Understanding poker hand rankings is the first step to mastering the game. Knowing how strong your own hand is against the hands of other players is the key to winning.
Below we have listed the order in which poker hands are ranked. The list starts with the strongest or best hand (a Royal Flush) and decends in order of strength to the weakest hand (The High Card). We have also included the average mathematical probability of you getting each hand in any game.
Royal Flush
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A five-card hand that must run 10, J, Q, K, A all of the same suit.
You'll be very lucky to get this once or twice in a lifetime!
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 649,739
Straight Flush
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The straight flush is the second most powerful hand in poker, similar to the Royal Flush in that the cards must consective
and suited.
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 72,192
4 of a kind
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When you hold four cards of the same number e.g. four eights
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 4,164
Full House
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This is a combination of a pair (shown here as 2 tens) and a 3-of-a-kind e.g. a pair
of 10’s and three Queens. If two or more players hold a full house then the player with the highest ranking 3-of-a-kind wins.
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 693
Flush
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Five, non sequential cards that all share the same suit e.g. five
diamonds, five spades or five hearts as in the example above.
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 508
Straight
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Five differently suited cards that run in sequential rank order
e.g. 2,3,4,5,6. An Ace may be used either high or low for A,2,3,4,5
or 10, J, Q, K, A.
If two players both make a straight then the player with the highest straight wins so 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 is beaten by 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 254
3-of-a-kind
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3-of-a-Kind is also known as ‘trips’ or a set, this is when you have three
cards of the same rank e.g. like the three Kings above.
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 46
Two Pair
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Similar to the pair except that you have two of them! For example
two Queens and two 9’s.
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 20
Pair
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A pair is 2-of-a-kind e.g.
two Jacks (like the example above), two Queens etc…the highest ranking pair is
two Aces and the lowest is two 2’s.
Odds Of Getting This Hand: 1 in 4
High Card
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The highest ranked poker card is an Ace and the lowest is the 2. If players have the same high card, then look to the next card and so on. For example, if you have and Ace and a Jack and your opponent holds and Ace and a Queen he would win that hand!
When you first start playing poker trying to remember these hand rankings can be hard to do in the heat of a game, so why not use our printable hand ranking guide - just print it off and keep it near your computer! You can always refer to it during a game or use one of the excellent poker wallpapers from this site as your computers desktop theme. Click Here to view all available wallpapers.
