Poker and Video Poker - The Differences

Poker is one of the casino games that have never seen a drop in its popularity ever since it was introduced to its players. That is precisely why we have so many varieties of poker today. The traditional poker still has a huge crowd of followers and players. The new forms of the game, like Video Poker, have made a tremendous impact among the gaming community as well.

With online casinos and virtual gaming conditions, players can sit in the comfort of their homes and enjoy the exciting game of poker and video poker online. Video poker is also available to players in most of the conventional casinos and has seen a good demand over the years. Let us look at some of the differences between the conventional card game of poker and video poker.

Conventional Poker

Poker is a card game. Most beginners might get the feeling that luck has primarily a bigger hand in this game. However, poker is a mathematical game involving probability calculations. To be successful with poker, one must be well aware of a fair bit of mathematics and probability. Moreover, it involves a good bit of understanding the psychology of your opponents and trying to figure out their moves and strategies to be overly successful with your game.

Most conventional casinos have poker available for the players. It is all about stakes and understanding the odds for getting the pot. Various online versions of this card game have come up as well, and such tournaments are very common and held each and every day in a number of the online casinos. To play poker effectively, one must understand the rules of the game and the successful strategies to be adopted for winning at this game.

Be it online or in a conventional casino, this card game involves each player trying to get the best hand using the cards available to them. The values of the hands are decided by the combination of the cards and the players produce when they want to lay down their cards. Most of the poker card games are easy to be played, but require good experience and understanding to see a win at it.

Video Poker

Much newer when compared to the conventional card game of poker, this game has also seen a great popularity among its players. This is not a card game and can be played in slot type machines very similar to those used for the slot games. Most of the casinos keep the option of this game open to players owing to the popularity this game has seen. There is a huge number of online casinos that provide this game to players over the internet. Video poker is a very interesting game and is somewhat based on the strategies of conventional poker.

The machine used for video poker acts as the dealer with an automatic generator of numbers or cards for the players. Instead of a poker table and other players and the dealers involved, video poker has just one player and the machine acting as the dealer and the poker table.

Substituting the machine with a dealer and adding a few more players, video poker would result in the conventional type of poker for the players. While this game can be played in most of casinos today, most online casinos have kept a provision for the players to be able to play this game with them as well.

Comparison

The main difference being the presence of the other players and the dealer in case of the conventional poker and the poker machine substituting for them in case of video poker, the rest of the rules and the idea is seen to be very similar. Both games can be played online and in conventional casinos. Some people state that video poker is much simpler and has lesser options compared to poker. Players also state that poker requires much more calculations and thought process compared to video poker.

However views are seen to differ. Both the games have seen very good response from the crowd of players and attract thousands of players all around the world. Be it poker or video poker, you are in for a great excitement filled game when you decide to play any one of them.