Poker is a game of numbers, and not just the ones printed on the cards. Calculations are an essential part of any successful strategy. But, if you have trouble digesting large numbers, here are some helpful ways to visualize some of poker ’s more important figures. Given a 52 card deck, there are 2,598,960 possible poker hands. That is one hand for every man, woman and child in Huizhou City, China. The odds of being dealt a Royal Flush are 1 in 649,740, which are the same odds as being killed by a terrorist while you are visiting a foreign country. You’ll receive a Straight Flush once in every 72,193 deals, which is roughly equivalent to the number of men over the age of 80 who will die from being hit by an asteroid. If you ever had Four of a Kind in your first five cards then you defied odds of 1 in 4,165. Those are the same odds you have of dying from cohabitating with someone who smokes cigarettes. And a Full House comes your way every 694 tries, as do triplets if you are using fertility drugs (That’s assuming you are female, the odds are significantly higher if you are male.).

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