Odds Of Flopping A Set
There are very few feelings in poker that beat the one of flopping quads or a straight flush. There you are, sitting with the absolute nuts and your only job is to figure out how to milk your opponents most money you can.
But if you’ve been playing poker for a little while, you’ve probably realized these rare hands don’t come around nearly as often as you’d like.
- Apparently the odds of flopping a flush draw are 10.94% for suited connectors and 10.45% for hitting an 8-out (open-ended, I don't know about double gut-shot) straight draw. Could someone point to a resource or do it by themselves where they explain the odds of hitting either a flush draw or a straight draw or both.
- The odds of two players flopping a set are around 1% so it’s extremely unlikely. In other words you probably shouldn’t be folding too many sets when you are just starting out. You can re-asses if the board is particularly dangerous (meaning flush, straight or full house possibilities) but in general don’t worry about it too much.
- Odds of flopping 2 Pair or better with an unpaired starting hand = 4.1%. So, although it’s relatively unlikely we’ll flop exactly 2 Pair, we’ll actually flop Two Pair or better roughly once in every 25 flops we see. Unlike flopping Two Pair, the Two Pair plus odds, do change based on the type of hand.
This is because the odds of being dealt a royal flush or other top-ranking hands are quite small. If you want to know more about exact numbers and the math behind rare hands in Texas Hold’em, keep on reading. Committing these facts to memory will probably make those rare occasions when you actually do manage to make one of these hands even more exciting and profitable.
The probability of hitting a Set with pocket pairs increases to 18% from 11.8%, and the probability of hitting an open-ended Straight by the River also increases to 48% in 6+ Hold’em compared with 31.5% in traditional Hold’em. Let’s now have a look at some of the pre-flop all-in hand situations. In fact, the math suggests that somebody will flop a higher set than you in a full ring cash game once every 7.8k hands. It is even more rare in a 6max game, where it will only happen once every 12.6k hands. This is why set over set is commonly referred to as a 'cooler'.
Royal Flush (Straight Flush)
A royal flush is essentially the best possible hand that you can get in poker, but it’s still just a straight flush. So the odds of being dealt a royal are exactly the same as being dealt any other straight flush. You just need to have two hole cards that can make a royal, i.e., anything between a 10 and an Ace.
In this article, we’ll focus on the instances where you’ve got to use both of your cards to make your straight flush since doing it with just one card is neither as rare nor as lucrative, as you’ll have a four-straight, four-flush board that most players will tread very lightly on.
For two cards to be able to make a straight flush on the flop, they need to be suited and connected. However, not all of the starting hands meeting these criteria have the same odds, as some of them have more options than the others. Below is the table showing chances of flopping a straight flush with different types of suited connectors.
| Hand | Number of possible combos | Percentage |
| A2s | Just one (2-3-4) | 0.005% |
| Suited connectors (i.e. 78s) | Four (4-5-6, 5-6-9, 6-9-10, 9-10-J) | 0.02% |
| One-gappers (i.e. 68s) | Three (4-5-7, 5-7-9, 7-9-10) | 0.015% |
| Two-gappers (i.e. 69s) | Two (5-7-8, 7-8-10) | 0.001% |
If you’ve been wondering why that straight flush never comes in when you decide to peel the flop with your suited connectors, the table above probably offers a bit of a new perspective. The odds of this happening, even with the best possible candidate, are very slim.
Making a Straight Flush on Turn or River
More often than flopping a straight flush, you’ll actually flop a straight flush draw. It will be either an open-ended draw (with two possible cards to complete it) or a gutshot draw where only one card from the whole deck can improve you to straight flush.
Once you do flop that draw, the odds of making the hand actually improve quite significantly, even though they’re still low.
| Draw type | Chance to improve on the turn | Chance to improve by the river |
| Gutshot | 2.1% | 4.3% |
| Open-ender | 4.3% | 8.4% |
So if you have an open-ended straight flush draw on the flop, you have decent odds of hitting by the river. If your opponents will let you and if you account for the implied odds when you do hit this highly unlikely hand, these types of draws are sometimes worth chasing.
Odds Of Flopping A Set With A Pocket Pair
Quads (Four of a Kind)
Quads are another rare Hold’em hand although not nearly as rare as a straight flush. You’ve probably seen quite a few of these during your time playing poker and have had them at least once or twice yourself as well.
Once again, I’ll focus on odds of making quads when you are dealt a pocket pair as that’s the kind of quads you want to have and that you can extract some value from.
