the recommendation. You truly don’t know which is the best play, and it’s easy to go along with the computer’s advice.

You could let your spouse teach you. The first time he or she points out that you’ve missed an inside straight, it’s not too bad. But soon it becomes You missed it again, Dummy! Why don’t you pay attention? These lessons aren’t a lot of fun. But when a computer tells you that you missed a hand, there’s no emotion involved. The computer is just telling you which way to play has the highest EV. It truly doesn’t care whether you learn or not. It doesn’t care if you get it on the first try or if it takes you fifty tries. It will continue to show you the right play forever. And it will never call you a dummy.

So far we’ve been talking only about using a computer to learn how to play a hand. But an even more important task for the computer is to figure out how much a game is worth. You want to be able to figure out that one pay schedule for Double Bonus returns 100.2 percent, another one returns 99.2 percent, another one returns 97.8 percent, etc. Once you learn what the good ones are, you want to restrict your play to the best games.

And you also want to be able to customize your games. Within the past year in Las Vegas, at least six different casinos had a version of "receive double pay for four 7s." You need a computer to figure out how much this adds to your play. And you need to consider how this changes your play. In Double Bonus, for example, you’d normally go for the straight from 5h 6s 7d 8c 7h. Is receiving double pay for four 7s enough to get you to change the correct play from 5678 to 77? Are you sure?

Also within the past year, at least four Vegas casinos offered some kind of a "double pay for a royal flush" promotion. A computer can tell you how much this is worth, and, more importantly, you can practice with the 8,000-coin royal. Depending upon the game, you’d probably hold AT from Ah Th 7c 5d 3d, but how about from Ah Th Ks 5d 3d? Maybe, maybe not. Or what about Ah Th Ks Qd 3d? What do you do now? Are you certain? With a computer, you’d know instantly.

Computers are not cheap. A lot of players are convinced that they simply cannot afford one. What they don’t realize is that 10-hour-a-week players will likely save over $1,000 per year if they practice on a computer before they go play. Used computers can be picked up for $500, and excellent software can be picked up for around $30. You’ll recoup that money rather quickly.