Do you want to know what beats what in poker? Use the official poker hands rankings chart and seem them from best to worst!
Whether you play live at your local casino or card room, you have your home game going, or you prefer the online action at websites like PokerStars, 888Poker, or partypoker, you need to learn the order of poker hands from best to worse.
Use the list of poker hands below to know what beats what in poker.
Players decide whether to play or fold (quit) in a clockwise position, starting with the player immediately to the left (clockwise) of the big blind. Any players who fold are no longer eligible for the pot and are skipped over in subsequent betting rounds for that specific hand. Passed Order Of Hands In Texas Holdemonline gambling legislation, but play is restricted to players residing in those states or playing while visiting Order Of Hands In Texas Holdemthe physical state. Poker hands consist of the best five-card hand made up from any combination of the cards you are dealt and the community cards. Every beginning player, therefore, needs to understand the poker hand rankings to determine the strength of each player’s hand and, subsequently, the winner. In this guide, we present the Texas Hold’em hands order of value, from bottom to the highest hand in poker (the rankings apply. Official Poker Hand Rankings Know your poker hand order. A poker hand consists of five cards, which fall into several categories. Below is the complete list of poker hands, from highest to lowest. Please note that hand rankings for Short Deck are slightly different. Find out more about the short deck poker hand rankings on the dedicated page.
Commit this poker hands ranking list to memory today and print it if you need it (there's a button for it at the bottom). Knowing the correct poker hands rank is key to start making winning poker hands.
You can improve your winning chances by doing Texas Holdem Best Hands In Order one of several things. Firstly, you should never gamble with money that you cannot afford to lose. Always quit when you are ahead Texas Holdem Best Hands In Order and never gamble to win back any losses. Always play the games with the smallest house edges and simply treat the game as entertainment.
1. Royal Flush | 10JQKA | The best possible hand in Texas hold'em is the combination of ten, jack, queen, king, ace, all of the same suit |
2. Straight Flush | 56789 | Five cards of the same suit in sequential order |
3. Four of a kind | 3333K | Any four numerically matching cards |
4. Full house | JJJKK | Combination of three of a kind and a pair in the same hand |
5. Flush | 2459K | Five cards of the same suit, in any order |
6. Straight | A2345 | Five cards of any suit, in sequential order |
7. Three of a kind | 77745 | Any three numerically matching cards |
8. Two pair | 99KK4 | Two different pairs in the same hand |
9. One pair | 10103QK | Any two numerically matching cards |
10. High card | K248Q | The highest ranked card in your hand with an ace being the highest and two being the lowest |
Many consider poker less of a gambling game than other casino games. For that to be true, players need to improve their understanding of game play and the strategy required to be a winning player.
The first step toward learning how to play poker is to learn the poker hand rankings.
Most poker players have these rankings memorized, which allows them to think about other things at the table when deciding the best way to play their hands.
The good news is these hand rankings tend to be the same among a wide variety of poker variants, whether it is Texas Hold'em, Omaha, seven-card stud, or other games.
All of those games use the same traditional poker hand rankings that were first developed way back in the 19th century when five-card draw first started to be played.
On this page, you find a complete list of poker hand rankings going from the highest possible hand (the Royal Flush), down to the lowest hand in which there is no pair among the five cards.
Hand rankings in poker correspond to the likelihood of making such hands.
A royal flush, consisting of the cards ranked ace through ten all being the same suit, is extremely rare — in fact, some players go their entire lives without making a royal flush.
A regular straight flush with any five consecutive cards of the same suit is a little less rare, four of a kind occurs slightly more frequently, and so on.
Notice that a full house is ranked higher than a flush.
That's because a full house comes just a little less frequently than a flush, thereby making it the higher-ranked hand of the two.
Additional readings for beginners:
Players new to the game of Texas hold'em often struggle, at least at first, with what the best poker hands are.
Once they have read this easy-to-digest guide that will no longer be the case.
The aim of Texas hold'em is to make the best five-card poker hand at showdown.
You can win without having to show your cards if you force someone to fold before the river. Nonetheless, for the purpose of this article, we'll pretend that we've gone to showdown and need to know what beats what in poker.