First of all, if you run the numbers, the overall odds of making quads with a random pocket pair if you were to just deal five cards (flop, turn, and river) are 0.816%. This is not a very useful stat, though, as you’ll rarely get to see all five cards unless you improve on the flop (i.e., flop a set).
Below are some more useful numbers.
| Odds of flopping quads | Odds of turning quads (after flopping a set) | Odds of getting quads by the river (after flopping a set) |
| 0.245% | 2.1% | 4.3% |
If you compare these numbers with the aforementioned ones for the straight flush, you can see why you’ve likely seen quads much more often than straight flushes.
And, if you were wondering what the odds are of flopping quads with just one card (i.e., when not holding a pocket pair), that would be 0.001%.
In Conclusion
Rare poker hands are at the top of hand strength charts for a reason. They’re very hard to get and when you do get them, you’ll almost always end up winning a pot. Even when you do lose with one of these hands, you might end up a winner as many cardrooms and casinos offer nice bad beat jackpots to tackle these precise scenarios.
Having seen these numbers, you’ll probably have a somewhat better idea of how (un)likely you are to be dealt a straight flush or quads during any individual session. Admittedly, this information won’t help you get any better in flopping royals. However, knowing the exact odds could save you a lot of money in the long run as you’ll know when to hold’em and when to fold’em.
Other Posts You'll Enjoy
- 5 Helpful Poker Tools and Poker Apps to Improve Your Game
There's lots of helpful poker software out there these days, but a select few poker tools and apps take the case as the preeminent programs…
- Three Alternative Card Games to Poker
Another great article for the Cardplayer Lifestyle poker blog from a guest contributor.
- Poker Rooms Should Start Spreading Wild Card Games
We at Cardplayer Lifestyle think it's high time some innovations be made in live poker rooms, namely the introduction of wild card poker games. Check…
- Give Wild Card Poker Games a Chance
Tired of Texas Hold'em? Only Omaha for you? Simply sick of Stud? Cardplayer Lifestyle recommends you add some spice to your poker sessions by trying…
- Hall of Hands Brings Some Life to Online Poker
Have you ever finished an online poker session and wished your biggest hands could be shown on TV or that there was some way you…
- Poker Math: Having Some Fun with the Numbers
At it's core, poker is very much a game of mathematics. Knowing the numbers, then, and mastering spots in which you can maximize your winning…
The following Texas Holdem odds table highlights some common probabilities that you may encounter in Hold'em. It is not vital that you learn these probabilities, but it is useful to be aware of the chances of certain situations arising.
Texas Hold'em odds chart.
| Situation | Percentage Odds | Ratio Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Preflop Probabilities: | ||
| Dealt AA. | 0.45% | 220 to 1 |
| Dealt AK. | 1.2% | 82 to 1 |
| Dealt AKs. | 0.3% | 331 to 1 |
| Dealt 72o. | 0.9% | 109 to 1 |
| Being dealt AA vs. KK (heads up). | 0.004% | 22,559 to 1 |
| Dealt a pocket pair. | 6% | 16 to 1 |
| Dealt suited connectors. | 4% | 24 to 1 |
| Flop Probabilities: | ||
| Flopping a pair. | 32.4% | 2.2 to 1 |
| Flopping a set (with pockets). | 11.8% | 7.5 to 1 |
| Paired Board: | ||
| 2 players, probability of trips. | 17% | 4.8 to 1 |
| 3 players, probability of trips. | 26% | 3 to 1 |
| 4 players, probability of trips. | 34% | 2 to 1 |
| 5 players, probability of trips. | 43% | 1.4 to 1 |
How to use Texas Hold'em odds.
The odds in this Texas Hold'em odds table are unlikely to directly help your overall strategy, but they are pretty interesting nonetheless. The Texas Hold'em odds for each of the different situations have been given in both percentage and ratio odds, so use whichever format you feel comfortable with.
Other poker odds charts.
For more useful odds charts that you can use for when you are working out whether or not to call when on a drawing hand, use the following tables:
Both of these tables give the odds for completing your draw depending on how many outs you have. You can find out more on how to work out odds and all that mathematical stuff in the article on pot odds.
Go back to the poker odds charts.
Can You Afford Not To Use
Poker Tracker 4?
Odds Of Flopping A Set In Poker
“I wouldn’t play another session of online poker without it”
“I play $25NL, and in under 1 week PT4 had paid for itself”
Comments