Method
How Pokeo is made and checked
Every figure Pokeo publishes can be checked. The hand frequencies come from counting every possible hand, one by one: 2,598,960 five-card hands and 133,784,560 seven-card combinations. The rules are standard Texas Hold'em, and the app passes 2,074 automated tests, including the ones that guard the engine that deals and plays.
Below is how each part was done, who writes it, which rules we follow when there is doubt and what happens when someone finds a mistake. Each section carries the date it was last checked.
How often each poker hand comes up
Every possible hand counted, with no sampling and no simulation. With five cards, the hand each player gets in five-card poker. With seven, the Texas Hold'em case: your two hole cards and the five on the board, of which the best five-card combination plays.
- different five-card hands
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2,598,960
C(52,5) - different seven-card combinations
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133,784,560
C(52,7)
| 5 cards | 7 cards (Texas Hold'em) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hand | Combinations | % | One in | Combinations | % | One in |
| Royal flush | 4 | 0.000154% | 649,740 | 4,324 | 0.00323% | 30,940 |
| Straight flush | 36 | 0.00139% | 72,193 | 37,260 | 0.0279% | 3,591 |
| Four of a kind | 624 | 0.0240% | 4,165 | 224,848 | 0.168% | 595 |
| Full house | 3,744 | 0.144% | 694 | 3,473,184 | 2.60% | 38.5 |
| Flush | 5,108 | 0.197% | 509 | 4,047,644 | 3.03% | 33.1 |
| Straight | 10,200 | 0.392% | 255 | 6,180,020 | 4.62% | 21.6 |
| Three of a kind | 54,912 | 2.11% | 47.3 | 6,461,620 | 4.83% | 20.7 |
| Two pair | 123,552 | 4.75% | 21.0 | 31,433,400 | 23.50% | 4.3 |
| One pair | 1,098,240 | 42.26% | 2.4 | 58,627,800 | 43.82% | 2.3 |
| High card | 1,302,540 | 50.12% | 2.0 | 23,294,460 | 17.41% | 5.7 |
| Total | 2,598,960 | 100% | 133,784,560 | 100% | ||
- The straight flush row does not include the royal flush, which has its own row.
- With seven cards, each combination counts once, as the best five-card hand it can make.
- "One in" is the total divided by that hand's combinations, rounded.
Why the ranking is set with five cards
With five cards, every hand comes up less often than the one below it, without a single exception: that is why it wins. With seven, almost everything holds, except at the very bottom. High card drops to 17.4% of hands, less than one pair (43.8%) or two pair (23.5%), and it still loses to both. The hand ranking follows five cards, and Texas Hold'em uses it as is: in the end you play your best five.
5 cards 7 cards (Texas Hold'em)
How they were counted
- A program goes through every possible hand from a 52-card deck: all 2,598,960 five-card hands and all 133,784,560 seven-card combinations. There is no randomness: each hand is looked at once.
- Each seven-card combination is classed by the best five-card hand it can make, exactly as at a Texas Hold'em table.
- The royal flush is counted apart from the other straight flushes, and the ace plays low in the five-high straight, the wheel.
- The count is repeated with the evaluator the app itself uses to decide who wins a hand, over all 2,598,960 five-card hands and all 133,784,560 seven-card combinations, and it comes out exactly the same.
- The figures match the standard poker combinatorics, and the rounded figures on the poker hands page.
How the game engine is tested
Nobody writes the hands in the app by hand: an engine deals them and plays them. The app has 2,074 automated tests in 139 files, and part of them check that the engine follows the rules. These are the ones that matter most.
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1
The chips add up
A thousand complete hands at a four-player table, and at every intermediate step the chips add up to what they were at the start. At the end, what one player wins another loses, and nobody finishes below zero.
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2
Every deal is possible
No card repeats, the board comes out in order, and a hand that ends because everyone else folds shows nobody's cards.
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3
Betting follows the rules
A raise adds at least as much as the previous raise added, an all-in you can still call does not close the round, and in a split pot the odd chip goes to the first player left of the button.
