No matter what type of poker you’re playing (Hold’em, Omaha, Stud…) the hand rankings are always the same. Poker is played with a standards 52 card deck (no jokers) and a poker hand is made up of 5 cards.
That means there are 2,598,960 possible combinations of hands. Don’t worry though – you don’t have to remember them all!
The value of a hand is related to how likely it is to be dealt. Out of those 2,598,960 possible combinations, only 4 possible combinations can give the poker hand known as a Royal Flush (10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace all of the same suit) which makes it the rarest, and therefore the most valuable hand, with a 1 in 649,740 chance of being dealt it as a 5 card hand.
Here’s a quick explanation of all the poker hands, in order of value starting with the highest, and showing an example hand:
Royal Flush
The highest five cards (10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace) all of the same suit.
Straight Flush
Any 5 cards of the same suit, in order.
4 of a Kind
4 cards all of the same value.
Full House
3 cards of the same value, and a pair of cards of a different value.
Flush
Any 5 cards (in any order) of the same suit.
Staight
(sometimes called a run)
Any 5 cards in sequence (mixture of suits)
Three of a Kind
(sometimes called a set, or trips)
Any 3 cards of the same value.
Two Pairs
Any pair or 2 cards of the same value, and another pair of 2 cards of a different value.
One Pair
Any 2 cards of the same value.
High Card
5 cards of different values, with the hand ranked by the highest card. If no player at the showdown has a pair or better, the winner will be the player with the highest single card in their hand. If the highest card in more than one hand is of equal value, the next highest card will be used (and so on until a winning hand is established)
Deciding the winning hand
When 2 or more players show down with similarly ranked hands, the highest value will win. For example, if 2 flushes show down, the winner will be the player whose flush has the highest high card. If the high card matches then the next highest would be used, and so on, so a Spade flush of A K 9 3 2 would beat a Diamond flush of A K 8 7 6. Note that the suits are all ranked equal and have no effect on the winning hand.
If the ranking cards are equal (i.e. both players have a pair or 9s) then the other cards in the hand will determine the winner (i.e. 9 9 8 4 2 would beat 9 9 7 6 5)
If more than one player shows a hand of exactly equal value then the pot is split equally between the winners.
Don’t worry if you’re struggling to remember all of the hand rankings at this point, it really doesn’t take many games before you’ll know them inside out. If it helps, for now you can print this page out and refer to it while playing online games until you remember it (and trust me – even if you have bad memory it won’t take you too long… many beginners get mixed up between the flush and the straight, so concentrate on remembering those and the rest will take care of themselves!)
