Poker Hand Probabilities

Every decision in poker rests on probability. Knowing how often a hand appears — and how often a draw completes — turns guesswork into math you can lean on at the table. This page collects the core probabilities of Texas Hold'em, from the frequency of a five-card royal flush down to the everyday odds of flopping a set or hitting a flush draw by the river. All figures come from the fixed mathematics of a 52-card deck, so they never change.

Frequency of Every Five-Card Poker Hand

There are exactly 2,598,960 distinct five-card combinations in a 52-card deck. The table below shows how many of those combinations make each hand and the probability of being dealt it at random. This is the foundation of the poker hand rankings — hands are ranked precisely because rarer ones beat more common ones.

Hand	Combinations	Probability	Odds
Royal flush	4	0.000154%	649,739 to 1
Straight flush	36	0.00139%	72,192 to 1
Four of a kind	624	0.0240%	4,164 to 1
Full house	3,744	0.1441%	693 to 1
Flush	5,108	0.1965%	508 to 1
Straight	10,200	0.3925%	254 to 1
Three of a kind	54,912	2.1128%	46.3 to 1
Two pair	123,552	4.7539%	20 to 1
One pair	1,098,240	42.2569%	1.37 to 1
High card	1,302,540	50.1177%	0.995 to 1

Notice that nearly half of all random five-card hands are simply high card, and another 42% are a single pair. Anything two pair or better lands in less than 8% of random deals — a reminder of why big hands feel rare and why what pot odds are matters so much when you are chasing them.

Starting Hand Probabilities in Hold'em

Before the flop, you are dealt two cards from 52, giving 1,326 possible starting combinations. The specific probabilities every player should memorize:

Being dealt a specific pair such as pocket aces is 6 combinations out of 1,326, or 0.45% — about 220 to 1. Being dealt any pocket pair is 78 out of 1,326, or 5.88% — roughly once every 17 hands. Being dealt Ace-King (suited or offsuit) is 16 out of 1,326, or 1.21%. Of those, Ace-King suited specifically is just 4 combinations, 0.3%, or 331 to 1.

Suited hands are scarcer than beginners expect: only about 23.5% of starting hands are suited, because once you hold one card, just 12 of the remaining 51 cards share its suit. Our texas holdem guide covers which of these starting hands are worth playing from each position.

Flop, Turn and River Draw Odds

The numbers that actually win money are the postflop draw probabilities. Here are the ones to know cold:

Flopping a set with a pocket pair happens 11.8% of the time — about 7.5 to 1 against. This single figure drives the "set-mining" strategy, where you call a raise with a small pair hoping to flop a set and stack an opponent.

Flopping a flush with two suited cards is rare at just 0.8%, but flopping a flush draw (four to a flush) is a healthy 10.9%.

Once you hold a flush draw on the flop, you have 9 outs. Your chance of completing it by the river across both the turn and river is about 35%, or roughly 1.9 to 1 against. If you only have one card to come, a 9-out flush draw hits about 19.6% of the time. An open-ended straight draw with 8 outs completes about 31.5% of the time by the river.

A quick shortcut is the rule of 4 and 2: multiply your outs by 4 on the flop (for both cards to come) or by 2 on the turn to estimate your percentage. Nine outs times 4 gives roughly 36% — very close to the true 35%. Our poker odds hub explains how to convert these percentages into calling and folding decisions, and how to bluff covers using draws as semi-bluffs.

Why These Numbers Win Money

Probabilities only pay off when you compare them to the price you are being offered. If a flush draw completes 35% of the time by the river, you need the pot to offer better than roughly 1.9-to-1 to continue profitably. When the odds you are getting beat the odds against hitting, the call prints money over the long run — regardless of whether this particular card falls. This link between hand probability and pot price is the engine of every winning strategy, explained in depth in our poker strategy section.

Where to Put the Math to Work

The softest games reward disciplined, odds-based play the most, because loose opponents pay off your made hands and call your value bets. These approved rooms offer that environment.

TigerGaming — Some of the softest games online. Loose-passive players call down light, so your set-mining and flush draws get paid on the Chico Network.

BetOnline — Our #1 overall pick, with deep traffic at every stake and a 100% up to $1,000 welcome bonus to build a bankroll for volume.

ACR Poker — The best tournament site, home of the $12.5M Venom on the Winning Poker Network, where understanding ICM and draw odds is a real edge.

Start small with micro stakes, protect your roll via bankroll management, and browse the poker glossary for related terms.

FAQ

What are the odds of being dealt pocket aces?

The odds of being dealt a specific pocket pair like aces are 220 to 1, or about 0.45%. There are only 6 ways to make pocket aces out of 1,326 possible starting hands. Any pocket pair, by contrast, arrives roughly once every 17 hands.

How often do you flop a set with a pocket pair?

You flop a set about 11.8% of the time, which is roughly 7.5 to 1 against. This figure underpins set-mining: calling a preflop raise with a small pair specifically to hit a hidden set and win a large pot when you do.

What are the odds of completing a flush draw?

A flush draw with 9 outs on the flop completes about 35% of the time by the river when both the turn and river are still to come, or roughly 1.9 to 1 against. With only the river to come, it drops to about 19.6%.

What is the rule of 4 and 2 in poker?

It is a shortcut for estimating draw odds. Multiply your number of outs by 4 on the flop to approximate your chance of hitting by the river, or by 2 on the turn for one card to come. Nine outs times 4 gives about 36%, very close to the true flush-draw figure of 35%.

For the full ranking of hands these probabilities produce, see poker hand rankings, and compare game variance in cash games vs tournaments.