Video poker tournament strategy

I have played in several online video poker tournaments where the idea is simply to amass the highest score in 200 hands. You can stop any time you want and play as many rounds as you want. When your 200 hands is finished you see the scores of the top 10, so you know the kind of score you are shooting for. My question is: how do you calculate when you should quit and start a new set of 200 hands. For example, in the current tournament you have to get at least 2 royal flushes' worth of points to be in the running. Sure, you could get them on the last 2 deals, but probably not! So, I know the odds of getting what I need decrease as the number of deals increases, but when does it actually make sense to quit and start over? I hope the answer isn't as easy as "Duh, half way"!

Of course I forgot to include something! Clearly the answer must include how well you have done up to that point. It will certainly be different if you already have 1 royal flush, for example, or your score is currently th best one posted.

I would play for the games where you get the most points for the least likely hands. On videopoker.com, that means Triple Double bonus (Royal + 4 Aces with 2/3/4), the Joker Pokers where a royal pays 4,700 and 5,000 and where the 5 of a K pays 4,000, and Royal Aces (Royal + 4 Aces pays 4,000).

Since you need, as you say, at least two royals' worth of credits to stand a chance, you should probably be playing for just the royal plus the second-highest scoring hand, like four Aces in DD/DDB. Since lightning could strike at any time, and getting those hands would put you in the running pretty much no matter what, I would say that you should play pretty deep into any one session--at least halfway. Obviously, you would rather get your first royal/big hand early, but that probably isn't going to happen. The optimal strategy would be to start over after the first hand in every instance where you don't get a royal/four aces, but that way, madness lies.

So there really isn't a good answer to your question, as that answer lies in just how much annoyance you're willing to put up with in restarting the game over and over. I have no doubt that there are people who play ten or twenty hands and then restart, over and over and over and over and over. I pity such people.

Thanks for the advice. It certainly makes a difference which game you play and actually, I've decided on Royal Aces since I don't have to get a kicker for the big payoff and I personally don't care for games with wild cards.

Here are some more video poker strategies that can be added to the list posted till now:-

1.Have a sufficient bankroll to face the different ups and down of the video poker game. Having a bankroll makes the player managed about his game.
2.Play full pay games as much as you can, one of the example of full pay games is 9/6 Jack or Better
3.Never go for kicker or don't use any bluffing techniques. These are the tactics for the poker games and are not applicable to the video poker games.

These are the basic strategies for Video poker games. To gain more information about video poker you can check out http://videopokerbase.com/important-video-poker-strategies.html

Quote: fabianbranson

...don't use any bluffing techniques. These are the tactics for the poker games and are not applicable to the video poker games.

I BLUFFED JOHNNY CHAN IN VIDEO POKER.