Question of the Day 2026-05-12

Has anyone ever hit a royal flush during the World Series of Poker?

Yes, indeed it has.

On Day1A of the 2008 WSOP Main Event, an extraordinary bad beat occurred when Justin Phillips knocked out Motoyuki Mabuchi with a royal, beating Mabuchi's quad aces. The odds of that happening, according to enough experts that it's never been challenged, were 2.7 billion to 1. (We didn't verify this.)

In the 2023 WSOP, Vasu Amarapu achieved two royal flushes within four hands at an Omaha table. You can see the action here.

Finally, in 2024's Main Event, a royal was hit by Daniel Kyosev. He moved all in with the ace and queen of diamonds and was called by a pair of 7s. The jack and king of diamonds arrived with the flop, then the 10 on the turn. Kyosev's new lease on life was short-lived; he was knocked out in 50th place, though he earned a cool $200,000 for his efforts. You can see what passes for a poker player's excitement on hitting the royal here.

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Rafael Jacquez May-12-2026

Fifth Ace

Isn't a Royal flush and Ace, King, Queen, Jack and 10 of the same suit?  If a Royal beat 4 aces, where did the 5th ace come from?

Joseph May-12-2026

Fifth Ace

The board.

Scotski May-12-2026

Flopped A Royal

I was playing at Pechanga (Southern California) and held the King and Queen of diamonds. The flop came, Jack, Ace and Ten of diamonds. No real action and the only person who stayed in made a straight.

Robbie May-12-2026

Motoyuki Mabuchi

Poor Motoyuki Mabuchi.  If I were in his shoes pre-showdown, I have the deposit slip written up and am in line at the bank.  

I wonder if he has nightmares...?

Esloth May-12-2026

Royals

Given the size of the WSOP, I would not be surprised if there was at least one royal every day.

Stewart Ethier May-12-2026

Challenge to odds calculation, 1

OK, I challenge this.  My calculation gives odds of 164 million to 1 (more likely by a factor of 16).  Problems like this are known as counting problems, and can be notoriously tricky.  Please check my argument to make sure I didn't miss something.

The number of ways of dealing 2 cards to P1 (player 1), two to P2 (player 2), and 5 to B (the board) is 52!/(2! 2! 5! 43!) = 2,781,381,002,400, about 2.78 trillion.

How many of these deals result in one player having a royal and the other having quad aces?  First there is a factor of 2 because the winning royal can belong to P1 or P2.  Then there is a factor of 4 because the royal can have any suit.  Now we have to consider three cases.

Case 1.  P1 has two non-ace cards to the royal, P2 has two aces, neither of the royal suit, and B has the other two aces, the remaining two cards to the royal, and any 5th card.  The number of ways is 6 x 3 x 44.  

To be continued.

Stewart Ethier May-12-2026

Challenge to odds calculation, 2

Continued ...

Case 2. P1 has one non-ace card to the royal and one non-ace non-royal card, P2 has two aces, neither of the royal suit, and B has the other two aces and the remaining three cards to the royal.  The number of ways is 4 x 44 x 3.

Case 3. P1 has two non-ace cards to the royal, P2 has one ace not of the royal suit and one non-ace non-royal card, and B has the other three aces and the other two cards to the royal.  The number of ways is 6 x 3 x 44.

So the total umber of ways is 2 x 4 x (6 x 3 x 44 + 4 x 44 x 3 + 6 x 3 x 44) = 16,896.  This leads to the stated conclusion.

Bob May-12-2026

Well There!

Thank you Stewart, Now I can sleep tonight :-)

Anthony Curtis May-12-2026

Source of truth

There are some people in some subjects you just don't argue with. Stewart in gambling math is an example of that.

Esloth May-13-2026

Royals

The question is about Royals at the WSOP. With 7 cards in play I think the chance is just under 31,000-1 to complete a royal by the river. if each table deals 40 hands an hour for 12 hours we would only need 66tables to average one royal a day. The WSOP spreads a few more than 66 tables.  If each tables averages only 4 hours a day and we had 250 tables we still see 1 Royal a day. if 1/4 of all "royals by the river" are folded before the river then we need 1000 tables (still well below the WSOP capacity).

Question of the Day - 12 May 2026

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