Of all the casino games out there, Texas Hold’em is probably held in the highest regard alongside Blackjack for the advantage play options. While many casino games rely purely on luck, successful poker requires an enormous amount of skill and a quick wit to keep track of the numbers involved.
With these demands in place, it can help to know some of the odds and probabilities involved in the game and what they mean for your playstyle. In particular, it’s worth knowing that having a strong hand isn’t as rare as it might at first feel.
The odds of a hand of poker providing a pair is about 1.28:1 and getting two pair is a little over 3:1, or 3.26:1 to be precise!
By contrast, the best possible hand of a Royal Flush has a probability of 30,939:1 of occurring. So if someone’s going all in with a Jack, Queen and Ten of spades on the table, you’d be understandably sceptical. If all they’re after is a single flush though, the odds are a good deal better. The odds of getting a flush by the river, with two suited cards already in your hand, is about 15:1 so pretty sizable.
The odds and probabilities of the top hands in Texas Hold’em poker can be found in the graphic below:
