Introduction
Poker-Rush Solitaire is a Solitaire-style game of skill with a familiar Poker-like twist played against other real people competing for Top Score. Solitaire-style game means, that you play Poker-Rush as a single player and then your score is compared with the other player or players, who participate the same game tournament - you should not do any special things to enter such a tournaments, our system will automatically add players to the open tournaments. Read more about Poker-Rush TournamentsThe object of the game is to achieve a high score by assembling and scoring multiple poker hands. A player can elect to score each hand on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd draw. No discards are allowed after the 3rd draw. The game played with two standard 54-card packs - 52 cards plus two wild cards - Jokers in each pack. The game is played until 2 decks are over or until the game time expires.
Poker combinations, scoring and examples
During a game a player is trying to collect well-known poker combinations and achieve the highest score. See below the combinations available in Poker-Rush and their score.
The highest hand with Ace, King Queen, Jack and Ten -- all of the same suit, the highest card is Ace and no Jokers.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 4, Probability: 0,00000126, Odds 1 : 790626
This is a hand where the Joker or two Jokers complete a Royal Flush.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 80, Probability: 0,00002529, Odds 1 : 39530
This is any hand containing four cards of the same rank and a Joker, or three cards of the same rank and two Jokers.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 78, Probability: 0.00002466, Odds 1 : 40550
This is a sequential combination of five cards, all of the same suit. A Joker or Jokers can substitute any cards.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 540, Probability: 0.000171, Odds 1 : 5874
This is a combination of four cards of the same rank. A Joker or even two Jokers can complete this combination. The fifth card can be any.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 9360, Probability: 0.002960, Odds 1 : 337
This is a full 5-card combination of three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank and may be completed with a Joker. Note, that there is no Full-House combination with two Jokers, it will be above Four of a Kind this way.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 9360, Probability: 0.002960, Odds 1 : 337
This is a combination of five cards all of the same suit. A Joker or Jokers can complete this combination.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 11388, Probability: 0.003601, Odds 1 : 277
This is a combination of five cards in sequence of any suits. A Joker or two Jokers can complete this combination.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 34704, Probability: 0.010974, Odds 1 : 90
This is a combination of three cards of the same rank and any two other cards. This combination may be completed with a Joker or two Jokers.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 232968, Probability: 0.073666, Odds 1 : 13
This is a combination of four cards - two pairs of cards of same rank each pair. The fifth card can be any. Note, that there is no Two Pairs combination with a Joker or two Jokers, it will be at least the above Three of a Kind this way.
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 123552, Probability: 0.039068, Odds 1 : 25
This is a combination of two cards - a pair of cards of same rank. Other cards do not complete any combination. A Joker can substitute any card
Math statistics before card exchange: Total hands from deal: 1437936, Probability: 0.454682, Odds 1 : 1,2
Exchanging Cards and Scoring Hands
Each hand in Poker-Rush dealt as ready for scoring with the hand image
in the bottom of the card indicating that the card is 'held'
(i.e. selected for scoring). Clicking on each 'held' card marks it for a discard - 
the card immediately gets darker and the word 'discard' appears on it. Similarly, clicking on each card marked for discard marks it again as a 'held' card (i.e. selected for scoring).
The cards marked for a discard will get discarded once the 'Draw' button is pressed. These cards will get replaced by the new cards from the deck. The discarded cards are placed separately and not used in the the game any more. The players get three opportunities to score a hand on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd draw. After that, the hand will have to be scored (by pressing the 'Score Hand' button).
Two decks in the game are not mixed - in order to avoid 'unseemly' pairs of the same card in one hand.
The current deck is displaying the number of cards left in it
The game may not let you select/discard the full amount of cards if you are close to the end of the deck and it has less than 5 cards left
Poker Rush probabilities and strategy
Poker-Rush Solitaire uses 54-card decks i.e. a standard 52 deck with 2 Jokers. In additional it allows up to two card exchange. All that gives more combinations, eases the gathering of combinations, but from the other hand, complicates the calculation of probabilities for the future hands. The basic probabilities for each hand are listed above. During a game players can estimate the exchange probabilities taking in account that all the discarded cards should not be scored. Calculation shows, that using Jokers in combinations significantly increase the probability of middle- and high-scored combinations
| HAND | NATURAL | WITH ONE JOKER | WITH TWO JOKERS | TOTAL NUMBER | PROBABILITY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 4 | 40 | 40 | 84 | 0.000027 |
| Five of a Kind | 0 | 26 | 52 | 78 | 0.000025 |
| Straight Flush | 36 | 288 | 216 | 540 | 0.000171 |
| Four of a Kind | 624 | 4992 | 3744 | 9360 | 0.002960 |
| Full House | 3744 | 5616 | 0 | 9360 | 0.002960 |
| Flush | 5108 | 5392 | 888 | 11388 | 0.003601 |
| Straight | 10200 | 20664 | 3840 | 34704 | 0.010974 |
| Three of a Kind | 54912 | 164736 | 13320 | 232968 | 0.073666 |
| Two Pairs | 123552 | 0 | 0 | 123552 | 0.039068 |
| Pair | 1098240 | 339696 | 0 | 1437936 | 0.454682 |
Note, that there are no more than 10 hands in each deck, so do not spend many extra cards on initially bad hands. Try to improve good hands, because you will get much more points on one high combination, than on many Pairs. It is strongly recommended to remember all the discarded cards - it will help you to properly select the aiming combination on card exchange. Consider combination probabilities and their scoring, some of them have similar odds, but differs in scoring in a good amount of points.
Calculation of exchange probability of Poker hands with Jokers is quite a difficult matter, we are going to add an article to help scoring, to answer to the common question - what combination to choose better on discarding.
Poker Rush and Video Poker
Poker-Rush differs from well-known casino-style poker games. It is mostly a solitaire game, where players need to remember discarded cards, score probabilities of combinations and make a decision on each discard. As opposed to casino-style Video Poker (which is played against the House), Poker-Rush is a game of Skill, played against other real people competing for Top Score. Three card exchange possibilities add many probability variations and players have to involve all the skills to gather the high scored combination among all available.The following important elements of Poker Rush make it a game of skill more than a game of luck:
- Poker-Rush does not reshuffle the deck after each draw - played cards are not used any more, that forces to remember them strongly.
- Poker-Rush allows three player-selected opportunities for draws per each hand, that complicates the combinations probability scoring.
- Poker-Rush requires its participants to compete against each other on a time basis in memorization, strategy and eye-hand coordination skills
Please note - there's no gambling or Casino-style Games at Rubl.com Games at all. Tournament participants never play against the 'House' but compete only against other real players using their Skill to achieve the Top Score. Each player contributes a small entry fee in Tickets to compete, and the winner gets the pot.