Destiny Poker Strategy Guide

An Introduction to Destiny Poker Strategy

For better or worse, the video poker as a genre suffers from a very specific problem. That problem is that many of the games are very similar. You’ll often find that most of the main differences between two games come down to small changes in the pay tables.

While this does lead to small strategic differences in some games, Destiny Poker video poker stands out.

That’s because the gameplay of Destiny Poker offers mechanics that you don’t really find anywhere else. As a result, the strategies are a bit different, and you’ll need to make some adjustments. That’s perfect for players who love a lot of strategy.

With that said, this game is also good for players who want more action. The pay table is top-heavy, which gives more opportunities for larger wins. Along with this higher level of volatility, you can win free games in this title. That’s not a feature you see every day in the video poker world, so it stands out a lot on its own as well.

Important Betting Information

One place where this game stands out is with the betting. Instead of placing bets in multiples of five coins, you’ll bet in multiples of six. This changes things a bit since you won’t have to wager any particular number of coins to get the best payout rate. That’s because the pay table is proportionate in every betting case. This isn’t like other games where you have to make sure you’re wagering five coins (instead of four or fewer) to get a better royal flush payout.

In fact, you don’t lose any potential payout rate at all for any particular bet size. Everything is a multiple of six, and all of the wins for the other hands are paid out proportionately. Our point here is that you don’t have to worry about changing your bet size. With that said, we’re going to assume that you’re betting six coins. Likewise, the payouts we discuss will be listed in coins as well.

Pay Tables and Implications on Strategy

A lot of Destiny Poker strategy comes down to the influence that the pay table has on the overall style of play. Luckily, there is only really one standard pay table for this game. That means you don’t have to worry about looking around to different online casinos or software providers trying to find the one that has the most favorable pay table to play with. In short, this makes things a bit less complicated if you’re trying to get the best payout rate.

With that said, let’s take a look at the pay table, what makes it stand out and why it matters.

The Standard Destiny Poker Pay Table

The pay table that you’ll find for this game is as follows. However, keep in mind that the payouts are based on a bet of six coins. Therefore, a win of 20x means a 20-coin payout, for example. That would be the equivalent of a 3.333x win if we were talking about a multiple of your entire wager.

• Royal Flush – 4,000x
• Four Aces (2-4 kicker) – 2,000x
• Four Aces (5-K kickers) – 800x
• Four Twos, Threes, Fours (A-4 kicker) – 800x
• Four Twos, Threes, Fours (5-K kickers) – 400x
• Four Fives – Kings – 250x
• Straight Flush – 250x
• Full House – 45x
• Flush – 30x
• Straight – 20x
• Three of a Kind – 15x
• Two Pair – 5x
• Jacks or Better – 5x

This is a top-heavy pay table with a bit of an order anomaly. What we mean is that a straight flush is better than four of a kind, but sometimes it pays lower. We’ll get into why that is down below.

Pay Table Implications on Strategy

You really have to pay attention to how the pay table is structured in this game. That’s because it strongly affects how you have to view playing as a whole.

First off, an issue you’re going to see fairly often is that two pair pays the same as a single pair of Jacks or better. In situations with two pair where one is Jacks and above, you’ll ditch the lower pair to adjust.

Another part of this to consider is that a straight flush isn’t paid as well as a lot of four of a kind hands. That’s because you get a second chance to hit flush and straight flush draws in this game. It’s worth noting that straight draws drop in value quite a bit compared to flush draws in this title. This also means flush draws are worth a whole lot more than they are traditionally. We’ll discuss this mechanic in more detail next.

These are the main implications on strategy. We’ll get into how to play more specific situations and making adjustments according to these rules further down below.

The Destiny Poker Bonus

The main thing that sets this title apart from other video poker games is the Destiny Poker Bonus. It’s also probably the most important thing you have to adjust to from a strategic standpoint.

The basic idea is this: If you have a four-card flush draw (including straight flush draws), and you miss the hand, you get what’s essentially a second chance to hit your hand. If you miss again, you get a chance to pick up instant wins worth as much as 3,000 coins. Additionally, you can also win up to three free games.

