Poker Odds & Probability Chart — Every Hand's Real Odds in Hold'em

The first time I set-mined a pair of fives in a live game and hit my set on the flop, the guy next to me groaned "what are the odds?" — and I actually knew: about 1 in 8.5. That one number is why I called in the first place.

Poker isn't a guessing game. Every call, fold, and shove is a probability question in disguise, and the players who win are the ones who've turned "what are the odds?" into a reflex. This is the complete poker odds and probability chart for Texas Hold'em — every made hand, every flop, every draw — with the one mental shortcut that lets you do the math at the table in two seconds.

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The numbers that matter most

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Poker Hand Odds Chart: The Probability of Every Hand

Here's the master chart. The trick most sites skip: there are two different numbers for every hand, and confusing them is why people argue about how rare a royal flush "really" is.

• •5-card odds = the chance a single random five-card hand is that hand (the classic textbook number).
• •Hold'em (by the river) = the chance you end up with that hand after seeing all seven cards (your two hole cards + five community cards). This is the number that actually matters at the table.

The stat that surprises everyone

High card is the most common five-card hand (50%) but one of the least common Hold'em results (17%). Why? Seven cards give you so many chances to pair up that "no pair by the river" actually becomes rare. More cards, more connections.

Notice how the order never changes — the rarer a hand is to make, the higher it beats. That's the whole logic behind the poker hand rankings: probability is the ranking.

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Odds of Being Dealt Each Starting Hand

Before any flop, there are exactly 1,326 possible two-card starting hands. Here's how often the ones people ask about show up.

So the next time someone says "I never get aces," they're roughly right — you'll be dealt a specific pair like aces only about once every 221 hands. But any pocket pair arrives every 17 hands, which is why set-mining is a real strategy, not a fantasy. Which pairs and suited hands are worth playing from each seat is covered in the starting hands chart by position.

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Odds of Flopping Each Hand

This is the table most odds pages bury or split across a dozen articles. These are the odds of the flop making your hand, given the hole cards in the left column.

The one to memorize is the top row: you flop a set about 12% of the time, or roughly 1 in 8.5. That single number decides whether calling a raise to "set-mine" a small pair is profitable — you need the pot (and your opponent's likely stack) to pay you off more than 7.5 to 1 when you hit. That's the bridge to pot odds, below.

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Drawing Odds: Hitting Your Flush or Straight by the River

You have a draw on the flop. How often do you complete it? It all comes down to outs — the cards left in the deck that make your hand. Count your outs, then read across.

The classic spot: you flop a flush draw (nine outs). You'll get there 35% of the time by the river — better than one in three. An open-ended straight draw (eight outs) hits 31.5%. Note the two columns: once the turn bricks, your odds on a single card roughly halve, which is exactly why draws get more expensive to chase street by street.

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How to Calculate Poker Odds: Counting Outs and the Rule of 2 and 4

You can't carry that table in your head — but you don't need to. The Rule of 2 and 4 gets you within a percent or two in one second:

Worked example. You have four cards to a flush after the flop. That's 9 outs (13 of your suit − 4 you can see). On the flop: 9 × 4 = 36% — the true figure is 35.0%, so you're spot on. On the turn if you missed: 9 × 2 = 18% (true: 19.6%).

That's the entire trick. Outs → times four on the flop → your equity. Everything else is just knowing what to do with that number. The one skill this rule assumes you've mastered is the count itself — for combo draws, overlapping outs, and the "dirty" outs that shouldn't count, see the full guide to counting outs in poker.

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Pot Odds: Turning Your Odds Into a Call or Fold

Knowing you'll hit 35% of the time is useless until you compare it to the price. Pot odds are simply: what fraction of the final pot am I paying to call? If your chance of winning is bigger than that fraction, you call.

Worked example. The pot is $100. Your opponent bets $50, making it $150. You must call $50 to win that $150.

That's the moment all the numbers pay off: your drawing odds (35%) beat your pot odds (25%), so calling wins money in the long run even though you'll lose the hand more often than not. When the draw is bigger than the price, you call; when it's smaller, you fold — no gut feeling required. For the full method, bet-size cheat sheet, and how implied odds change the call, see how to calculate pot odds.

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Royal Flush & Straight Flush Odds (and Why They're So Rare)

The two rarest hands are the ones players brag about for years — with good reason.

• •Royal flush: as a dealt five-card hand, 1 in 649,740. Playing Hold'em to the river, it improves to about 1 in 30,940 because you're choosing your best five from seven cards. Either way, most players go years between them.
• •Straight flush: about 1 in 72,193 as a five-card hand. Still a once-a-year sighting for most.

Why so rare? A royal flush is exactly one specific run of cards in one specific suit — four ways to make it in the entire deck versus 1,302,540 ways to make a plain high card. Rarity is the whole reason it sits at the top of the rankings.

:::note A common myth: "a royal flush beats everything, so it can be tied." Two royal flushes are only possible in different suits — and since suits never break ties, that's a split pot. In practice it essentially never happens outside of shared-board flukes. :::

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Long-Shot Odds: Coolers, Quads, and Bad Beats

Some numbers exist mostly to explain the worst night of your poker life.

Set over set — you flop a set and lose to a bigger set — is the ultimate cooler. There's no clean single number because it depends on how many players hold pairs, but the anchor is this: you flop a set only 11.8% of the time, and an opponent doing the same on the same board is rare enough that most players remember every one. When it happens, it's variance, not a mistake — the math was on your side the whole way. If you want to see exactly how those showdowns are scored, the kicker and tie-breaker rules cover every edge case.

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FAQ

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The 3 Numbers to Burn Into Memory

1. Flop a set: ~12% (1 in 8.5). Decides every set-mining call. 2. Flush draw by the river: 35%. Nine outs, Rule of 4 → 9 × 4 = 36%. 3. Pot odds beat gut feeling. If your chance to hit is bigger than the price of the call, you call — every time.

Poker rewards the players who've made these automatic. Learn the chart, drill the Rule of 2 and 4, and start asking "what are the odds?" before you act instead of after. Next, put the math to work by learning which starting hands to play from each position, or brush up on why a flush beats a straight so you always know what your outs are worth.

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