Poker Hand Odds

Poker Hand Odds (5 card hand frequencies):

Royal Flush..... 1 in 649,739 or 0.000154%.. or better: 0.000154%

Straight Flush.. 1 in 72,192.33 or 0.00139%. or better: 0.00154%

Four of a Kind.. 1 in 4,164 or 0.0240%...... or better: 0.0256%

Full House...... 1 in 693.2 or 0.144%....... or better: 0.170%

Flush........... 1 in 507.8 or 0.197%....... or better: 0.367%

Straight........ 1 in 253.8 or 0.392%....... or better: 0.76%

Three of a Kind. 1 in 46.3 or 2.11%......... or better: 2.87%

Two Pair........ 1 in 20.03 or 4.75%........ or better: 7.62%

One Pair........ 1 in 2.36 or 42.3%......... or better: 49.9%

No Pair......... 1 in 0.995 or 50.1%........ or better: 100%

Click here for Holdem Odds for 2 card hands.

Poker hand odds are what most people rely on. Such as the young poker player who says, “What are the odds of that,” nodding his head in disbelief. He had been holding what he thought was a great poker hand (pocket queens with another lady on the table), bet on the flop, raised on the turn, but the river card had killed him. His opponent, who also happened to be his overweight, cigar-smoking uncle, drew a straight. Right up until the last card, the uncle had nothing, so why did he stay in? Why did he keep betting? The odds.

In poker—or for that matter in anything—odds describe the likelihood or probability that an event or thing is, will be, or is more likely to be than something else. It is a ratio that is mathematically predicable and generally helpful for determining your chance of winning a particular poker hand whether you’re playing in your uncle’s dinning room, the card room at the Wynn, or online.

Take odds a step further than just poker hand odds and you get what poker players call “pot odds.” Pots odds represent your likelihood of winning versus the value of what is at stake. Put another way, pot odds are really the mathematical odds of improving your hand compared to what you could win and what you need to risk. This is more important than Poker Hand Odds!

In the case of the young card player, his uncle had calculated the pot odds and determined that it was worth his money to stay in the hand, and ultimately he won. The uncle did not just rely on the rudimentary poker hand odds.

Calculating Pot Odds

Calculating pot odds is not as hard as it might seem, in fact, Wesley R. Young has a great article about “figuring pot odds” on howstuffworks.com. Basically, Young outlines a three step process for determining pot odds.

1. Decide how many “outs” (cards that will improve your hand) are left in the deck, subtract the “outs” from the total number of unknown cards (if you have seen your two cards and a Texas Hold’em flop, 47 of the total of 52 cards are unknown to you), and divide your answer by the number of “outs.” So 47 – outs / outs. This gives you the odds of getting a card that improves your hand. In his article, Young uses an example hand where you’re holding an ace of clubs and a queen of diamonds. A king, queen, and six of clubs come up on the flop, giving you 14 outs. Subtract 14 from 47 (the number of unknown cards) to get 33 and divide 33 by 14 for about 2.4 to 1 odds of getting a card that improves your hand.

2. Decide how much money is in the pot, figure out how much you would need to bet, and calculate the ratio between the money in the pot and the money you would need to bet in order to call. Again referring to Young’s excellent article for example, imaging that there is $9 in the pot and it would cost you $1 to call. That gives you a ration of 9 to 1.

3. Compare your odds of getting a card that improves your hand to the ratio of pot funds and the amount you need to bet. So as in Young’s example, the pot odds would favor betting since your chance of getting a helpful card are 2.4 to 1 and your potential payoff is 9 to 1. If things where reverse, and your odds of getting a helpful card where 9 to 1 while your potential payoff was only 2.4 to 1, you would want to fold your since pot odds would be against you.

Pot odds are what you should focus on. There are more important offline without all the software online poker tools available. Poker hand odds are not what should be focused on, other odd tables are more important.

Odds Tables

If you don’t feel up to calculating pot odds yourself or for that matter are more interest in your chances of winning, you can use odds tables. Players tend to use odds tables in two ways. First, you can remember some key odds for when you’re playing a live game with friends or at a casino. For example, if you start a hand of Texas Hold’em with a pocket pair (remember the young card player in the example above) the odds are 7.5 to 1 that you will flop a set or better; 136 to 1 that you’ll end the had with a full house; about 407.33 to 1 you’ll eventually find yourself with four of a kind. You could just remember that pocket pairs are basically going to improve 1 in 7 or 8 times.

Second, some players will actually open odds tables in a browser window while they're playing online, so that they can quickly reference their odds of winning a particular hand. More tables will be available on this site soon. Tables include poker hand odds, starting hand odds, completion of hand odds, etc.


Poker Odds Calculator

Finally, the really lazy (written tongue in proverbial cheek) use odds calculators to instantly analyze their online hand and provide pot odds or the odds for actually winning the hand.

Read more about online poker calculators and which ones are the best here. I highly recommend on if you are going to play online. If not you are at a huge disadvantage especially if you rely on poker hand odds. Do not rely on poker hand odds to help you become a great player. You need the right online poker tools (software) and the right technique.

For more poker strategy other than poker hand odds click here.