Poker Hand Rankings: Every Poker Hand in Order

Poker hand rankings run, from best to worst: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card. Every poker hand is made of exactly five cards, and the rarer the hand, the higher it ranks. The same order applies in Texas Hold'em, Omaha and almost every other poker game you will find in the UK.

Poker hands in order: the full chart

The table lists all ten poker hands in order from strongest to weakest. The odds show how often each one turns up when you are dealt five cards from a standard 52-card deck. There are 2,598,960 possible five-card hands and only four of them are royal flushes, which is why that hand sits at the top.

A royal flush is simply the highest possible straight flush, so some charts show nine hands rather than ten. The straight flush odds above exclude royal flushes.

How ties are broken

When two players hold the same type of hand, the ranks of the cards decide the winner. Aces are high, then king, queen, jack, ten and so on down to the two.

• Pairs, three of a kind and four of a kind: the higher rank wins. A pair of kings beats a pair of jacks.
• Two pair: compare the top pairs first, then the second pairs, then the fifth card. Aces and twos beat kings and queens.
• Full house: the three of a kind decides it. 8-8-8-2-2 beats 7-7-7-A-A.
• Straight: the highest top card wins. An ace can be high (A-K-Q-J-10) or low (5-4-3-2-A, the lowest straight, known as the wheel), but a straight cannot wrap around. Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight.
• Flush: the highest card wins. If those match, compare the second highest, and so on through all five cards.

Suits never rank against each other in standard poker. A flush in spades is worth exactly the same as a flush in clubs. If two players have identical five-card hands, they split the pot.

What is a kicker?

A kicker is a side card that is not part of your pair or three of a kind but still counts towards your five-card hand. Suppose you hold A♠ K♦, your opponent holds A♥ 9♣ and the board is A♦ J♣ 7♠ 4♥ 2♦. You both have a pair of aces. Your best five cards are A-A-K-J-7 and theirs are A-A-J-9-7, so your king kicker wins the pot.

One pair has three kickers, three of a kind has two, and two pair and four of a kind have one each. If the board's cards outrank both players' side cards, the kickers are shared and the pot is split. Kickers are the main reason ace-king is so much stronger than ace-nine, as our Texas Hold'em starting hands guide explains.

Common beginner mistakes

• Thinking a straight beats a flush. It does not. A flush is roughly half as likely as a straight (1 in 509 against 1 in 255), so the flush wins.
• Ranking two pair above three of a kind. Three of a kind is dealt less than half as often as two pair (1 in 47 against 1 in 21), so three twos beat aces and kings.
• Counting three pairs. Only five cards play. If you can see three pairs, your hand is the best two of them plus one kicker.
• Ignoring the kicker. Top pair with a weak side card often loses to the same pair with a better one.
• Believing one suit outranks another. Suits are equal when hands are compared.
• Misreading the board. If four hearts are on the table, anyone holding a single heart has a flush, and the highest heart wins.

How rankings work in Texas Hold'em

In Hold'em you receive two private hole cards and share five community cards with everyone else, so you have seven cards to choose from. Your hand is the best five-card combination of those seven, and the other two cards are ignored. You may use both hole cards, one, or none at all, which is called playing the board. If you are new to the game, our guide on how to play Texas Hold'em covers the deal and the betting rounds.

Because you pick from seven cards, strong hands appear more often than the five-card odds in the chart suggest, and pairs and two pairs are routine by the river. The order of the hands never changes, though.

Here is an example that catches many new players out. You hold K♥ Q♥ and the board is K♠ Q♦ 7♥ 7♣ 2♠. You do not have three pairs. You have kings and queens with a seven kicker. An opponent holding 7♠ 6♠ has three sevens, and takes the pot. Knowing how often draws complete helps you judge spots like this, which is covered in our poker odds and outs guide.

Omaha and short-deck differences

Omaha uses the same hand rankings, but each player gets four hole cards and must use exactly two of them with exactly three community cards. That means four spades on the board and one spade in your hand is not a flush in Omaha, and you can never play the board. See how to play Omaha poker for the full rules.

Short-deck poker, also called six-plus Hold'em, removes the twos to fives to leave a 36-card deck. With fewer cards of each suit, flushes become harder to make than full houses, so under the most common rules a flush beats a full house. Some games also rank three of a kind above a straight. The ace can still play low, making A-6-7-8-9 the lowest straight. Always check the table rules before you sit down.

An easy way to memorise the order

Learn the rankings in three blocks. The bottom block is high card, one pair, two pair and three of a kind. The middle block is straight, flush and full house. The top block is four of a kind, straight flush and royal flush. A few sessions at play-money tables, where no real money is at stake, will fix the order in your memory.

Where to practise

If you would like to practise reading hands at free or low-stakes tables, our comparison of the best UK poker sites can help you find a room that suits beginners.

Play responsibly

Poker is for adults aged 18+ only. Knowing the hand rankings does not guarantee wins, and short-term results depend heavily on luck. Set a budget you can afford to lose before you play and stick to it. Free, confidential advice is available at BeGambleAware.org.