Poker hand rankings

There are exactly ten hands in poker, and they rank in this order, best first: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. Two of these trip up almost every beginner: a flush beats a straight, and a full house beats both. If you remember nothing else from this page, remember that.

The chart below is the whole system in one picture. It applies to Texas Hold’em, and to nearly every other poker variant you’ll meet.

Memorise the top half. The bottom half memorises you.

The ten hands, best to worst

#	Hand	What it is	Example
1	Royal flush	A-K-Q-J-10, all one suit	A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠
2	Straight flush	Five in a row, all one suit	9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥
3	Four of a kind	Four cards of the same rank	Q♣ Q♦ Q♥ Q♠ 7♦
4	Full house	Three of a kind plus a pair	J♦ J♠ J♥ 4♣ 4♦
5	Flush	Any five of one suit	A♦ 10♦ 8♦ 6♦ 3♦
6	Straight	Five in a row, mixed suits	8♣ 7♦ 6♠ 5♥ 4♣
7	Three of a kind	Three of the same rank	9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 2♠
8	Two pair	Two pairs of different ranks	K♥ K♠ 5♦ 5♣ A♥
9	One pair	Two of the same rank	10♦ 10♣ A♠ 7♥ 3♦
10	High card	None of the above; your best single card plays	A♣ J♦ 8♠ 6♥ 2♣

A royal flush is just the highest possible straight flush, which is why some players count nine hands instead of ten. Either way, nothing beats it.

When two players have the same hand

Ties within a rank go to the higher cards. A pair of kings beats a pair of nines. A queen-high flush beats a ten-high flush. Two players with the same pair compare their next-highest cards, the kickers, one at a time until someone wins. If all five cards match in rank, the pot splits. Suits never break a tie in poker; a flush in spades is worth exactly as much as the same flush in hearts.

The ace plays high or low (but never both)

An ace is normally the highest card in the deck, but it can also play low to make the lowest possible straight: A-2-3-4-5, known as the wheel. What an ace can never do is wrap around the corner. Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight; it’s an ace-high hand and nothing more.

How rankings work in Texas Hold’em

In Texas Hold’em you have seven cards to work with: your two hole cards plus the five community cards. Your hand is the best five of those seven, and you can use both hole cards, one, or none. If the board itself is the best five-card hand, everyone still in plays the board and splits the pot.

That “best five” rule matters more than it sounds. With four hearts on the board, any player holding a single heart has a flush. Reading what the board makes possible is most of what separates a player from a target.

Where to practise until it sticks

Rankings only become instinct at a table. Ours are free with no real money anywhere in them: play the browser demo without a download or signup, or sit at the live 5-seat cash tables in PowerSuit’s free Texas Hold’em, where the hands you’ve just learned come up for real, on free chips.

PowerSuit is free to play and for entertainment only: no real money, no cash-outs, and chips have no cash value.