The hand that made me learn this cold: I called a raise with pocket fives, flopped my set, stacked a guy holding aces, and my buddy asked how I "knew" to call. I didn't know — I knew the number. You flop a set about 1 in 8.5 tries, and the stacks were deep enough to pay me off when I did. That single fraction turned a "feels lucky" call into a profitable one.
That's what drawing odds really are: not luck, but the fixed math of a 52-card deck. How often you flop a set, flop a flush, complete a draw by the river — every one of these is a number you can derive, and the players who win have them memorized. This guide is the probabilities behind the flop and the draw, each with the actual combinatorics so you can see why the number is what it is. It's the companion to the full 
poker odds and probability chart; once you know the odds here, 
counting outs and pot odds turn them into decisions.
The numbers to burn in
The Flop Lifecycle: One Table Every Odds Page Splits Up
Here's the table nobody builds in one place. Most sites tell you the odds of flopping a hand on one page and the odds of completing a draw on another — but at the table it's one continuous story. You get dealt two cards, you flop something made or a draw, and if it's a draw you either complete it or you don't.
| Holding | Flop it made | Flop the draw | Complete draw by river |
| Pocket pair → set | 11.8% (7.5-to-1) | — | set→boat 33% by river |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two suited → flush | 0.84% (118-to-1) | 10.9% flush draw | 35% (9 outs) |
| Connectors → straight | 1.3% (76-to-1) | ~10% OESD | 31.5% (8 outs) |
| Two unpaired → pair | ~32% | — | — |
| Pocket pair → quads | 0.245% (407-to-1) | — | — |
Read across a row and you see the whole lifecycle of a hand. Two suited cards almost never flop a made flush (0.84%) — but they flop a flush draw thirteen times more often (10.9%), and that draw gets there by the river 35% of the time. Conflating those three numbers is the single most common odds mistake, so we'll pull each apart below with the math shown.
Odds of Flopping a Set (and the Set-Mining Math)
You flop a set (or better) with a pocket pair 11.8% of the time — about 1 in 8.5, or 7.5-to-1 against. This is the most important drawing number in the game, because it's the entire basis for set mining: calling a raise with a small pair purely to flop three of a kind.
Where does 11.8% come from? Hold a pocket pair and there are two cards left in the deck that pair you. The flop is three cards drawn from the 50 you can't see. The clean way to count it is backwards — the chance you miss all three:
| Step | Math |
| Flops that miss your pair | C(48,3) = 17,296 |
|---|---|
| Total possible flops | C(50,3) = 19,600 |
| Chance you miss | 17,296 ÷ 19,600 = 88.2% |
| Chance you flop a set | 1 − 0.882 = 11.8% |
When set mining actually pays
Flopping a set 11.8% of the time means you whiff 88% of the time and fold. To profit, the 12% you hit has to pay for all the times you miss. Breakeven is 7.5-to-1 — so if you call to set-mine, you want the pot plus what you can win on later streets to be worth at least 7.5× your call, and in practice 10-to-1 or better to cover the times your set doesn't get paid or gets outdrawn.
Two related numbers people ask about:
- •Hitting a set by the river (from preflop, seeing all five board cards) is 19.2% — 1 − C(48,5)/C(50,5). Higher than the flop figure because you get two more cards, but you can't count on reaching the river cheaply, which is why the flop number rules set-mining.
- •Set over set — you flop a set and lose to a bigger one — has no single fixed figure because it depends on how many opponents hold pairs, but with two players both holding pairs it lands near ~1%. It's the classic cooler: the math was on your side the whole way.
Flush Odds: Made vs Draw vs Complete
This is where competitors blur three completely different numbers. With two suited cards in your hand, there are three separate questions, and they're an order of magnitude apart:
| Question | Odds | The math |
| Flop a made flush (3 of your suit) | 0.84% · 118-to-1 | C(11,3) ÷ C(50,3) = 165 ÷ 19,600 |
|---|---|---|
| Flop a flush draw (2 more of your suit) | 10.9% · 8-to-1 | C(11,2)×39 ÷ C(50,3) = 2,145 ÷ 19,600 |
| Complete a flopped flush draw by river | 35.0% · 1.9-to-1 | 1 − C(38,2) ÷ C(47,2) |
So the honest sentence is: two suited cards flop a draw far more than a made flush, and that draw is a coin-flip-ish 35% to get there. Chasing every suited hand "for the flush" ignores that you'll flop the made flush less than once per 100 hands.
