Poker Hand Rankings — From Strongest to Weakest

A royal flush sits at the top of the poker hand rankings: A K Q J 10, all one suit. It beats a straight flush and everything under it. The famous 1-in-650,000 figure is a five-card-draw number — in Hold’em you see seven cards, so it lands closer to 1 in 30,940. Because no suit outranks another, two players can only both hold a royal flush when all five cards are on the board, and then the pot is split — the tie-breaking rules below cover every other split.

Five cards in sequence sharing a suit, such as 9 8 7 6 5. It loses only to a higher straight flush or to a royal. A straight flush is not automatically unbeatable: nine-high loses to ten-high, and the two can legitimately meet in the same pot. The royal flush above is simply the ace-high straight flush, listed on its own because nothing can beat it.

All four cards of one rank plus a kicker, like Q Q Q Q 3, usually called quads. Beginners assume quads always scoop the pot, but when the quads sit on the board every player holds them and the fifth card, or a chop, settles it. By the river you hold quads about once in 595 hands, roughly 50 times as often as a royal flush; the river column of the chart above lists both.

Three of a kind plus a pair — J J J 8 8, read as jacks full of eights. The three-card set is compared first, never the pair: jacks full of twos beats tens full of aces. That single rule trips up more new players than anything else in the poker hand rankings. In Hold’em a full house needs a paired board: with five different ranks showing, two hole cards cannot make one. That is why a flush on an unpaired board has nothing to fear from a full house.

Any five cards of one suit, for example A J 8 5 2. Suits carry no rank against each other, so a spade flush does not beat a diamond flush. When two players both make one, the highest card wins — which is why a low flush is more dangerous than it looks. When the board shows four cards of one suit, anyone holding a single card of that suit has a flush, and the highest of those cards usually decides it — see how ties are broken.

Five consecutive ranks in mixed suits, such as 10 9 8 7 6. The ace plays at both ends: A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest straight, called the wheel, and 10-J-Q-K-A is the highest. It never wraps around, so Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight at all. By the river a straight (4.6%) turns up more often than a flush (3.0%), which is why the flush ranks higher; it is a common mix-up, and the FAQ below answers it directly.

Three cards of one rank plus two kickers: 7 7 7 K 4. Making it with a pocket pair is a set; making it with two board cards is trips. The difference matters because a set stays hidden while a trip hand is visible to everyone at the table. Three of a kind shows up a little more often than a straight by the river (4.8% against 4.6%), and the two are easy to swap in your head; the straight ranks one place higher.

Two separate pairs plus a kicker, like A A 9 9 Q, read as aces and nines. The higher pair is compared first, then the lower pair, then the kicker. Two pair is strong heads-up and a frequent second-best hand in a crowded pot. A common way to lose with it: king-four on a K-Q-4 board makes kings and fours, then runs into king-queen holding kings and queens. That is one reason our Texas Holdem starting hands chart marks king-four as a fold before the flop.

Two cards of one rank plus three kickers: K K J 6 3. In poker hands ranking terms it is the most common made hand, and it wins plenty of pots. When two players hold the same pair, the kickers are compared one at a time until one is higher. Exactly one pair is the hand you will hold most often by the river (43.8%), so a lot of showdowns come down to kickers; the one-page printable version keeps the full order in front of you.

No pair, no straight, no flush — just five unconnected cards such as A Q 9 6 3, called ace-high. It is the weakest holding in the poker hand rankings, yet it still takes a pot whenever everybody misses. Compare the highest card first, then work down. One quirk of seven-card games: by the river you end up with only high card 17.4% of the time, less often than one pair or two pair, because the order was set for five-card poker and never changed. The percentages in the chart show all ten side by side.