Poker Hand Rankings
What beats what? A walkthrough of the different hands in poker, as
well as how to settle ties 🧾 and unique situations.
Poker Hands Ranked
Use our handy
Poker Hand Rankings chart for a quick visual on what beats what in 🧾 poker. For more
detail on each hand, as well as ties and unique situations, check out the information
below the 🧾 poker cheat sheet.
Lowest to Highest Value Hands
High Card (Lowest
Value)
When you have no card combinations, the highest card value in 🧾 your hand. Aces
are high in Poker.
One Pair
Two cards of the same value.
Two Pair
Two pairs of
different card values.
Three-of-a-Kind
Three cards 🧾 of the same value.
Straight
Five
cards in order, such as 6♠-7♡-8♢-9♠-10♣. The suits do not match.
Flush
Five cards of
the same suite. 🧾 The value of the Flush is determined by the highest card in it. For
example, a Flush with a King 🧾 as the highest value card would beat a Flush with a Queen
as the highest value card.
Full House
Three cards of 🧾 one value, and two cards of
another value. Full houses are consider "____ full of ____" where the first blank 🧾 is
the set of three and the second blank is the pair. For example, a full house
9♡-9♣-9♠-5♡-5♢ would be 🧾 called "nines full of fives".
The best full house that is
possible is A♡-A♢-A♣-K♠-K♡. Suits do not matter.
When comparing a full 🧾 house to another
full house, the set of three is compared first. If both players have the same set of
🧾 three, then the pairs are compared. If the pairs match as well, then it is a
tie.
Four-of-a-kind
Four cards of the 🧾 same value.
Straight Flush
A straight flush is
when a straight is made up of cards of the same suit, such as 🧾 6♡-7♡-8♡-9♡-10♡.
Royal
Flush
A royal flush is actually just a straight flush of the cards 10♢-J♢-Q♢-K♢-A♢.
Suit does not matter.
Five-of-a-Kind (Highest Value)
A 🧾 five-of-a-kind is only possible
when playing with wild cards. It is five cards of the same value and it beats 🧾 a royal
flush.
Unique Cases and Fun Facts
Hand Strength
The strength of a hand when compared to
other hands of the same 🧾 type is determined by the highest value card that makes up the
hand. For example, a straight with a jack 🧾 as the highest value outranks a straight with
a 10 as the highest value.
The value of the cards does not 🧾 matter when comparing
different hands though. For example, the strongest four-of-a-kind, four aces, would
lose to the weakest straight flush, 🧾 2♠-3♠-4♠-5♠-6♠. Suit does not matter.
Settling
Ties
If two players have the same hand, then they compare their high cards to determine
🧾 the winner. If their high card is the same, they compare their next highest card. They
keep doing this until 🧾 a winner is decided. If both players have identical hands it is a
tie.
Suit does not matter.
Settling Ties Between Flushes
The 🧾 suit of a flush does not
affect the value. If two players have a flush, they compare the largest value 🧾 card in
the flush to determine the winner. If the highest value card is the same, they compare
their next 🧾 highest cards. Just like a regular tie, they keep doing this until a winner
is decided.
If both players manage to 🧾 have identical flushes, it is a tie regardless of
suit.
Full House Combinations
Fun fact, there are 156 different kinds of full 🧾 houses in
a standard 52-card deck. There are also 3,744 different full house card combinations.
