Hold (Mind Loft)

Hold is one of the card dailies on Mind Loft, a free puzzle site that publishes a new board in each of its games every day. It takes the single decision at the heart of video poker, which of your five cards to keep, and turns it into a scored puzzle. The game uses Jacks or Better with the full-pay table, from 800 coins for a royal flush down to 1 for a pair of jacks or better.

A day's deal is ten hands, and Sunday's edition has fifteen. For each hand you tap the cards you want to hold and press Draw. Every hand has 32 possible holds, from keeping nothing to keeping all five, and each has an exact expected return worked out over every possible draw from the 47 cards left in the deck. If your hold matches the best one, you earn a point. The cards you draw afterwards are shown but score nothing, so a correct hold that misses still counts and a lucky one that hits does not.

Most hands follow the familiar rule of thumb: keep anything that already pays, then a pair, then four to a flush or an open straight, then high cards. The hands worth playing for are the exceptions, such as breaking a made flush to chase four to a royal, or keeping four suited cards over a low pair. Ties on the leaderboard are broken by time, and past deals wait in the archive.

Hold suits players who like video poker strategy, probability or quick card puzzles with a clear right answer. It plays in the browser with no app and no account, and Mind Loft's other card dailies, Hands, Shoe, Crib and Finesse, sit beside it.