This question was sent in by none other than the world’s top video poker expert, Bob Dancer. So we aren’t saying no. Below is Bob’s follow-up to our original response. Along with being a strong addition to the original answer, this marks the first time that a QoD has been both asked and answered by the same person.
The earlier QoD cited speed as the most important attribute. Speed is important --sometimes; in many tournaments you have 10 or 15 minutes to play as many hands as you can. But a number of tournaments also have a fixed number of hands -- perhaps 200 hands in 20 minutes. So long as you finish all 200 hands in these tournaments (and almost everyone does), speed is irrelevant. But even in the speed tournaments, what cards you hold is almost as important as how fast you play.
What cards to hold is dependent on the game (Jacks or Better, Double Double Bonus, etc.) and the rules of the tournament, and virtually not at all on the pay schedule. The most important rules to pay attention to are how many people move to the next round (or how many people get paid in a one-round event) and the pay structure itself.
If the tournament pays $1,000 for first prize, $50 for second through tenth, and nothing below that, smart players will go for the royal flush (or four aces in some games) on every hand. This is essentially a winner-takes-all event.
If the top 20 players get to play a second round where their scores start over again, your strategy is to get into the top 20. In this kind of tournament, places 1 through 20 are tied for first, while places 11 through however many players are entered are tied for last. If you need 1,250 points to advance, 1,245 is no better than 25. This is a lot different than play in a casino where a score of $1,245 is considerably better than a score of $25.
If you can, play in one of the last rounds of the tournament and try to determine what score you'll need. While it’s not fair to the people who play in the earlier rounds for the others to have better information on how much is needed, if this information is available, you're foolish not to use it.
The earlier QoD indicated that the younger players do better in a speed tournament than the older ones, simply for reasons of coordination and stamina. While this has a bearing, older experienced players "see" the correct plays faster. Whether it's correct to play the clubs or hearts from 3cKh5cQh4c, those who've been playing a long time identify the correct hold a lot faster than even a fast newbie. (Answer: In normal casino play with a 4000-coin royal flush, it's almost always correct to hold the clubs. In a tournament, it's almost always correct to hold the hearts.) Also, experienced tournament players are better than fast newbies in figuring out the appropriate strategy for the round and how that strategy should change during the round.
When we developed Video Poker for Winners we considered adding a tournament mode. We didn't for two reasons. First, learning to hit the buttons fast on your computer at home is a very different skill than learning to hit the buttons fast on an IGT machine. But by far the most important reason we didn't add a tournament mode is that the correct play on any hand is highly dependent on the rules, on how much time you have left, and what your current score is. Figuring out the correct play is as much an art as it is a science. While unambiguously telling you the correct hold for regular casino play is fairly easy for a computer, doing it for a tournament is impossible.
