Getting a royal flush in online poker takes a lot of luck, more than anything else. You can play your way through a thousand thrilling hands (and more) without coming across one. And then it will happen. You get dealt a couple of cards – maybe ace queen of spades – then ante up and the flop comes. You rub your eyes wondering if what you’re seeing is real. 

Holy moly – am I drawing to a royal flush? Look at all those spades!

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, let’s lay out what a royal flush is.

What is a Royal Flush? 

To answer that question, we need to explain a couple of other hands.

First, you’ve got your straights. That’s any run of cards in order. Like this, for example:

5♠4♦3♠2♦A♣

The suits of the cards dealt don’t match up. If they did, it would be called a straight flush, because you’re now combining a straight with a flush. What is a flush? Any five cards of the same suit – five clubs, five spades, five diamonds, or five hearts of any rank. But let’s get back to straight flushes. Here’s a queen-high straight flush:

Q♥ J♥ 10♥ 9♥ 8♥

She’s looking pretty good. In the vast majority of hands you’ll ever play online, this hand will take down the pot. It ranks ahead of four of a kind and a full house (a pair plus a set of three cards of the same rank). You’re good to shove with this in pretty much any situation. That is, unless your opponent is holding a royal flush (aka a “royal straight flush”). That’s a straight flush of the highest rank, like this:

A♦ K♦ Q♦ J♦ 10♦

Ain’t nobody beatin’ that.

In fact, the royal flush beats every single hand, except in variations of poker that include the joker as a wild card and allow you to make the ridiculous beast known as five of a kind. 

You won’t see that here. 

At Ignition’s poker games, if you’ve got a royal flush, you’re golden. It’s the nuts above all nuts, putting you over everyone else.

History of Royal Flush and What It Means to Poker 

How did the royal flush become so powerful? Well, it’s simple: the royal flush is the rarest hand of cards dealt in poker. And the rarer hands generally rank higher. Check out these royal flush odds, along with a few others:

Hand Chance of occurring :

  • Royal flush 0.000154%
  • Straight flush 0.00139%
  • Four of a kind 0.0240%
  • Full house 0.1441%
  • Flush 0.1965%
  • Straight 0.3925%
  • Three of a kind (set) 2.1128%
  • Two pair 4.7539%
  • One pair 42.2569%
  • No pair/high card 50.1177%

There it is, right at the top. There’s no hand harder to get, but if you manage to make one, you’re the king of kings, over all players in all games. You may wind up using it to bully someone holding top pair, who won’t want to pay you off, but that’s life. Hopefully, you’ll be playing Texas Hold’Em against someone online seeking a flush and they’ll chase you all the way to the river, giving you a big fat payoff.

Royal Flush vs Straight Flush vs 4 Aces: Why a Royal Flush is the Best Hand

As you saw in the table above, the royal flush odds place it at the top of the poker hand rankings. This means that, in the battle of royal flush vs straight flush, the royal flush wins. It’s a higher-ranked straight flush. Also, in the battle of 4 aces vs. royal flush, the royal straight flush also wins. It’s rarer and therefore harder to get, so it ranks above the four of a kind, even if those four cards are aces.

This is the reason that the royal flush became such a staple of poker movies. It’s really a cliché at this point, because a lot of the most exciting poker hands you’ll ever see don’t involve super rare hands. Instead, they involve more common hands and are thrilling and fascinating to watch because of intriguing or ballsy plays and reads by the players. If you check out the best WSOP hands ever played, you’ll see what we mean.

The next time you see a player cackling and grinning over his or her four aces in a poker game in a movie, you’ll know what’s coming next.

This gives us a chance to boost your poker vocabulary, if you’re new to the game. As you go along, this one word will eventually haunt your dreams: “cooler.” A cooler is the even stronger hand of cards dealt that beats you when you think you’ve got something that’s nearly unbeatable. You can’t get away from losing your stack here – you’ve got a hand that, mathematically, you just can’t fold. It would take a godly Sam Farha-esque read to know when to drop your hand. Think of a full house against four of a kind or something like that. There’s no way you’re going to muck that full house. Instead, it’s going to muck you.

Just like at the beach, a cooler is awesome, but only if you’re the one holding it.

Making a Royal Flush in Texas Hold’em 

Okay, so if making a royal straight flush is hard, the royal flush odds dictate that making one on the flop in a game of Texas Hold’Em is even harder. In the situations you’ll encounter, due to hand selection, you’ll probably be chasing an ace-high flush with an ace in your hand, and make a royal flush by surprise. This is because an ace-high flush may be worth chasing, but lower ranked flushes will not. Of course, you might also just happen to luckbox into one on the river if you’re holding another card and the flop gives you an open-ended straight flush possibility.

For example, you raise preflop with a nice pair of Jacks, one of them a diamond (J♦J♣). Then the flop comes out:

K♦ Q♦ 10♦

Hey, you’re now sitting in the middle of a run of four cards. If any ace comes, you’ve got a straight. If any 9 comes, you’ve got a straight. And if another diamond comes, you’ve got a flush (although you’re worried about getting smashed by someone with an ace). When the turn comes, it looks like this:

K♦ Q♦ 10♦K♣

Whoever had top pair now has been dealt a set, maybe more. There’s a chance you’ll get some play. If they slowplay a full house and simply check it down, you might skate to the river free of charge. And what a river it is!

K♦ Q♦ 10♦K♣ A♦

A spooky board for almost anyone. Some poor sap online with a 9 might even feel good about it, if he’s new to the game. But you’re sitting pretty with the very best hand in poker. 

Nice.

Making a Royal Flush in Omaha and Omaha Hi-Lo

The royal flush odds you learned from Hold’Em work pretty much the same way in Omaha and Omaha Hi-Lo. Preflop, you’ve got a 0.000154% chance to make one. However, when you’ve got TJxx double-suited (Ten-Jack plus two cards of any kind), the odds go to 0.0058%. If the flop is favorable and you’ve got an open-ended royal flush draw (i.e. you can make a royal flush by getting an ace or ten of your suit), your chance goes up to 4.444%. If you don’t make it on the turn, you still have a 4.545% chance to make it on the river.

That royal straight flush is only ever a few cards away.

Royal Flush Bonuses at Ignition Casino  

How have we not mentioned this yet?! We’ve got a royal flush game promotion going on here at Ignition. If you manage to make a royal straight flush in a real Texas Hold’Em poker cash game, you not only will take down the pot, you’ll also get a bonus payout of 50x the big blind, up to $200!

There’s a few requirements, though:

  • There have to be at least three players dealt into the hand. 
  • You also have to use both of your hole cards. 
  • You have to win the pot (which of course, you will), but there doesn’t have to be a showdown. If everyone folds, you can still get the bonus. 
  • Lastly, you can’t be in a tourney – it has to be a cash game.

That’s it! Now, go chase the rarest hand in poker for a guaranteed win that sets the table on fire.