Royal flush the best hand in poker
A-K-Q-J-T, all one suit: the highest straight flush. Nothing beats it.
How often, card by card
| Cards dealt | Probability | 1 in | Odds against | Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 cards: the flop, or five-card draw | 0.00% | 649,740 | 649,739 to 1 | 4 / 2,598,960 |
| 6 cards: the turn | 0.00% | 108,290 | 108,289 to 1 | 188 / 20,358,520 |
| 7 cards: the river in hold'em, or seven-card stud | 0.00% | 30,940 | 30,939 to 1 | 4,324 / 133,784,560 |
“Best hand” means exactly this hand and nothing better: a full house also contains a pair, but it counts once, as a full house. These are the odds for any two hole cards; your own starting hand moves them, which is the grid further down.
The working
Royal flush, five cards: one per suit 1 × 4 = 4 enumerated by the engine: 4 of 2,598,960 probability: 4 / 2,598,960 = 0.00015%
There are 1 different royal flush hands once suits are ignored: One. Every royal flush ties every other. Every one of them can still be your best hand with seven cards.
When two players both have a royal flush
Two royal flushes can only happen on the board, and always split.
Check your own showdown in the hand checker →
Royal flush by starting hand
The chance each of the 169 starting hands ends the river with a royal flush as its best hand, from every one of its 2,118,760 boards. 10 hands tie for most often (0.051%): AKs, AQs, AJs and 7 more; 64 hands tie for least often (0.00019%): 99, 88, 77 and 61 more. Averaged over their combinations: pocket pairs 0.0018%, suited hands 0.0078%, offsuit hands 0.0018%.
| Starting hand | Royal flush by the river | 1 in |
|---|---|---|
| AKs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| AQs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| AJs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| ATs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| KQs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| KJs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| KTs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| QJs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| QTs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| JTs | 0.051% | 1,955 |
| … | ||
| 32o | 0.00019% | 529,690 |
| 42o | 0.00019% | 529,690 |
| 43o | 0.00019% | 529,690 |
Royal flush beats
- Straight flush 0.028% by the river
- Four of a kind 0.17% by the river
- Full house 2.60% by the river
- Flush 3.03% by the river
- Straight 4.62% by the river
- Three of a kind 4.83% by the river
- Two pair 23.5% by the river
- One pair 43.8% by the river
- High card 17.4% by the river
Royal flush loses to
Nothing. Two royal flushes can only share the board, and split.
- Every five-, six- and seven-card hand was dealt and classified by the site's engine (
tools/build-rankings.mjs). The five-card count must equal the formula above or the build fails; the six- and seven-card counts must equal the standard published tables. - The starting-hand figures deal each hand every possible board. Suits are interchangeable, so one deal of each hand gives the exact figure for all its combinations.
- The showdowns above were scored by the same engine; the build fails if any of them comes out differently from what its title says.
- Back to all ten hands. Raw data: rankings.json.