None of the hands in Poker is more coveted and revered than the royal flush. But what is a royal flush in Poker? And how rare is it to get a royal flush?
In this post, we’ll investigate the anatomy of a royal flush, breaking down every element that comprises it and exploring its odds.
What a Royal Flush consists of
As a Royal Flush is the highest possible hand in Poker, it is also the hand with the lowest odds of being dealt. A royal flush is a straight flush dealt from an Ace high to a Ten high, all in the same suit. Let’s break that down a little further.
A royal flush is a hand consisting of an Ace, a King, a Queen, a Jack, and a 10, all in the same suit. The Ace is usually high in poker games, which means it’s a hand where the player doesn’t hold a pair or anything stronger. The strength of the hand is always defined by its highest-ranking card (Aces are high in most variants of the game). This means that a hand with a royal flush is the highest possible hand and also beats all other straight flushes. As there are four different suits in a deck of cards (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades), four possible royal flushes can be achieved in a game played with one deck of cards.
What are the odds of hitting a royal flush?
The odds of hitting a royal flush are very low at just 1 in 649,739. This means that if you were to play Poker for millions of hands, you would only hit a royal flush once every few hundred thousand hands or so. That said, playing certain types of poker games can improve the odds of hitting a royal flush.
For example, Omaha Poker is a game where each player is dealt four cards instead of just two, as it’s the case in the traditional Poker game: Texas Hold’Em. This means there are more possibilities for making a royal flush since there are more cards to choose from. The odds of hitting a royal flush in Omaha Poker are about 1 in 30,000.
Here are two other things you can do to improve your odds of getting (or seeing) a royal flush:
- Play at a full table. The more people playing, the more likely someone will hit a royal flush.
- Bet on the flop. The flop is when the first three community cards are dealt. By betting on the flop, you’ll increase your chances of getting a royal flush because more cards will be available to make your hand.
