There are a few dozen types of video poker out there that are played on a regular basis, and there are several dozen other variations that you'll see once in a while. This means that there are probably over 100 different styles of video poker available total, and they're all going to require different strategies. Most players don't have the time or energy to work on the perfect, mathematical strategies on each individual game. Instead, it's more practical to take an approach of learning the fundamentals of video poker overall and then going from there.

To start off, you have to focus on the type of game you're playing, and this mostly concerns if there is a progressive and if there are wild cards. In a game like Jacks or Better where there are no wild cards, playing your low-end hands becomes more important because you'll make lower hands on average. In a wild card game like Deuces Wild, however, you'll have to focus on playing medium-strength hands more since the payout table is structured to compensate for the fact that the wild cards will give you better starting and finishing hands than average.

Once you have that in mind, you need to consider which are more important between flush draws and single pairs for your particular game. In most video poker games, flush draws are almost always more important than a single pair, even if it's a high pair. This goes for whether there are wild cards or not. However, straight draws are usually worse than a high pair and better than a low pair. They're worse than flush draws because they're harder to hit and pay out at a lower rate. If there are high cards in the straight draw that you can make big pairs with in a game like Jacks or Better, however, then they gain a good bit more value.

The goal of video poker is to maximize the value of the hand that you're dealt by choosing which cards to discard. This is a bit different than always trying to make the largest hand. For example, if you're dealt the AKQJ5 of hearts, you should always discard the five of hearts even though you're breaking a made flush. The chance to make a royal flush gives you too much value to ignore, plus you can make straights or flushes.