Poker Hand Rankings Chart 2026: What Beats What in Poker

Play for maximum value with this monster hand whenever possible, and avoid trapping too often. When you have a full house in Texas Hold’em, you will want to make bets and get some value, but be careful of higher full houses that might be lurking in the dark. One of the costly mistakes here is betting too small and not extracting full value when you are virtually unbeatable. Avoid aggressively overbetting and scaring opponents away before maximizing value. (The frequencies given are exact; the probabilities and odds are approximate.)

Strategies For Four-Flush Boards

A “set” refers to three-of-a-kind using pocket pairs and “trips” refers to a three-of-a-kind using one hole card and 2 community cards. If the two hands are identical, the pot will be split. Whether you’re playing Texas Hold’em Poker or Pot Limit Omaha, live poker or online poker, the same hand rules apply. The less likely they are to put you on a royal flush, the more likely they are to pay you off with a second-best hand.

It has similarities to regular Texas hold'em, in that you are trying to make strong poker hands using seven cards, but it is not considered a poker game. The lowest hand is a five-card combo with no pairs, straights or flushes. The strongest hand is a royal flush, which is an ace-high straight, all of one suit. Your best hand is the strongest five cards you can build without using the suit, often the four board flush cards plus your highest non-flush hole card. That’s a chop with anyone else in the same boat, even players who hold no cards of the suit at all.

Straight – Five cards in sequence, but not all of the same suit is a straight. Flush – Five cards all of the same suit, but not all in sequence, is a flush. It outranks every other made hand and occurs so rarely that many players never hit one in their lifetime. Holding one suited Broadway card gives you about a 1 in 46,060 chance of a royal flush by the river. While three of a kind (or trips) is a solid hand that often wins in smaller pots, it is 4 flush poker no match for the unbeatable royal flush.

Bonus Pay Table

• The odds of making a flush by the river after flopping a flush draw are 35%.
• That single-card threshold is why four-flush boards reshape ranges so hard.
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• If you want to learn about basic poker strategy, be sure to check out my Complete Texas Hold’em Strategy Guide.
• A straight flush ace-to-five is sometimes called a Steel Wheel.

Flushes in Texas Hold'em are quite rare, which is why theysit in the middle of the poker hand rankings. Flushes and straights are commonly confused by beginners, with some struggling to remember which hand wins. When that happens, the winner is decided by the highest cardin the flush sequence. Flushes place fifth in the Poker Hand Rankings, which maygive the impression that they are overly strong because there are only ten handrankings.

Yes — this is called 'the wheel' or 'bicycle' and is the lowest straight (5-high). Sometimes called 'no pair'. Compare pair rank first; if equal, three kickers break the tie in order. Compare the higher pair first, then the lower pair, then the kicker. Higher top card wins ties.

A straight flush is a hand that contains five cards of sequential rank, all of the same suit, such as Q♥ J♥ 10♥ 9♥ 8♥ (a "queen-high straight flush"). There are nine categories of hand when using a standard 52-card deck, except under ace-to-five low rules where straights, flushes and straight flushes are not recognized. With all five community cards on the board, you have a 0.0279% chance of making a straight flush in Texas Hold’em (3,589.6-to-1). The nine distinct hands times the four suits give you 36 ways to draw a straight flush. The straight flush stands at No. 2 in the poker hand rankings and only loses to a royal flush. Other straight flushes could be hands like 6♦ 5♦ 4♦ 3♦ 2♦ and Q♠ J♠ T♠ 9♠ 8♠.

Remember, in community card poker games like Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and Short Deck, suits don’t carry weight so a K♠ doesn’t outrank a K♦. If no player has a hand containing at least one pair, the hand with the highest card is the winner. To make a one-pair means having two cards of the same rank in your five-card poker hand, with three other cards being unpaired. A flush in poker consists of five cards of the same suit.

Many poker sites offer freerolls, free play tables, and low-stakes games that are perfect for beginners. Once you know how rankings, probabilities, and starting hands work, practicing in real games helps turn that knowledge into instinct. Understanding poker theory is one thing, but the fastest way to improve is by playing hands yourself.