Video Poker Assistant, never second guess hold-draw decisions again.

Video Poker Assistant, never second guess hold-draw decisions again.

This is a demo of a full app, which is located here: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.milone.pokerstrat

Video Poker Assistant is not a video poker game or simulator, there are plenty of those on the Android Market. This on the other hand is a tool to help improve your video poker playing and help you win actual money at actual video poker machines! Video Poker Assistant accomplishes this by offering 2 modes to help players, Evaluator and Practice. The demo offers a chance to use both modes for 5 hands each, the full version is unlimited.

In Evaluator, the player selects all 5 cards manually then the program will calculate all possible outcomes/payouts and then display the optimal hold/draw combination. It is very useful to check what you should do for a specific hand. See screenshots 3, 4 & 5.

In Practice, 5 cards are dealt at random and then the player is asked to select which they would hold/redraw. Afterwards the program calculates the optimal play, as it does in the Evaluator, and then it's compared to the selected play. If the selected play isn't the best play, it will display what moves should of been different. See screenshots 6, 7 & 8.

The screenshots and video demo are of the full version and shows both of these modes in action, please check them out. Video is only 1 minute run time.

In both modes, this program does a lot of calculations. Please consider the fact that there are 2,598,960 possible poker hands and this program processes through all of them to see which of the 32 possible hold/draw combination gives you the most chances to win, which take a few seconds to calculate properly. Within the "How To Use" section of the program is a detailed explanation of what calculations are done if you're curious.

I personally own a HTC Thunderbolt (1GHz Single Core, Gingerbread Android) and the calculations on my phone take at most 15 seconds. Your mileage may vary depending on your hardware and software specs, bet you it flies on the latest Nexus phone. However I am constantly looking for ways to improve my calculation code and trust me, this initial release code is about 3X faster then what it was a few weeks before release. The calculation code is exactly the same in the demo and full version.

This demo has only been configured for "Jacks or Better" style games, where the lowest hand that wins is a pair of Jacks. The default payouts that are set are the most common for those types of machines. The full version has an editable payout table and also contains Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus.

Sorry for the annoyance that each time you load the program there is a disclaimer you must agree to. This is simply to protect myself in case this program is used for it's non-intended purposes. See screenshot #2.

No special APK permissions are needed for the demo, the full version needs Market License Check. Which is needed to ensure that only users who paid for this program can use it, the check is ran during the initial splash screen. Supports all screen sizes and atleast Android 1.6. No advertisements in demo or full version.

That's it, I hope you enjoy the demo and consider upgrading to the full version so that you are able to improve your video poker playing and win some money during your next casino visit. Good Luck!!