Poker hand rankings: from royal flush to high card

A poker hand is always the best five cards you can make. The order from best to worst is: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card. The order follows rarity. The harder a hand is to make, the higher it ranks. The same order is used in Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud and in most casino and video poker games.

The ten hands, best to worst

There are 2,598,960 different five-card hands in a 52-card deck (52 choose 5). The table counts how many of them fall into each category and the chance of being dealt one in five cards.

The counts add up to 2,598,960. The straight flush count of 36 excludes the four royal flushes, and the straight and flush counts exclude straight flushes. A royal flush is simply the highest straight flush; some players list it separately and some do not.

These are five-card odds. In Hold'em you choose the best five from seven cards, so every made hand is more common than the table shows, but the ranking order does not change.

What each hand means

• Royal flush: A, K, Q, J and 10 of one suit.
• Straight flush: five cards in sequence, all one suit. The lowest is 5-4-3-2-A.
• Four of a kind (quads): four cards of the same rank plus one other card.
• Full house: three of a kind plus a pair, named by the three first ("jacks full of fours").
• Flush: five cards of one suit, not in sequence.
• Straight: five cards in sequence of mixed suits. An ace can be high (A-K-Q-J-10) or low (5-4-3-2-A), but a straight cannot wrap round, so Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight.
• Three of a kind: three cards of the same rank plus two unrelated cards. In Hold'em, three of a kind made with a pocket pair is called a set; made with one hole card and a pair on the board it is called trips.
• Two pair: two different pairs plus one card.
• One pair: two cards of the same rank plus three unrelated cards.
• High card: none of the above. The hand is named by its highest card.

Ties, kickers and split pots

When two players hold the same category, compare the cards in a fixed order. Suits never decide anything in standard poker. If every relevant card matches, the pot is split.

Worked examples on a Hold'em board:

1. Kicker decides it. The board is K♠ 9♦ 7♣ 4♥ 2♠. You hold A♣ K♦, your opponent holds K♥ Q♠. Both have a pair of kings. Your best five are K-K-A-9-7, theirs K-K-Q-9-7. Your ace kicker wins.
2. The board plays. The board is A♠ A♦ K♣ K♥ Q♠. You hold J♣ 10♦, your opponent holds 9♥ 8♥. Neither of you can beat A-A-K-K-Q with your own cards, so both best hands are the board itself and the pot is split.
3. Only five cards count. The board is Q♠ Q♦ 8♣ 8♥ 3♠. You hold A♥ 2♣, your opponent holds A♦ K♣. Both best hands are Q-Q-8-8-A. The K and 2 are sixth cards and do not play, so this is also a split pot.
4. Two pair: top pair first. You hold J-J and your opponent holds 10-10 on a board of 6-6-A-4-2. Your hand is J-J-6-6-A, theirs 10-10-6-6-A. Jacks beat tens.
5. Flush against flush. On a board of K♥ 9♥ 6♥ 3♣ 2♥, a player with Q♥ (K-Q-9-6-2) beats a player with J♥ 10♥ (K-J-10-9-6), because the second-highest card, Q against J, decides it.

A common mistake is to count your best seven cards. Only five play. Another is to assume a higher hole card always wins a tie; it only counts if it makes your best five.

How Short Deck changes the order

Short Deck, also called 6+ Hold'em, removes the 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s and plays with 36 cards. With fewer ranks, some hands become easier to make and others harder. Our Short Deck guide covers the game in full.

In five-card terms, a 36-card deck holds 376,992 hands (our own count, by enumerating every hand). A flush is now rarer than a full house (480 flushes against 1,728 full houses), so a flush beats a full house. GGPoker's Short Deck page states this rule, and Triton Poker's guide calls it the general rule while warning that some houses still rank the hands the standard way.

The second change is less settled. Some rule sets, such as the one PokerTube describes, put three of a kind above a straight. Others keep the standard order; Wikipedia's Six-plus Hold'em article says most games rank the straight higher. Both have a case: across five cards, straights are rarer (6,120 against 16,128 three of a kinds), but across the seven cards you see in Hold'em, three of a kind is rarer. Check the rules of the table before you play.

The ace also plays low in a different place: A-6-7-8-9 is the lowest straight in Short Deck, because the 5 does not exist.

Where the rankings are used

The same order applies at cash tables and tournaments in Texas Hold'em and Pot-Limit Omaha, and in house-banked games such as Casino Hold'em and Three Card Poker (Three Card Poker uses its own three-card order, in which a straight beats a flush). Video poker pays out on the same five-card ranks; 9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54% with perfect play.

If you want to play for real money, our poker market hub explains where online poker is regulated, with listings for the UK and New Jersey.