Royal flush

From ArticleWorld

A royal flush is a poker hand consisting of an ace, king, queen, jack and ten of the same suit. A royal flush is not really a separate hand in poker, but the highest possible variation of the straight flush hand, and therefore the highest ranking hand in the game.

Ranking

A poker hand consists of five cards. Although in many poker games each player has seven cards to play, the two extra cards are not used to determine the winner. If two, or more, players have identical five-card hands, they will divide the pot equally between them.

The cards are ranked Ace , King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 . An Ace may also be used as a low card, below the 2 in making a straight, or a straight flush. The suits have no rank in poker, and are not used to determine the winner of a hand.

Probability

In poker, the probability of each type of five-card hand can be computed by calculating the proportion of hands of that type among all possible hands. The royal flush can be formed four ways, one for each suit, giving it a probability of 0.000001539077169. The odds of getting a royal flush, in any given poker hand, are 649,740 : 1.