Pick Em Poker at Springbok: two cards, two piles and a single choice

How Pick Em Poker plays at Springbok

The Pick Em pay table: every row pays more than the bet

Pick Em is the only machine in Springbok's room whose lowest paying hand returns more than you bet. A pair of 9s or better returns 2 coins per coin, two pair 3 and three of a kind 5. A flush and a full house return the same, 15 each at 1 coin. The catch, as the Las Vegas Advisor puts it, is that paying hands come along much less often than on a standard draw game, because a weak start can never be redrawn.

Three rows grow faster than the bet when all five coins are in: the royal flush (1,000 to 6,000), the straight flush (200 to 1,199) and four of a kind (100 to 600). Most draw machines in the room keep that extra for the royal alone. The 5-coin straight flush figure is copied exactly as the screen shows it, odd as it looks, and it is not a one-off: one of the return tables on the Wizard of Odds' Pick 'em page carries the same straight flush, expressed per coin.

Next to the schedule the Las Vegas Advisor printed for the original game in 2009, Springbok's version keeps the top of the table and trims two rows in the middle:

Reference column: the 1-coin schedule in the Las Vegas Advisor's Question of the Day for 26 November 2009 (see sources). Its return figure is not quoted here.

The full house and the straight are lower here. The Advisor notes that cut-down versions of Pick Em followed the original, which players nicknamed "Slim Pick 'Ems", and Springbok's table fits that description on those two rows. The Wizard of Odds return table mentioned above matches Springbok's 5-coin column on every row, per coin, the lower full house and straight included, so this is a version printed elsewhere rather than a quirk of one screen. No source states what the difference is worth on Springbok's machine, and this site makes no estimate of its own. The guide to reading video poker pay tables explains the general idea of trimmed rows.

Which pile to pick: comparisons counted for Springbok's table

The Wizard of Odds publishes a free Pick 'em chart that ranks every possible choice, but it was computed for the full-pay table, which pays more for a full house and a straight than Springbok does. A printed card by Bob Dancer and Liam W. Daily is also sold through the Las Vegas Advisor. Rather than lean on a chart built for other rows, the comparisons below were scored against Springbok's own table. Once your two cards and both top cards are known, the two hidden cards of the pile you take can fall in 1,128 different ways, and each finished hand was scored at 1 coin and at 5 coins.

Each line compares the two piles over all 1,128 ways the two hidden cards can fall, scored against Springbok's rows at 1 coin and at 5 coins. Where one answer is given, it held at both.

Two patterns stand out. A low pair is worth taking over a single high card or a loose straight draw, even though the pair pays nothing on its own. And three cards to a royal are not automatically better than a paying pair: 10, Jack and Queen of one suit came out ahead of a pair of Jacks, Ace, King and Queen of one suit fell short of a pair of Aces, and Jack, Queen and King of hearts against a pair of Queens flipped with the coin count, because the royal and straight flush rows pay extra at 5 coins.

The free chart's own worked example agrees on low pairs when scored against Springbok's rows: holding the 4 and 6 of clubs, taking the 4 of hearts for a pair beats taking the 8 of clubs for three to a straight flush, at either coin count.

A better pick does not change the stake or the deal; it only stops you giving away more than the table already keeps. Video poker strategy basics explains why draw charts do not apply to this machine.

Stakes, practice and phones