First up is the weakest possible holding you can make in poker, a hand that can still win you the pot, although the likelihood of that happening decreases in a pot involving multiple players.
We are of course talking about high card.
As the name suggests, you don't even hold a pair here and instead are using the highest card among the five you are playing.
Example:
You have and the board has come .
Your best five-card hand would be where you would hold queen-high.
Next up is one pair, one of the more common Texas hold'em hands and one that will win you plenty of pots.
Example:
You have and the board comes .
Your five-card hand is — you have a pair of aces. Nice poker hand!
One place higher up on the poker hands chart is two pair.
Example:
You have and the five community cards are .
Your best five-card hand at showdown is or two pair, tens and nines.
One note of warning on this specific poker hand: if you are verbally declaring your hand, try to announce the higher pair first as to help avoid confusion.
Now we're getting into the realm of the best poker hands because once you make three-of-a-kind (sometimes called a set or trips), you are much more likely to win the pot than with any of the previously mentioned hands.
Example:
Your five-card poker hand is — you have three-of-a-kind kings, often a very powerful hand in hold'em.
To beat three-of-a-kind you're going to need at least a straight.
A straight is five consecutive cards where at least one of them is a different suit from the others.
Example:
Should your hand read you would hold a six-high straight.
If someone held a seven-high straight, then that player would win the hand.
There are two straights that have nicknames that are worth remembering.
A wheel is a straight that runs from ace-to-five, and a Broadway straight — the strongest straight — runs from ten-to-ace.
A flush is one of the most powerful Texas hold'em hands because it is only beaten by a handful of others.
Any hand that that has five cards of the same suit is a flush.
Aces are always high when it comes to flushes, which means a hand such as beats .
There are few hands that can beat a flush — one that does is a full house. Also called a 'boat,' a full house is when your five-card hand is made up of three of a kind plus a pair.
Example:
With you have kings full of deuces, while is fives full of queens.
When it comes to full houses, the higher three of a kind determines which hand wins, so in this case 'kings full' would beat 'fives full.'
The next three holdings are so rare that if you hold them, you can almost guarantee that they are winning poker hands.
Four of a kind is the minimum holding you'll need to beat someone with a full house.
Again, as the name suggests, four of a kind means having four cards of the same rank.
Example:
is four-of-a-kind tens and an extremely powerful holding.
Your only way to beat four of a kind, or 'quads' as they are often called, is to hold either a straight flush or a Royal Flush.
The former is five consecutive cards all of the same suit, so would be an eight-high straight flush and practically unbeatable.
If you manage to make (or the same holding in any of the other three suits), you have a Royal Flush and the only way to lose the hand would be to fold by accident!
If you are into numbers (most poker players are), you might be wondering about the probability of poker hands.
We said that she platers might go entire lives without ever getting the highest hand in poker but, looking at the numbers, what are the odds of a Royal Flush?
In this section of our complete analysis of the poker hand ranking and what beats what in poker, you get a clear overview of the probability of poker hands.
How to calculate the probability of poker hands?
When you know that there are 52 cards in play and 2,598,960 possible combinations, the calculation is easy.
You just need to divide the number of possibilities to build a specific poker hand by the number of total poker hands.
Let's run a few examples:
What are the odds of a Royal Flush? 0.000,001,539
(4/2,598,960)
What are the odds of a Straight Flush? 0.000,015,39
(40/2,598,960)
Use the table below to calculate the probabilities of all poker hands.
Poker Hand | No. Ways | Probability |
---|---|---|
Royal Flush | 4 | 0.000,001,539 |
Straight Flush | 40 | 0.000,015,39 |
Four-of-a-Kind | 624 | 0.000,240,1 |
Full House | 3,744 | 0.001,440,58 |
Flush | 5,108 | 0.001,965,4 |
Straight | 10,200 | 0.003,924,65 |
Three-of-a-Kind | 54,912 | 0.021,128,45 |
Two Pairs | 123,552 | 0,047,539,02 |
One Pair | 1,098,240 | 0,422.569.03 |
It should be noted also that while poker hand rankings never change, sometimes circumstances can make a good hand less valuable and a poor hand more valuable.
