WHY DO FLUSHES BEAT STRAIGHTS???

[mike3076]

assuming a flush draw has 9 outs to it, and a straight draw
has 8 outs to it, a flush is easier to make than a straight.
on the next card a flush draw is 4.1 to 1.
a straight is 4.75 to 1.
obviously a flush has a better chance of coming through.
but this is assuming you are basing these figures on a 7 card setup commonly played today. if it were based on a 5 card setup, that was commonly played years ago, would these figures be reversed?

i cant still quite figure out why a flush beats a straight,
when the odds contradict the hand ranking.

PLEASE HELP!!

[timex]

[ QUOTE ]
assuming a flush draw has 9 outs to it, and a straight draw
has 8 outs to it, a flush is easier to make than a straight.
on the next card a flush draw is 4.1 to 1.
a straight is 4.75 to 1.
obviously a flush has a better chance of coming through.
but this is assuming you are basing these figures on a 7 card setup commonly played today. if it were based on a 5 card setup, that was commonly played years ago, would these figures be reversed?

i cant still quite figure out why a flush beats a straight,
when the odds contradict the hand ranking.

PLEASE HELP!!

[/ QUOTE ]

If I have 3 of a kind, I will hit 4 of a kind 1/46 times(after the turn) but if I have a striaght flush draw, I will hit the straight flush draw 2/46 times, do you wonder why four of a kind doesn't beat a straight flush and royal flush? A flush is less likely than a straight with only five cards, and is the same for seven cards. I could be wrong with this logic, but a 7 card game just means you are approximately(7 choose 5) times as likely to get any best hand as in a 5 card game. I'm not going to show the math, its just the case. Some people on this forum can probably give you the exact numbers, I'm just not too sure how to approach this quesiton.

[Mike Haven]

You bring up an important point.

In fact, there are less Flushes than Straights made out of seven cards, so that ranking is correct.

But there are far less hands won with only "Something High" than with Two Pairs, so it would seem that Something High should definitely be moved up the rankings.

We should all write to the Rankmaster, immediately.

[NYplayer]

its harder to flop a flush draw than a str8 draw

[OrangeKing]

[ QUOTE ]
assuming a flush draw has 9 outs to it, and a straight draw
has 8 outs to it, a flush is easier to make than a straight.
on the next card a flush draw is 4.1 to 1.
a straight is 4.75 to 1.
obviously a flush has a better chance of coming through.
but this is assuming you are basing these figures on a 7 card setup commonly played today. if it were based on a 5 card setup, that was commonly played years ago, would these figures be reversed?

i cant still quite figure out why a flush beats a straight,
when the odds contradict the hand ranking.

PLEASE HELP!!

[/ QUOTE ]

You do realize that you don't flop a flush draw and a straight draw exactly the same amount of times, right? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

You can also sometimes have gutshot straight draws, which increases the chances of hitting a straight even more. And there can be multiple straight possibilities in the same 7 card group - there can't be two flushes.

So yeah, straights are more common than flushes, and are ranked lower for that reason.

[mike3076]

PLEASE HELP!!

[/ QUOTE ]

You do realize that you don't flop a flush draw and a straight draw exactly the same amount of times, right? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

You can also sometimes have gutshot straight draws, which increases the chances of hitting a straight even more. And there can be multiple straight possibilities in the same 7 card group - there can't be two flushes.

So yeah, straights are more common than flushes, and are ranked lower for that reason.

[/ QUOTE ]

NOW THIS I CAN UNDERSTAND. EXCEPT THE FACT THAT A GUT SHOT HAS EVEN LESS OUTS THAN A OPENSTRAIGHT DRW(this will not increase but decrease a straight draws odds of connecting.)
MAYBE YOU DIDNT REALIZE YOU TYPED THAT.

[mike3076]

WHY NOT TELL US WHY THE RANKING DIFFERENCE.
USUALLY U GET SCIENTIFIC , DO YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS?
TY

[KingNeo]

I didn't even read through this entire post, I am wasted.

There are ONLY 13 cards of 1 suit.

You can make straights with ANY combination of cards of ANY suit.

You do the math.

[MathEconomist]

Straights are more likely than flushes. Don't type in all caps. Remember that the ranking isn't based on your odds of drawing to a certain hand at a certain point in the hand, it is how often you hit that hand in a random 7 card hand.

[Mike Haven]

I just simulated 1,000,000 fair hands and the new rankings because of numbers dealt are:

438,000 Pairs
235,600 Two Pairs
173,700 High Cards
48,500 Threes
46,000 Straights
29,900 Flushes
26,100 Full Houses
1,700 Fours
500 Straight Flushes

[mike3076]

[ QUOTE ]
I just simulated 1,000,000 fair hands and the new rankings because of numbers dealt are:

438,000 Pairs
235,600 Two Pairs
173,700 High Cards
48,500 Threes
46,000 Straights
29,900 Flushes
26,100 Full Houses
1,700 Fours
500 Straight Flushes

[/ QUOTE ]

thank you MIKE, this is helpful.
i see now the perspective, is not in building of the hand.
but probability of having hand.

