In a game of Texas Hold'em, all 5 community cards are dealt, and the three remaining players simultaneously say, "Well, there's only one hand that can beat me."

How can this situation arise? Assume that the players do not lie.

Here, "one hand" means a unique combination of 2 cards, out of the (52 choose 2) = 1326 possible ones.

For those unfamiliar with the basic rules of Texas Hold'em: each player has two face down cards, and there are five face up cards on the table. Each player makes the best possible 5-card poker hand using any of the 5 community cards and his 2 private cards.

(In reply to No Subject by Cory Taylor)

Unfortunately, the term "one hand" has been defined in the problem statement, and the problem must be solved according to that definition.

There is another solution ("topologically" different from asojin's) to this problem - anybody want to try to find it?

Posted by David Shin on 2005-04-12 04:25:11