Poker Percentages

Basic Poker Math Skills

"“Statistics means never having to say you’re certain.” ~ Author unknown

Key Poker Percentages

This section covers the key percentages that you will see repeatedly during Texas No-Limit Hold’em tournaments. Knowing them can help you make good decisions on when to check, call raise, re-raise or fold.

Let's get started!

In a standard deck of standard playing cards there are 4 suits with 13 cards per suit making a total of 52 cards in a deck of cards. Simple enough.
In Texas No-Limit Hold’em there are 1,326 possible starting hand combinations. Because there are multiple combinations of the same hands there are only 169 unique hand combinations.

For example, there are exactly four ways to get AK suited and exactly six ways to get pocket aces.
Let’s look at the types of hands you will get.

70.5% of all hands dealt are non-suited cards
23.5% of all hands dealt are suited cards
6% of all hands dealt are pocket pairs

Next, let’s look at draws and probabilities of hitting one of your cards.

Flopping a pair on the flop with any two random cards = 32% (1 out of 3 times)
- Flopping top pair with two random cards = 17%
Flopping a set when you have a pocket pair = 12% ( 1 out of 8 times)
- There is a 15% probability of getting a boat (or quads) on the turn.
- There is a 22% probability of getting a boat (or quads) on the river.
A flush draw on with the next card after the flop = 19% (~ 20%)
A flush draw when you will see both the turn and the river cards = 35%.
This is important to know if you decide to go all-in.
A open-ended straight draw on the next card after the flop = 17%.
A gut-shot draw on the next card after the flop = 9%
A double gut-shot draw on the next card after the flop = 17%

Note:

The numbers shown above have been rounded.

If you would like to learn how to use these percentages to your advantage in tournament poker please see the Chapter: Capitalizing on Patterns in the book: Mastering Poker Math.

Mastering Poker Math
Available on Amazon.com