Probability of getting poker flush

Matty1973 said:
Nobby - I'm pretty chuffed my 20/1 was so accurate - although I was rather hoping it would be less - that still might be big enough to convince my friend he is psychic even though he guesses what will happen on virtually every hand. He never remembers the ones where he is wrong! He keeps going on about the time a player had a pair of nines and he predicted another nine would come on the board. Even a very basic approximation of 5*(2/48) comes out at 10/48 or roughly 20% but he still thinks that was an amazing prediction!
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You're going about this the wrong way. Affirm to your friend that he is indeed psychic, do not explain the actual numbers to him and ask if he's willing to increase the blinds/limits you usually play for...
 
Matty1973 said:
Now he is convinced he is psychic.

I believe that the chance of one of us getting a flush is not as remarkable as he believes. However without knowing the exact chane I'm having difficulty convincing him it is probably around the one in twenty rather than the one in a million he believes.
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The part I don't understand is your trying to convince him that he is not psychic. I am not a poker player, but from what I understand about the game, having an opponent who believes flushes are a one in a million occurrence is an advantage.
 
robinson said:
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_odds/texas_holdem

http://www.learn-texas-holdem.com/poker-odds-calculator.htm

Everything you want to know.
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That doesn't help with the question at hand. That link shows how to calculate to odds of winning the hand given a particular deal. It does not show the odds of a particular hand occuring.


On the topic of a royal flush in texas hold-em: I've only been at the table once when one was dealt.
The interesting thing was that the person who got the royal had one other person stay in the hand until the end -- her mother. Her mother stuck around because she had the 9 to go with the t-j-q-k on the table to give her a king high straight flush!
 
Molinaro said:
That doesn't help with the question at hand. That link shows how to calculate to odds of winning the hand given a particular deal. It does not show the odds of a particular hand occurring.
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In this case, the chances of winning are exactly the odds of getting a flush, since in the case of both players holding aces, that is the only hand that will allow one person to win. If you would bother to actually click on the app, you would see all the odds, from the deal until the river. Which is why I said it is what is needed to answer the OPs question.

Matty1973 said:
Me and my friend were playing poker and we were both dealt a pair of aces - this meant we were likely tie.
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Yes. Using either app I linked to, you can see the exact odds at that point. Both players are Win: 2.17%, Tie: 95.65%.

To change that to odds, just call it 96 to one to tie. Or 1 in 50 to win.

Matty1973 said:
I believe that the chance of one of us getting a flush is not as remarkable as he believes. However without knowing the exact chance I'm having difficulty convincing him it is probably around the one in twenty rather than the one in a million he believes.
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Poker players can calculate the odds of every hand as it is played. The web pages that let anyone do it shows exactly what the chances (odds) are, at every point. After the flop, if there were two spades, the player holding the ace of spades is now
Win:
4.55%,
Tie
95.45%

So after the flop, the chances of winning, for the player holding the AoS, is 9 to 200.

If a spade comes on the turn, the odds are now
Win: 20.45%
Tie: 79.55%

Or 1 in 5 to win.

These odds would be the same for any suite, I just used spades.

If there were more than two players, it changes the odds, based on what cards they threw into the muck.
 
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Robinson, your link does not solve my issue at all. Using your first link, with my Q J of Hearts, and a small heart and random second card for my opponent the odds were 75/20/5. I have no problem with this. This did not show me the odds of getting a royal flush in the next three cards. When A K 10 of hearts came out on the flop, the odds of me winning became 100%, which I sort of already knew.

The question for me anyway was what are the odds of that event actually occuring, not the odds of winning the hand.

Norm
 
fromdownunder said:
Robinson, your link does not solve my issue at all. Using your first link, with my Q J of Hearts, and a small heart and random second card for my opponent the odds were 75/20/5. I have no problem with this. This did not show me the odds of getting a royal flush in the next three cards.
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I was only answering the OP, which due to the nature of the hands, the odds of winning are exactly the same as the odds of a flush. In your case, which I had not read, it is probably not the same.

