Learn Texas Holdem

You know the feeling. You get all your chips in with QQ and are called. Your opponent sheepishly turns over JJ. To your delight, one of the other players announces: "I folded a jack." You're counting your chips as the flop comes out 6 4 3, the turn a 9 and the river….J.

How can it be? Your opponent is dead to one out and he hits it! It seems impossible, but how often do these "impossible" things really happen in poker?

Impossible Suck Outs in Poker

The reality is that nothing that happens in a poker game is truly impossible and if you've been around long enough you've seen it all. That final jack has just as good a chance as any other card of coming out of that deck on the river, and one out of every 44 times on average that is exactly what will happen.

Impossible Runs of Luck Poker

Occasionally in a tournament or cash game you will see a player go on an insane run of luck, winning hand after hand, either by always having great hands or catching great flops. In fact, some say this happens every year with the winner of the main event of the World Series of Poker. Again, these runs seem impossible but they happen.

Poker Probability and Suck Outs

Someone who has a six percent chance to win a hand will win that hand six times out of every 100. That's what six percent means. This is usually little consolation to the player with the 94 percent. There are some things that we don't do frequently enough to catch up with the odds. If you have a five percent chance to sink an NBA three-pointer, it may never happen unless you are out there on the court every day. Poker players tend to play hundreds and hundreds of hands over their lifetime, which means even if a poker event has only a two percent chance to happen, a poker player should expect to see it more than once over their playing career.

Poker Probability and Luck Runs

Similarly, an improbable run in a tournament only seems improbable when you fail to consider how many players are in such a tournament. The World Series of Poker has thousands of entrants. Statistically some will have very bad luck, most will win some races and lose some, and a few people should come out on the right side of the odds much more than would be expected.

The Nearly Impossible is Probable in Poker

To sum up, nothing in poker is impossible, only highly improbable and with enough trials, even the highly improbable becomes a certainty. Remember that the next time you get sucked out on and try to remember that as long as you keep making the right plays, the odds will ultimately support you.