A royal flush always beats a straight flush in poker, and if you are lucky enough to get into this spot, you will almost always win all the chips in play. On top of that, you might win a massive bad-beat jackpot if a hand is played at a cash game table.
Making a royal flush is a moment that certainly stands out, but the rare moments that you end up with a royal flush are often disappointing as the board often locks other players from having a big hand to pay you off with.
This is not the case when another player has a straight flush, an inferior hand to your royal flush, but one that everyone will be happy to lose their entire stack with.
Why Does Royal Flush Beat a Straight Flush?
A royal flush is the best possible hand in the poker hand charts, so by default, it beats all other poker hands. Technically speaking, a royal flush is just the highest possible version of a straight flush, with cards between a T and A of the same suit making it up.
It goes without saying, then, that a royal flush will beat any other straight flush. Besides, there is no other hand in poker that can beat a royal flush, either.
The reason for this, of course, is the fact that royal flush is the hardest hand to make by far, and there are only select starting hands with which you can even make one.
Even when you do start with two suited Broadways, the chances of catching a royal flush by the river are very low, as you can see in the table below:
| Chances To | Royal Flush | Straight Flush |
| Make it on the Flop | 0.01% | 0.01 – 0.02% |
| Make it from a Flopped Gutshot | 4.3% | 4.3% |
| Make it from a Flopped Open Ender | 8.42% | 8.42% |
How Often Will You Make a Royal Flush?
The royal flush is the most unlikely hand to make in Texas Hold’em, as it requires you to start with very specific cards and then hit a very specific set of cards on the board.
If you want to make a royal flush in a hand, you will need to start with at least one Broadway card in your hand, although it is much easier to get there with two suited Broadways like JsTs or AdKd.
Even when you do get dealt these cards, you will only make a royal flush on the flop some 0.005% of the time, about 1 in 19,600 times, which means you might have to play hundreds of thousands of hands before you see a flopped straight flush.
Flopping a gutshot or open-ended royal flush draw, on the other hand, is a lot more common, and about 0.72% of all flops will bring you such a draw if you start with two Broadways.
Yet, making a draw does not mean you will turn or river the hand, as only 8.42% open-enders and 4.3% guthosts will end up making you a royal flush by the river.
Yet, remember that these draws are very powerful hands, as even making a simple straight or flush will usually give you the best hand.
Making a royal flush draw will allow you to play aggressively, get folds from your opponents, and often end up with the best hand by the river.
How Often Will You Make a Straight Flush?
A straight flush is quite similar to a royal flush in many regards, with the one big difference being you can make a straight flush with any cards.
In fact, any starting card combination can end up turning into a straight flush if four appropriate cards hit the board, and any suited and connected hand can turn into a two-card straight flush with the three right cards.
Making a straight flush on the flop with two suited cards is a bit more likely than a royal flush, as up to 0.02% of all flops will bring you a made straight flush.
The exact odds depend on how many possible flops can make your hand, with hands like 8s7s more likely to make it than 7c4c. The smaller the gap between your cards, the higher the chances of flopping a straight flush.
If you don’t quite make the full straight flush on the flop, you can make quite a few gutshot and open-ended straight flush draws there, which can turn into the made hand by the river.
The odds for making a straight flush from a draw are the same as those of a royal flush, with 4.3% of gutshot and 8.42% of open-ended straight flush draws getting there by the river.
Much like a royal flush draw, a straight flush draw allows you to play an aggressive strategy, often make your hand, and represent all sorts of strong hands in the process.