There are so many ways to win a hand of poker, no matter what incarnation you play. The biggest hand you can get is the royal flush and it trumps everything else. Hitting one of these is pretty rare, but you may not have realized just how rare a pull it is.
Whether playing in online casinos or feeling the felt beneath your fingers, poker remains a draw around the world. Everyone strives to take down the next pot, but there is one hand that everyone would love to have: the royal flush. Just how rare is it to hit one of these massive hands?
What is a Royal Flush?
The rarest hand in all of poker. A royal flush is a combination of a flush – five cards of all the same suit – and a straight – five cards in a row. It is possible to get a straight flush, but a royal flush is even rarer because it uses the biggest cards in the game (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and 10).
The royal flush beats even the biggest and baddest hands in the game like four-of-a-kind and lower straight flushes. Because of its winning power, the odds may not shock you.
The Odds of a Royal Flush
It is important to note that you can put together a royal flush in a wide range of poker games. For this purpose, let’s stick with Texas Hold’Em, 5-card poker (stud and draw), and 7-card poker (stud and draw).
In Texas Hold’Em
Video poker is another matter entirely, but the odds of hitting a royal flush in Texas Hold’Em differ slightly from regular poker. The main reason being that you can make the best five-card hand out of seven total cards (two in the ‘hole’ and five community cards).
The odds of hitting a royal flush in Texas Hold’Em are actually the same as standard 7-card poker. The probability is just 0.0032% or 30,939:1 for the player. The reason it is so low is because of the additional cards that offer the player a better chance of hitting.
In 5-Card Poker
Because the player has fewer cards to make their best hand, it is statistically the most difficult to garner a royal flush in 5-card poker. Unlike 7-card and Texas Hold’Em, there are no extra cards for the player to work with.
For that reason, hitting a royal flush in 5-card poker has a probability of just 0.000154%. The odds against hitting one are an astronomical 649,739:1, more than 20 times more difficult to hit than it would be in Texas Hold’Em. If you manage a royal flush in 5-card poker, take a picture because it is highly unlikely you will ever see it again.
In 7-Card Poker
7-card poker is very much the same as its 5-card counterpart with the bonus of two additional cards. The goal is to make the best 5-card hand that you can, so hitting bigger hands becomes a bit more commonplace in this version.
The odds of hitting a royal flush in 7-card poker are just 0.0032% or 30,939:1 for the player. To call this a “rare” hand would not be doing them justice. It is the kind of hand that regular players may see once in a lifetime, if at all.
The Rarest Hand
Drawing a royal flush is the kind of thing poker dreams are made of. While it may be nice to win that pot, it will pale in comparison to the feeling of telling the story of the time you pulled the rarest hand in all of cards.