I will go back and read your problem, and see if there is any help to be had from calculators.
 
fromdownunder said:
While somewhat off topic, a couple of years ago I got a royal flush on the flop playing no limit holdem. I was dealt Q J of Hearts, and A K 10 of Hearts came on the flop. Another heart actually came on the river. I slow played it (naturally) and two others stayed in the hand (one of whom also finished up with a heart flush). It finished up a nice little pot.

Just wondering if one of the more mathematically inclined members here could give me the odds of that one, assuming a normal deck and no cheating (I was not the dealer, and I did not know her outside of tournament poker). I imagine that the odds would be rather high.

Norm
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OK, looking at that, there are two different issues. The odds of getting the royal flush, and the odds of winning with it.

The second part is easy. After the flop your odds are 100% to win. The odds of getting a royal flush are 1 in 649,740.source
 
I'm impressed that somebody actually got a royal flush. In my entire life, I have never witnessed anyone, either in person, or on television, catch a royal flush.



















And I am really old.
 
robinson said:
I'm impressed that somebody actually got a royal flush. In my entire life, I have never witnessed anyone, either in person, or on television, catch a royal flush.
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Robinson, thanks for the response to my query, the odds, and the link. I have seen a straight flush on television (but not on the flop), and "live" during a friendly with my kids, but never a royal (only in 7 card poker though). At 650,000:1!. but as with lotto winners, somebody gets to do it, and probably quite often given the number of poker hands that would be played daily throughout the world. But I was (obviously) extremely lucky, and I dined out on the story for weeks afterwards. I wish I could do the same in lotto.

Norm
 
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Matty1973 said:
Me and my friend were playing poker and we were both delt a pair of aces - this meant we were likely tie. My friend (who is not very skeptical) said he thought one of us would get a flush (5 cards of the same suit) and thus not tie. As it happened he was right - 4 clubs came on the table and he won with his Ace of clubs.
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Matty1973 said:
He keeps going on about the time a player had a pair of nines and he predicted another nine would come on the board. Even a very basic approximation of 5*(2/48) comes out at 10/48 or roughly 20% but he still thinks that was an amazing prediction!
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Matty, you do realize when you're playing hold 'em you're not supposed to show your cards to each other, don't you?








;)
 
WildCat said:
Matty, you do realize when you're playing hold 'em you're not supposed to show your cards to each other, don't you?

;)
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My assuption about this was that either one of them was all in and they knew what cards they were talking about, or that it was a post-hoc discussion about what might have been.

Norm
 
robinson said:
In this case, the chances of winning are exactly the odds of getting a flush, since in the case of both players holding aces, that is the only hand that will allow one person to win.
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But one player could get a flush and it could be a tie, if the board had a straight flush that was not king-high, so the chances are not the same, but pretty close.
 
Rasmus said:
You're going about this the wrong way. Affirm to your friend that he is indeed psychic, do not explain the actual numbers to him and ask if he's willing to increase the blinds/limits you usually play for...
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:D
 
robinson said:
I'm impressed that somebody actually got a royal flush. In my entire life, I have never witnessed anyone, either in person, or on television, catch a royal flush.

...

And I am really old.
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I'm quite young (28), but I play poker pretty much for a recreational player, both in live games and in the internet. I've had Royal Flush 4 times, I've played poker (NL Texas Holdem) only 4 years. Being a recreational player I don't know how many hands I've played, but I play roughly 10-15 hours a week, mainly internet heads up games, which helps to explain it.

It's a wonderful game :)
 
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Wildcat - fromdownunder is correct, I was all in with my pockets Aces and he called and won.

I have recently started to write down his predictions in a record (often he says no - if the feeling is not strong - funny he never had 'weak' predictions before I started recording them!). I ask him if what he says is 'on the record' or not and so far all that are have been wrong. Of course he is blaming me for negatively effecting his powers - but it is all in good fun. I have introduced the idea of postive confirmation bias to him and he hasn't rejected the idea totally out of hand so there is hope yet!
 
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If he feels the odds of getting a flush in Hold 'Em are 1 in a million, then I recommend playing Hold 'Em against this friend as often as possible for money.
 
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