Dear Mark,

This weekend I hit my first royal flush ever. What was interesting was that it was dealt naturally to me in hearts. Is there a simple way of figuring out what my odds were of getting it?

Steve F.

Congratulations, Steve, on your first, of -- hopefully -- many more royals to come.

The odds, Steve, of achieving your natural royal in the specific suit of hearts, were 1 in 2,598,960. Here’s how it calculates out, compliments of my fifth grade math teacher, Sister Cyrilla: 5/52 X 4/51 X 3/50 X 2/49 X 1/48 = 1/2,598,960. The first fraction, 5/52, is the chance of getting any one of 5 particular hearts in the deck (10H, JH, QH, KH, AH) with the 52 representing 52 cards in a poker deck. The second fraction is your chance of getting any one of the four hearts needed as your second card with 51 cards remaining, and so on through the fifth fraction. You multiply them all together to find out what your chances are of getting any hand of pre-identified cards, which in your case was a natural royal flush in hearts.