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4
The opponents never change by accident
Three hundred fixed hands for each one-on-one opponent, and three hundred more at the table with three opponents, stored decision by decision: street, action, amount and reason. If a code change alters a single one, the test fails until someone accepts it on purpose.
What they do not test
Last full run: October 10, 2026, 2,074 tests in 139 files, all passing.
Which rules we follow
The site and the course teach No-Limit Texas Hold'em, the game played almost everywhere. Where a rule has variants, we follow the most common one.
- A 52-card deck, no jokers. The ace is the highest card and also plays low in the five-high straight.
- Two hole cards for each player and five community cards, dealt in three rounds: the flop, the turn and the river. Four betting rounds.
- The best five-card hand out of the seven each player sees wins. Suits never break a tie: if all five cards tie, the pot is split.
- The minimum raise is the bet plus the last raise: if someone raises from 4 to 10, the next raise has to go to at least 16.
- Heads-up, the button posts the small blind and acts first before the flop.
For questions of procedure (who shows first, where the odd chip goes, what happens with a misdealt card) we follow standard cardroom rules: those of the Poker Tournament Directors Association (TDA) and Robert's Rules of Poker. In a home game, whatever you agree on before you start is the rule.
In English the site uses the standard terms you hear at any table in the US: check, call, fold, bet and raise, the board, outs and showdown. They are the same words across the whole site and course.
Who writes it and who reviews it
The lessons and the pages are written by José Antonio Neto, who makes Pokeo at Utropía, an independent studio. He is not a professional player: what he offers is an explanation you can check, which is why this page exists.
The course and the pages are reviewed in detail before they go out, and they keep being reviewed afterwards: it's a living course. Whatever turns up is checked and decided by José Antonio Neto.
If you find a mistake
Write to hello@pokeo.app with the page and what is wrong. It gets checked, fixed on the page (and in the course, if it is there too), and the date under the title changes. That date only moves when the words change, not when the design does.
hello@pokeo.app
It is read and answered by the same person who wrote it.
Revisions to this page
- Frequencies of the ten hands recalculated by counting every 5-card and 7-card hand. They match the poker hands page.
- The same counts repeated with the app's own evaluator: all 2,598,960 five-card hands and all 133,784,560 seven-card combinations, without a single difference.
- The app's full test suite run: 2,074 tests in 139 files, all passing.
- First version of this page.
Questions about the numbers
How many different poker hands are there?
A 52-card deck makes 2,598,960 different five-card hands and 133,784,560 seven-card combinations, which is what each player sees in Texas Hold'em with two hole cards and five on the board.
What are the odds of a royal flush?
With five cards, 4 in 2,598,960: one hand in 649,740. With the seven cards of Texas Hold'em, 4,324 in 133,784,560: one in 30,940.
Why does a pair beat high card if it comes up more often with seven cards?
Because the hand ranking is set with five cards, and with five, high card (50.1%) comes up more often than a pair (42.3%). With seven, high card drops to 17.4%, but the ranking stays the same: you play your best five.
Which rules does Pokeo follow?
Standard No-Limit Texas Hold'em: 52 cards, two per player and five on the board, four betting rounds, and the best five-card hand wins. For procedure, standard cardroom rules: the TDA's and Robert's Rules of Poker.
Keep going
The ranking
Poker hand rankings
All ten hands, how often each one comes up and how ties are broken.
The course
The course, played
Eighteen paths of short lessons: you decide and it explains why.
Practice table
Practice against the computer
Whole hands against computer opponents with styles of their own, no money.
Hands are learned by playing them
A table tells you how often a hand comes up. Spotting it at the table, and knowing which one wins, takes real hands. The course starts with the cards and gets to the hands in path 2, “My cards and everyone's”.
First lesson · 6 min The cards Every card has two facts: rank and suit. You'll learn to read both, and which one says which card is worth more. Play nowNo sign-up · No money · In your browser