In other words, when it comes to poker hands there's a difference between absolute value (reflected in the list of poker hands above) and relative value.
For instance, in a game of Texas hold'em, if you have two pair that might seem like a good hand.
But if your opponent keeps betting into you and it's possible he could have a straight or flush, your two pair is no longer looking so good.
Meanwhile, if you have just one pair but your opponent keeps checking to give you a free play at the pot, you might well have the strongest hand and should bet your hand.
The 'absolute' value of your hand may not be great, but in that case the 'relative' value very well could be.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that in some games like razz, deuce-to-seven triple draw, Badugi, and others you might encounter when playing online poker, the hand rankings listed below do not apply.
These hand rankings are for regular or 'high-card' games, not 'lowball' games with alternate hand rankings.
What is the order of poker hands?
As shown in the poker hand rankings chart, the order of poker rankings (from the highest to the lowest) is: Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four-of-a-Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three-of-a-Kind, Two Pair, One Pair, High Card.
What is the best hand in poker?
The Royal Flush is the best hand in poker. To have a Royal Flush, you need an Ace, a King, a Queen, a Jack, and a 10. All the cards that compose the hand need to be of the same suit.
What beats what in poker?
As you can see in our poker hand rankings chart, the hands in poker follow a clear hierarchy.
In a game of poker, the hand rankings work as follows:
The Royal Flush is the best hand in poker, so no one other hands beat this one.
What is a straight in poker?
You have a straight when all the five cards that compose your poker hand are consecutive ones. E.g. 5-6-7-8-9.
If the cards are of the same suit, you have a straight flush, which is a considerably stronger hand compare d to the simple straight.
What beats a straight in poker?
Although many see the straight as a stronger hand, there are many other poker hands that beat it.
The list of hands that beat a straight includes:
What beats a flush in poker?
The list of hands that beat a flush includes:
What beats a full house in poker?
The list of hands that beat a full house includes:
What is the highest suit in poker?
All the suits in poker have the same value. In some games, different suits can be assigned different values.
When that happens, the value is as follow (from the lowest to the highest): clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades. In that case, spades is the highest suit.
How many poker hands are there?
The total number of poker hands in a game of poker is 2,598,960. Since a game of poker uses a 52-card deck of French cards, there are 2,598,960 different possible combinations (aka. poker hands).
What hands to play in poker?
The type of hands to play in a poker game depends on the game you play and other factors like your position in the hand, your stack, and the action at the table.
In a famous poker strategy article, professional player Jonathan Little shared which hands to play in poker and how to play marginal hands.
Can you make three pairs?
Although it is possible to hold a pair in your hand and then have another two pair appear among the five community cards, you can only use a total of five cards to make your poker hand, so you don't win anything for three pairs.
Which is better, a set or trips?
They are both essentially the same hand because they are both three of a kind.
The terminology 'set' is used when you have a pair as your hole cards and then catch another one of those cards on the board.
'Trips' is when there is a pair on the board and you have another of those cards as one of your hole cards.
Sets are easier to disguise than trips so many consider them to be a better hand, although they both rank the same.
What is a chopped or split pot?
If you and an opponent have the same five-card poker hand, then the pot is divided equally between you.
Say you have and your opponent has , and the board comes .
You both would be playing the same five-card hands in terms of their value (A-J-T-8-3), and so would split the pot.
If there is four of a kind on the board, who wins?
Because the aim is to make a five-card poker hand, whoever has the highest fifth card in this case wins.
If the board reads and you have in your hand and your opponent has , then you win because you hand is 7-7-7-7-A and your opponent's is 7-7-7-7-K.
You would also win even if your opponent holding was in this example.
Are the suits ranked in Texas hold'em?
No, they are not. Some poker variants have different ranks for suits, but hold'em is not one of them.
Why did my 4-4-4-T-T lose to my opponent's 7-7-7-8-8?
As mentioned earlier, it is the three-of-a-kind element of a full house that dictates the winner.
If you're new to the game and want a reference of all of Texas hold'em hands, you can keep this page open or you could always download and print our poker hands ranking chart and keep it next to you while you're playing poker.