Essentially, what this means is that flush draws have a lot more value than usual.

Breaking Down Basic Destiny Poker Strategy

The basics of Destiny Poker strategy depend a lot of what type of hand you have. More specifically, it depends on the viable ways you have to play your hand. For some hands, you only have one way to play that makes sense. For others, you can have two or even three ways that would be reasonable.

The key to really getting good at strategy for this game is to know which type of situation you’re in. Moreover, you need to know what the viable options are in the first place.

* Note: We’ll be referring to the cards A, K, Q and J as high cards while 2-T are low cards in this guide.

High Card Hands

When you have no pairs and no draws, you need to be in a particular mindset to play the hand. That mindset is about getting the most out of a bad situation.

The most common scenarios you’ll face with high card hands are as follows:

• Three High Cards – If two of them are suited, keep those two. If none of them are suited, keep the lowest two ranked cards.
• Two High Cards – Keep them both. This is the easiest situation to play because there’s nothing to really think about or consider.
• One High Card – Typically, you should only keep the one high card. However, if you have a K-T, Q-T or J-T combination that’s suited, you should keep that extra ten as well. Note that this does not apply to a suited A-T situation.
• No High Cards – Unless you have three cards to a straight flush, go ahead and discard all five.

Again, these spots are mostly just about getting the most from a bad situation. There’s not really a lot to them otherwise.

Single Pair and Two Pair Situations

Single pair and two pair situations will give you the most difficulty in Destiny Poker. That’s because there are multiple reasonable ways to play a lot of the time. As a result, you’ll be put in difficult situations where it’s easy to make a mistake more often.

Using the following guidelines, you can sort out most of these situations perfectly:

• One Pair, No Draw – Always keep the pair.
• One Pair, Flush Draw – The flush draw is more powerful here. Note that this is atypical for non-wild video poker games and is an adjustment you’ll have to make compared to other regular titles like Jacks or Better.
• High Pair, Straight Draw – Always keep the high pair.
• Low Pair, Straight Draw – Go with the straight draw here if it has at least two high cards. If not, keep the low pair.

There’s a bit more to learn here in terms of paying attention to the additional characteristics of the hand. However, it’s not particularly complicated overall if you take your time with it.

Situations of Multiple Draws

Sometimes you can run into anti-intuitive situations in video poker. Some of those have to do with hands where you have multiple draws available.

If you have a straight draw and a flush draw available, it makes sense that you’ll always go with the flush draw in most games. That’s because a flush has a higher payout and a higher chance of hitting in the first place. In Destiny Poker, you have the added benefit of the bonus.

However, there is a different situation that’s more difficult to play. What if you have four cards to a flush but also have three cards to a royal flush? In most traditional forms of non-wild video poker, you’d play with the three-card draw. However, in this one, you have to adjust and go for the regular four-card draw instead.

The main reason is because of the tremendous value that the Destiny Poker Bonus offers for four-card flush draws.

Odds and Ends

There are a few other odd spots that you can find yourself in that are important in this game. We want to mention a few of them here to help round out your understanding of Destiny Poker Strategy.

First and foremost, if you have four cards to a royal flush, that’s better than any other hand in the game other than an actual royal flush. Even if you have a straight flush in your hand of K-Q-T-J-T, you should still ditch it for the four-card royal draw.

Additionally, three cards to a royal are better than any four-card straight draw. This is one that gets people tripped up sometimes, but it’s the case here.

Finally, there’s a weird situation that can happen because of how the low end of the pay table is structured. Specifically, it’s because two pair doesn’t improve the payout over a single pair of Jacks or more. If you have two pair, and the higher pair is at least jacks, you should only keep the higher pair. Go ahead and discard the lower pair in this scenario.

Overview

Strategy for Destiny Poker is extremely interesting. This game has some different rules that you don’t see in other video poker games. Additionally, they have a pay table that has some atypical aspects to it that also affect strategy. Overall, this is a great game to get into if you like having to make adjustments to how you play.