[mike3076]

[ QUOTE ]
I didn't even read through this entire post, I am wasted.

There are ONLY 13 cards of 1 suit.

You can make straights with ANY combination of cards of ANY suit.

You do the math.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok. 4 sets of 13 suits vs. 13 cards of 4 suits.

even , no?

[OH YEAH]

In 3 card poker, straights do beat flushes

[VickreyAuction]

http://www.math.sfu.ca/~alspach/comp18/

They calculate it all out. I don't follow the math exactly right now, but straights are more likely than flushes.

[Skipbidder]

Bad form Mr. Gimmick Account.
Please stick to crashing through walls. Use your regular account for regular comments.

--Skipbidder (nittier when drinking)

[soon2bepro]

The odds against getting the exact following hand: 5c 9d Ts 2c Kh while holding 3h and Ad, is exactly the same as getting Ac Tc Kc 2d 4h while holding Qc and Jc. So why does the second one beat the first? There is no reason for it other than the second fills what you're looking for. It's why there are hand rankings, to tell which hand is better. There is no particular hand that comes more often than another, before breaking them down into groups. So it really doens't make much sense to ask that the group that contains the harder to get hands makes the best.

[Packard]

Is this a serious post? LOL

New Years Joke! You guys had me going for a minute there. Thanks for the laugh

[mostsmooth]

[ QUOTE ]
I just simulated 1,000,000 fair hands and the new rankings because of numbers dealt are:

438,000 Pairs
235,600 Two Pairs
173,700 High Cards
48,500 Threes
46,000 Straights
29,900 Flushes
26,100 Full Houses
1,700 Fours
500 Straight Flushes

[/ QUOTE ]
shouldnt threes and fours have been included in the pairs category?

[Riverman]

BECAUSE THEY ARE HARDER TO GET

[Bostaevski]

You know I used to wonder the same thing. Assuming the hands are ranked by how rare they are, I didn't see how a 9-out flush draw should be worth more than an 8-out (or 4-out gutshot) straight draw.

Finally I realized that while it is true, a flush draw will come in more often than a straight draw, you are in fact less likely to get to the flush draw in the first place. Basically, once I worked from the beginning of the hand (rather than from the near-end) it all makes sense.

To simplify it, I just considered how one would make a flush or straight by getting dealt only 5 cards. Assuming I am dealt first card of 7h - then I must be dealt another heart of which there are 12/51 remaining to have two-to-the-flush. However to make a straight, I could be dealt 3,4,5,6,8,9,10,J of any suit (32/51 cards) and still be drawing to the straight.

From there it gets more complicated depending on which of the cards (3-6,8-J) you are dealt because it narrows to various degrees the range of remaining cards that still make the straight. At any rate, I think your odds of getting dealt 3 to the straight are so much higher than your odds of getting dealt 3 to the flush that this more than compensates for the small reversal of odds when you DO make it to the flush and straight draws.

[fiskebent]

The traditional hand rankings were (I assume) made for 5 card draw. Other poker variants have increased the number of cards you have and increasing the number of cards changes the odds of getting the different hand types and that could lead to some weird stuff where hands that are easy to get could be ranked higher than hands that are harder to get.

As an example let's invent a poker variant where you get 17 cards. With 17 cards you're 100% certain of having a flush. With 16 cards you can have a 4-flush in each color. When you get the 17th card, you're certain to get a flush.

With 17 cards you're not 100% certain to get a straight. It's common knowledge that all straights contain a 5 or a 10. So I'd have to get 45 cards to be certain that I could make a straight (if the last 8 cards in the deck were the 4 fives and 4 tens).

So if we played a 17 card poker variant, straights should be ranked higher than flushes.

I don't think the increase from 5 cards in 5 card draw to 7 cards in Hold'Em has shifted the probabilities so much that it warrants a shift in hand rankings. But as the number of cards rise, (at least) flushes become more likely than straights.

[Bostaevski]

Also with 45 cards you'd already have at least 1 straight, most or all of the full-houses, and made quads at least 6 different ways.

[hitMySet]

Because it is easier to get connecting cards than suited cards and it is also easier to flop some kind of str8 draw.

[Atropos]

I dont know if this really has anything to do with it, but arent many old poker variants being played with a Joker? A Joker doesnt change the probablity of getting flush very much, but it makes straights much more likely and possible. Maybe the straight < flush is because of these historical reasons...