Poker Tutorials, Tips and Tricks

If you haven’t already noticed, probability is a huge factor in Texas Hold ʹem. For example, there are 2,598,960 possible hands in a 52‐
card deck but only 4 Royal Flushes. If the average serious poker player is dealt 100,000 hands in their lifetime, they will never hold (on the first five cards) more than 4 percent of all the possible
hands. And likely a lot less.

Figuring out straight card combinations for the purpose of this text are called Card Odds (you will be introduced to other kinds of odds later). Card Odds can reveal some quite interesting information. For example, how many pat straight flushes will you see in your
lifetime? To determine that number, the expected number of hands that could be dealt during your lifetime is estimated by the
following calculation:

10 complete poker hands / hr. x 5 hrs. / game x 50 games / yr.
x 40 yrs. / poker life = l00,000 hands of poker per lifetime.
This is a pretty aggressive estimate, as most people will never
come close to this number of complete hands in Texas Hold’em.
Based on this level of play, the number of pat (on the first five
cards) poker hands that you should get during your lifetime is
calculated from the card odds and tabulated as follows:

Cards Dealt | Number of Pat Hands
No pair 50,000
One pair 40,00
Two pair 5,000
Three of a kind 2,000
Straight 400
Flush 200
Full house 170
Four of a kind 25
Straight flush 1.4
Royal straight flush 0.15

So statistically, you should see a pat straight flush on your firstfive cards once or twice during your lifetime. Most average poker players will never see even one.

Card players often talk about having a ‘lucky streak’ or a ‘run’. Mathematically, ‘streaks’ don’t exist. But suppose you did have an
amazing run of cards one evening. What would the odds be of having five consecutive straight flushes in a row?

Players use card odds to make playing decisions. A decision made without taking into account card odds makes poker a guessing
game. The chances of finishing a flush or a straight, the probability of getting an over card (face card), the percentage of times youʹre
going to flop a card to match your pocket pair ‐ are all extremely important factors in Texas Hold’em.

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