The ten poker hands in order
From strongest to weakest. The odds are for being dealt that exact hand in five cards from a 52-card deck, out of 2,598,960 possible hands (exact counts, as computed by mathematician Brian Alspach in his poker computations).
| Rank | Hand | Example | Ways to make it | Chance in 5 cards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal flush | A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠ | 4 | 0.00015% |
| 2 | Straight flush | 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ | 36 | 0.0014% |
| 3 | Four of a kind | Q♣ Q♦ Q♥ Q♠ 7♦ | 624 | 0.024% |
| 4 | Full house | J♠ J♥ J♦ 4♣ 4♠ | 3,744 | 0.14% |
| 5 | Flush | K♦ 10♦ 8♦ 6♦ 3♦ | 5,108 | 0.20% |
| 6 | Straight | 8♣ 7♦ 6♠ 5♥ 4♣ | 10,200 | 0.39% |
| 7 | Three of a kind | 7♠ 7♥ 7♣ K♦ 2♠ | 54,912 | 2.1% |
| 8 | Two pair | A♣ A♦ 9♠ 9♥ 5♣ | 123,552 | 4.8% |
| 9 | One pair | 10♥ 10♠ K♣ 6♦ 2♥ | 1,098,240 | 42.3% |
| 10 | High card | A♦ J♣ 8♠ 5♥ 3♦ | 1,302,540 | 50.1% |
In Texas Hold'em you make the best five-card hand from seven cards (your two plus five on the board), so every hand above high card turns up far more often than these five-card figures suggest.
What each hand means
- Royal flush: ace, king, queen, jack and ten of the same suit. The best possible hand.
- Straight flush: five cards in a row, all one suit. A higher top card wins.
- Four of a kind (quads): four cards of the same rank.
- Full house: three of one rank plus a pair of another. The three cards decide which full house is higher.
- Flush: any five cards of one suit. Compare the highest card, then the next, and so on.
- Straight: five cards in a row of mixed suits. An ace can be high (A-K-Q-J-10) or low (5-4-3-2-A, "the wheel"), but a straight cannot wrap around (Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight).
- Three of a kind (trips or a set): three cards of the same rank.
- Two pair: two different pairs. The higher pair decides, then the lower pair, then the fifth card.
- One pair: two cards of the same rank.
- High card: none of the above; the highest card plays.
How ties are broken
When two players have the same kind of hand, compare the cards that make the hand first, then the leftover cards (the kickers), from highest to lowest. Only five cards ever count.
- Pair of kings with an ace kicker beats pair of kings with a queen kicker.
- If all five cards match in rank, the pot is split equally. Suits never break a tie in standard poker.
- In Hold'em, if the board itself is the best hand for everyone ("playing the board"), everyone still in the hand splits the pot.
Splitting a pot is easy with EasyPoker: each winner taps Take for their share of the pot instead of taking the whole thing.
Five hands people get wrong
- A flush beats a straight. Flushes are rarer.
- A full house beats a flush.
- Two pair of aces and twos loses to two pair of kings and queens? No: the highest pair decides first, so aces-up wins.
- "Three pair" does not exist. With seven cards, only the best two pairs count.
- The cards speak. At showdown, a hand is worth what it is, even if the player calls it wrong.