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Poker Hands in Order Hand Rankings List and Poker Hierarchy Pictures Below. Keep the List Handy and Book Mark this Page so you can refer to our ultra easy to follow Poker Hands Order Listing of Winning Hands High to Low.
Very easy and quick to use and memorize Poker Hand Listings Ranked Below that should enable you to make the decisions needed to make good calls, raises, and all in decisions when you know what you can beat, and what you cant. Great for New Poker Players just starting out! Everyone’s gotta learn some time!
Poker Hands Royal Flush Straight Flush Four of a Kind Full House Flush Straight Three of a Kind Two Pairs One Pair High Hand Winning Poker Hands in Order Rankings
Keep in mind that common poker hands are often top pair with top kicker. Most poker players are looking to trap you by hitting two pair or better yet 3 of a kind aka “trips”. These are often big hands paying out big pots when there are no flush or straight draws available that people may be fishing for.
Texas Holdem Poker Hand Rankings List of Poker Hands by Rank
Royal Flush The Number One Hand Rank and Best Hand In Poker
Why would it be called a Royal Flush?
A Royal Flush is the same as a 5 card Straight flush only it ranks as a royal because of the fact that it contains the Jack, Queen, and King, which are symbols of Royalty from times long ago up until today. As royalty is the upper echelons of society so be it the upper class poker hand ranking.
What are the odds and probabilities of hitting a royal flush?
Slim to none, you might not ever see it in a lifetime whereas someone else may see it a few times. Your Poker Hand Man at Poker hands has been lucky enough to hit it 2 times. One time online and one time no word of a lie, playing strip poker.
Yup, I thought what a time to hit this hand, why could it not be in Vegas or on a Video Poker Machine. Probability of 0.000154% and odds of 649,739 : 1 So anyhow its somewhere around one hand out of over 650 000 thousand plus or minus a few thousand hands you will see a Royal Flush Holdem Poker Hand. Good Luck I hope you get one when it counts!
Poker Hands Royal Flush Highest Ranking Cards Ranked #1
Royal Flush Best Poker Winning Hands in all Four Card Suits Copyright : Sergii Telesh 123rf.com
A Royal Flush is the Holy Grail of Poker Hands Ranked Number #1
How often do you get a Royal Flush? I mean What are the odds of a Royal Flush?
Not very often do you get a Royal Flush only one in approximately 400 thousand hands.
Is a Royal Flush the Highest Hand? Yes you can only tie it. But have never seen that ever.
Straight Flush Winning Poker Hands Rank Suited in Hearts Copyright: www.123rf.com/profile_mackoflower
It is 5 cards of the same suit, hearts, diamonds, clubs, or spades. This is the Flush Part of the Card Hand. The Straight part refers to the numbers all being in order with no missing cards from the order within the 5 card poker hand. Therefore you see above 45678 all ranked in order and all the same suit which is called a flush, together combined making the poker hand ranking of straight flush which is number 2 in the list of Poker Hand Rankings.
Everything but a royal flush. The only thing that can beat a straight flush hand is another straight flush hand that is higher. For example, if you had the 45678 of hearts as shown in the picture above and I had a straight flush in spades 34567 then you Beat Me. Your 5th high card in the straight flush is an 8 which is higher than my last card 7.
The Reverse Of the Hands Mentioned above which is a higher straight flush beats a straight flush and then a Royal Flush beats Any straight flush hand 9 10 J Q K or lower.
A Flush is 5 cards all the same suit. It does not matter what card value as long as you have all 5 cards making up your hand all the same suit.
A flush Poker Hand Beats everything but a straight flush and royal flush. The only time a flush beats another flush is when 2 or more players at the same showdown hand have flushes. If so the one with the highest card overall in his flush hand wins. For example if you have ACE 3456 of any suit suited (Notice no 2 which would make it a straight flush) and I have King Jack 10 9 8 suited (Again notice no Queen which would make it a straight flush again.) You win! All my cards are higher than yours except the Ace which plays high and you win. Then it goes from there on to the 2nd card, 3rd card etc if need be, but rarely ever does. For example I had an Ace 2347 then I win because my ace matches your ace but my 7 out ranks your 6.
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