Poker Hand Rankings: The 10 Hands and How Ties Are Broken
Poker hand rankings, from strongest to weakest: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. A hand in a higher category always beats a hand in a lower one; within the same category, the highest cards win, and suits never count. In Texas Hold'em, your hand is the best five cards you can make out of seven.
Your turn: what does your hand beat?
On the button with T♣T♦, the board runs out A♥ T♠ 4♣ 7♦ K♣ and the big blind checks to you. You have three of a kind. Which hands still beat you, and what's your play?
What beats you: only Q‑J (a straight to the ace) and the two higher sets, A‑A and K‑K. No flush is possible, since the board has only two clubs, and no full house, since the board is unpaired.
The 10 hands, from best to worst
The rarer the hand, the higher it ranks. The last column counts how many of the 2,598,960 possible five-card hands fall into each category.
| Hand | Example | Five-card hands |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ T♠ | 4 |
| Straight flush | 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ | 36 |
| Four of a kind | Q♣ Q♦ Q♥ Q♠ 7♦ | 624 |
| Full house | K♠ K♥ K♦ 4♣ 4♠ | 3,744 |
| Flush | A♦ J♦ 8♦ 6♦ 2♦ | 5,108 |
| Straight | T♣ 9♦ 8♠ 7♥ 6♣ | 10,200 |
| Three of a kind | 7♠ 7♥ 7♦ K♣ 2♠ | 54,912 |
| Two pair | J♥ J♣ 5♦ 5♠ A♣ | 123,552 |
| One pair | A♥ A♣ Q♦ 8♠ 3♣ | 1,098,240 |
| High card | A♠ J♦ 9♣ 6♥ 2♦ | 1,302,540 |
Breaking ties
- Same pair: the kickers decide, one after the other. A♥ A♣ Q♦ beats A♠ A♦ J♣.
- Two pair: the higher pair first, then the second pair, then the fifth card.
- Full house: the three of a kind decides, so K‑K‑K‑4‑4 beats Q‑Q‑Q‑A‑A.
- Flush and high card: compare the highest card, then the next one, down to the fifth.
- Straight: the highest card decides. A‑2‑3‑4‑5, the wheel, is the lowest straight.
- Exact tie: the pot is split. Suits never break a tie.
In Texas Hold'em: the best five out of seven
You combine your 2 private cards with the 5 on the board and keep the best five, whatever mix it takes. With K♣ 2♦ on a board of A♠ A♦ 9♣ 9♥ 5♠, your hand is A‑A‑9‑9‑K: two pair with a king kicker. Your 2 does not play. If the board itself is your best five, you "play the board" and can at best split the pot.
Knowing your hand's rank is where a river decision starts, not where it ends. Of the 647 puzzles in Poker Puzzle Trainer, 183 are played on the river with all five board cards out (counted on 15 October 2026, by board size and by the answer the author marks as best): the expected answer is a check in 81 of them, a bet in 98 and a call in 4. What decides between them is the list of hands the board lets your opponent hold, as in the three-of-a-kind spot above.
Three common confusions
- Straight or flush? The flush wins: 5,108 combinations against 10,200 for the straight.
- Three of a kind or two pair? Three of a kind wins.
- "I have a pair of aces, I win." Only if no one has better (two pair or more, or aces with a higher kicker): always count what the board allows before you bet.
Keep going
- How a hand is played from start to finish: the Texas Hold'em rules.
- Which hands to play before the flop: the starting hands chart.
- Turn a draw into odds: pot odds.
- Test yourself on real decisions: the poker quiz.
- Practice on spots like this one: our free poker trainer.
- The full beginner path: learn poker free.
- When the kicker decides: dominated hands.
- Every key probability on one page: the poker odds chart.
- Which two pair wins, and how a paired board counterfeits it: two pair in poker.
- Set or trips, and why the same three of a kind plays differently: set vs trips.
- How to find the best possible hand on any board: the nuts in poker.
- When two hands tie, and who gets the odd chip: split pot.
- The lowest straight, ace to five: the wheel straight.
- The side card that breaks ties: the kicker in poker.
- Three of a kind plus a pair, and how often it fills: the full house in poker.
- Four cards of one rank, and how rare they are: four of a kind in poker.
- Five cards of one suit, and which flush wins: the flush in poker.
- Five cards in a row, and which straight wins: the straight in poker.
All of these reference numbers fit on one page in our poker cheat sheet.
Sources
- The standard ranking of poker hands (pagat.com, "Ranking of Poker Hands").
- Five-card counts recomputed by enumerating every 5-card hand from a 52-card deck (October 10, 2026).
- Hand from the curated Poker Puzzle Trainer corpus, written by the app's author.