Paul Phua answers: How often are you likely to be dealt a Royal Flush?

In a game of Texas Holdem, how often will you be dealt a Royal Flush (10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace all in the same suit)

We’ve all done it. We’re in the casino, sitting at the poker table, and we have a reasonable hand but it’s just one card short of a great hand. And you keep putting in chips so you can stay in the hand, hoping that card WILL come along and you will have the winning hand, and that you will walk away from the casino with the pot. The trouble is, the odds of getting that perfect poker hand is often a lot lower than you might think.
Paul Phua says that to start with, you will have to play 30,940 poker hands before you get dealt a Royal Flush. But, there are few people who will ever play 30,490 poker hands in their life, so this mythical poker hand which beats all others will stay just that – a myth – for the vast majority of poker players. Even getting a start at that hand – being dealt Ace King suited – only happens one time in 331 hands of poker.
OK, so you’ve rolled back your ambitions for poker night. All that would make you happy is just to be dealt a pair of Aces. Not going to be that unusual huh? Hmm. You’ll have to wait for on average 221 hands to be dealt that little bundle of joy. In fact, in a casino you’re actually much more likely to get a start on a straight in your hole cards. You’ll only have to wait between five and six hands on average to be dealt connectors – two cards in any suit of consecutive rank.
Here’s a statistic to make your mind hurt. In a casino game of Texas Holdem with six players, there are more than a quadrillion different hand combinations dealt at the start of the poker game. That’s 15 zeros. It shows you how skilled those poker stars are that have a sixth sense of what cards their opponents are holding. And it’s always worth remembering that in Texas Holdem, the more players are at the poker table, the less likely you are to win, and the better the set of cards you have need to be in order for you to walk away from the casino with the pot. Unless you bluff successfully of course!