The completion figure splits by street, which matters the moment there's betting left:
- •Flop → river (both cards): 35.0% — use this only when you're all-in on the flop.
- •Flop → turn (one card): 9 ÷ 47 = 19.1%.
- •Turn → river (one card): 9 ÷ 46 = 19.6%.
Straight Odds: Flopping One vs Drawing to One
Connectors like 8♠7♠ have their own lifecycle. You'll flop a made straight only 1.3% of the time (76-to-1) — rarer than most players assume. Far more often you flop a draw:
- •Open-ended straight draw (OESD): ~10% of flops with connectors. Eight outs, completes 31.5% by the river — 1 − C(39,2)/C(47,2) — or 17% on any single card.
- •Gutshot (inside) straight draw: four outs, completes 16.5% by the river, 8.5% on one card. Half the equity of an open-ender, which is why the same connectors play so differently depending on the flop.
Rare Flops: Quads, Trips, Full Houses & Straight Flushes
These are the numbers behind the best (and worst) nights of your poker life. Each is a clean combinatorics problem on the 19,600 possible flops:
| Flop this | Holding | Odds | The math |
| Quads | A pocket pair | 0.245% · 407-to-1 | 48 ÷ 19,600 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full house | A pocket pair | 0.98% · 101-to-1 | 192 ÷ 19,600 |
| Trips | Two unpaired cards | 1.35% · 73-to-1 | 264 ÷ 19,600 |
| Straight flush | Suited connectors | 0.02% · ~4,900-to-1 | 4 ÷ 19,600 |
One §13-grade distinction the top pages routinely botch: a set is a pocket pair plus one matching board card (11.8%), while trips is one unpaired hole card that the board pairs twice (1.35%). Same three-of-a-kind on paper, wildly different odds and playability — a set is disguised, trips are obvious. Don't let anyone tell you they're the same shape.
The straight flush number is the one to frame: with suited connectors there are exactly four flops that make it (one run in your suit), so 4 ÷ 19,600 ≈ 1 in 4,900. That's why flopped straight flushes are stories people tell for a decade.
The full house figure counts every way the flop hands you a boat with a pocket pair — including the flops that come as trips of another rank on top of your pair — which is why it reads 0.98% rather than the narrower ~0.73% some tables quote for "set plus a board pair" only.
Odds of Being Dealt Your Hand
Before any of the above, there's the deal. With 1,326 possible two-card combinations, here's how often the hands people ask about arrive:
| Dealt this | Odds | How often |
| Pocket aces (specific pair) | 220-to-1 · 0.45% | 6 ÷ 1,326 |
|---|---|---|
| Any pocket pair | 16-to-1 · 5.9% | 78 ÷ 1,326 |
| A-K suited | 331-to-1 · 0.3% | 4 ÷ 1,326 |
| Two suited cards | 3.25-to-1 · 23.5% | almost every 4th hand |
The one that surprises people: if you hold aces at a 10-handed table, the chance a second player also has aces is about 1 in 136 (nine opponents each 1 ÷ C(50,2) = 1/1,225). Rare, but it's exactly the aces-vs-aces cooler that empties a stack and gets blamed on "rigged" software. It's just the deck. For which of those 1,326 hands are worth playing from each seat, see the starting hands chart by position.
FAQ
The 3 Things to Remember
1. Flop a set: 11.8% (7.5-to-1). The number that decides every set-mining call — only call deep enough to be paid 10× or more when you hit. 2. Made vs draw vs complete are different numbers. Two suited cards flop a made flush 0.84%, a flush draw 10.9%, and complete that draw 35%. Never quote the wrong one. 3. A big draw is about one in three by the river. Flush draw 35%, open-ender 31.5% — and roughly one in six on a single street.
Every figure here comes straight from the deck, not a gut feeling. Take these into how to count outs to build the number in real time, then pot odds to turn it into a call or fold — or back up to the complete poker odds and probability chart for every made-hand and long-shot number in one place.