Poker Hand Rankings Problem Solved | The Best Poker Hand

Since I'm currently finishing up my links on the value of poker hands (hey, you never know when a beginner might try to take up poker), and since I also saw this question posted on Yahoo Answers yesterday (here is the post), I decided to dedicate a post to the Royal Flush / 5-of-a-Kind better-hand debate. The math below is done using my own calculating and who knows, I could be wrong. From what I have drawn up here in my garage (uh, I mean office) at Virtual Felt, it seems to be correct. It should not matter how many wild cards you are using as the hand statistics will vary proportionately the more or less wild cards that are used, so I'll just use one during the following experiment to prove through statistics which is the better hand:

Here is the math

(W= wild card)

To get 5 Aces while playing with (1) Wild Card:

A-A-A-A- W

Since there are 13 ranks of cards:

13 x 1 = 13

13 possible ways to get 5 of a Kind

________________________

To get a Royal Flush while playing with (1) Wild Card:

10-J-Q-K-A
10-J-Q-K-W
10-J-Q-W-A
10-J-W-K-A
10-W-Q-K-A
W-J-Q-K-A

Since there are 4 suits of each of the 6 combinations above:

6 x 4 = 24

24 ways to get a Royal Flush

__________________________

Conclusion

It is statistically more difficult to achieve a 5-of-a-kind than a Royal Flush when using wild cards in poker. Since poker hands are ranked according to their difficulty in achieving, the 5-of-a-Kind is statistically harder to get, and therefore is the better hand.

Feel free to offer differences of opinion or actually data to back it up! Please save the "real poker players only play hold 'em" or "wild cards are for kids" comments. I'm a Texas hold 'em guy too, but come one, no need to lie, we all played the wild card games before Chris Moneymaker. Peace.

poker, card games, 5 of a kind, poker hands, royal flush