What Beats What in Poker?

In the game of poker, what beats what? This listing below shows the best possible 5 card hands assuming no wild cards or jokers. 5 card hands are used in most of the popular poker games including Texas Hold’em, Omaha and 7 Card Stud. They are listed from best to worst, and you can also find the basic Texas Hold’em Hands Odds while playing.

Standard hand rankings

Royal Flush

This is a straight and is made up of an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Ten. Each of the cards is from the same suit.

Straight Flush

Every Texas Hold’em Poker Hand by Winning Percentage. These charts show the average winning percentage (its equity) of every Hold’em hand at showdown. To find a specific hand’s ranking look it up by its largest card. Unless noted, unpaired cards are unsuited. Suited cards add an average winning percentage of 3-4%. For the main poker variations - Texas Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Seven-Card Stud, 5-Card Draw - hand rankings are the same. But for split games - Omaha Hi-Lo, Stud Hi-Lo - half of the pot is awarded to the lowest hand. For lowball games like 2-7 Triple Draw and Razz only the lowest hand will win the pot.

A Straight flush is a hand made up of cards that are all from the same identical suit.

Four of a Kind

Four of Kind is a hand where four of the cards have the same rank.

Full House

Full House is a hand where three of the cards have equal rank as do the remaining two.

Flush

Poker Hand Rankings Test

Flush is a hand where the five cards are from the same suit but not necessarily in consecutive order.

Straight

In a Straight, each of the cards in their hand is in consecutive order but from different suits.

Three of a Kind

In a Three of a Kind hand, three cards in a person’s hand have an identical rank.

Two Pair

Two Pair is a hand, which consists of two pairs, each made up of cards with different ranks.

One Pair

A One Pair hand has two matching cards of equal rank.

High Card

A High Card is a catchall for hands that do not meet any of the above criteria.

Poker Hand Rankings List

Hand Ranking Rules:

The following general rules apply to evaluating poker hands, whatever set of hand values are used.

• Individual cards are ranked A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A. Aces only appear low when part of an A-2-3-4-5straight or straight flush. Individual card ranks are used to compare hands that contain no pairs or other special combinations, or to compare the kickers of otherwise equal hands. The ace plays low only in ace-to-five and ace-to-six lowball games, and plays high only in deuce-to-seven lowball.
• Suits have no value. The suits of the cards are mainly used in determining whether a hand fits a certain category (specifically the flush and straight flush hands). In most variants, if two players have hands that are identical except for suit, then they are tied and split the pot (so 3s4s5s6s7s does not beat 3d4d5d6d7d). Sometimes a ranking called high card by suit is used for randomly selecting a player to deal. Low card by suit usually determines the bring in bettor in stud games.
• A hand always consists of five cards. In games where more than five cards are available to each player, the best five-card combination of those cards plays.
• Hands are ranked first by category, then by individual card ranks: even the lowest qualifying hand in a certain category defeats all hands in all lower categories. The smallest two pair hand (2d2s3d3c4s), for example, defeats all hands with just one pair or high card. Only between two hands in the same category are card ranks used to break ties.

All the suits in poker are of equal value. It makes no difference whether someone has the ace of clubs or the ace of diamonds. If remaining players have exactly the same hand at showdown, only in different suits, the pot is split.

Poker Hand Rankings

Hand Ranking

The value of poker hands is determined by how rare or common it is to be dealt them, with the most common hands valued lower than the rarer hands. The complete list of poker hands is as follows, in increasing order of scarcity:

1. High card
2. One pair
3. Two pair
4. Three of a kind (sometimes called “trips” or “a set”)
5. Straight
6. Flush
7. Full house
8. Four of a kind (sometimes called “quads”)
9. Straight flush

High Card

If you have no pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, etc., then the highest card in your hand is considered to be decisive. The hand above, in which the best card is a king and there is no other combination of poker hand, is known as “king high”.

Ace high beats king high. King high beats queen high, and so on.

If the high cards in two players’ hands is the same, the second-highest card becomes decisive. If these cards are also the same, the third-highest card plays and so on. These cards are known as the kicker.

High card ace, king kicker:

Poker Hand Rankings Print Out

Player 1 has A♠K♣
Player 2 has A♦Q♦
The board is 9♠6♥4♥3♠2♣

Both players have an ace, but Player 1 wins, because he has a king as his second highest card (kicker). His opponent only has a queen.