Royal flush odds very low

The odds of getting a royal flush in no-limit Texas hold ’em are 30,9391, or a probability of 0.0032 percent. Many poker players will never make a royal flush, while a few lucky ones might make a handful in their lifetimes.

Even rarer is a flopped royal flush, which carries odds of 649,740-1. To begin with, you need to start with two suited cards — a two-card combination of tens, jacks, queens, kings or aces — capable of flopping a royal flush. That happens about 3 percent of the time.

When you start with such a hand, the flop (which includes 19,600 possibilities), still needs to come out with the perfect three-card combination. Basically, you could play a million hands of poker and maybe flop a royal flush once. It’s possible to play such a large volume of hands online, but very few players ever play that many hands in live games.

None of this takes into account actually getting paid off when you have a royal flush. After all, if you have the nuts, what are the chances your opponent has a good hand?

One player who recently defied the odds was Nikki Nelson, who not only flopped a royal flush but got paid on it. The hand occurred during the Mid-States Poker Tour’s historic 100th $1,100 Main Event, which took place at the Meskwaki Casino in Tama, Iowa.

With blinds at 250-500 plus an ante of 50, Nelson raised to 2,500 under the gun, and the player in the cutoff seat (the spot directly to the left of the dealer button) called to see a Jh Qh Ah flop.

Nelson checked and then called when her opponent bet 5,600, which brought about the 3d on the turn.

The player in the cutoff seat moved all in for 12,000, and Nelson quickly called with the Kh 10h for the royal flush. Her opponent had flopped a set with Qd Qc, and salt was poured into the wound when the Qs was run out on the river.

In many casino poker rooms, a royal flush beating four of a kind in a cash game would trigger a badbeat jackpot worth tens of thousands of dollars, but unfortunately for Nelson and her vanquished foe, this was a tournament.

It was somewhat lucky that the hand even lasted long enough for Nelson to hit her royal flush. Her opening raise of five times the big blind was too big, and more often than not, a raise that large is going to scare away the competition and preempt a flop. In fact, only big hands are prone to play against such a large opening raise, and usually those types of hands reraise instead of just calling.

Had Nelson’s opponent three-bet with pocket queens in position -- which he should have done -- Nelson likely would have folded her meager K-10 suited. He didn’t, however, and Nelson won a hand she’ll remember for the rest of her life.