What Beats What in Poker?

Poker Rules What Beats What In Texas Holdem the “one armed bandit”, became an icon of modern online gaming. At Slotomania, you can start Poker Rules What Beats What In Texas Holdem playing your favorite Poker Rules What Beats What In Texas Holdem slot games with crazy graphics, top of the line sound effects, and hundreds of variations to choose from. Poker Hand Rankings. While most of you will know the basics rules of poker, those new to the game may still be a little unsure of what hands are most valuable. In fact, even experienced players sometimes get confused when ranking a Full House and a Flush.

In the game of poker, what beats what? This listing below shows the best possible 5 card hands assuming no wild cards or jokers. 5 card hands are used in most of the popular poker games including Texas Hold’em, Omaha and 7 Card Stud. They are listed from best to worst, and you can also find the basic Texas Hold’em Hands Odds while playing.

Poker Rules What Beats What Printable

A Full House of Queens is Queens Full, and a Full House of Jacks is Jacks Full etc. When ranking Full Houses, Aces Full will always beat Kings Full, and that will always beat Queens Full, and that will always beat Jacks Full etc. To simplify, consider this hand: K ♥ K ♣ K ♠ 5 ♥ 5 ♣ versus Q ♥ Q ♣ Q ♠ A ♥ A ♣. However, 10-10-6 is beat by 10-10-6-2 because of the fourth card. Also, a 10 alone will beat 9-6. But, 9-6 beats 9-5-3, and that beats 9-5, which beats 9. In standard poker, suits are NOT ranked. If there are equal hands the pot is split. However, depending on the variant of poker, there are situations when cards must be ranked.

Standard hand rankings

Royal Flush

This is a straight and is made up of an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Ten. Each of the cards is from the same suit.

Straight Flush

A Straight flush is a hand made up of cards that are all from the same identical suit.

Four of a Kind

Four of Kind is a hand where four of the cards have the same rank.

Full House

Full House is a hand where three of the cards have equal rank as do the remaining two.

Flush

Flush is a hand where the five cards are from the same suit but not necessarily in consecutive order.

Straight

In a Straight, each of the cards in their hand is in consecutive order but from different suits.

Three of a Kind

In a Three of a Kind hand, three cards in a person’s hand have an identical rank.

Two Pair

Two Pair is a hand, which consists of two pairs, each made up of cards with different ranks.

One Pair

A One Pair hand has two matching cards of equal rank.

High Card

A High Card is a catchall for hands that do not meet any of the above criteria.

Hand Ranking Rules:

The following general rules apply to evaluating poker hands, whatever set of hand values are used.

• Individual cards are ranked A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A. Aces only appear low when part of an A-2-3-4-5straight or straight flush. Individual card ranks are used to compare hands that contain no pairs or other special combinations, or to compare the kickers of otherwise equal hands. The ace plays low only in ace-to-five and ace-to-six lowball games, and plays high only in deuce-to-seven lowball.
• Suits have no value. The suits of the cards are mainly used in determining whether a hand fits a certain category (specifically the flush and straight flush hands). In most variants, if two players have hands that are identical except for suit, then they are tied and split the pot (so 3s4s5s6s7s does not beat 3d4d5d6d7d). Sometimes a ranking called high card by suit is used for randomly selecting a player to deal. Low card by suit usually determines the bring in bettor in stud games.
• A hand always consists of five cards. In games where more than five cards are available to each player, the best five-card combination of those cards plays.
• Hands are ranked first by category, then by individual card ranks: even the lowest qualifying hand in a certain category defeats all hands in all lower categories. The smallest two pair hand (2d2s3d3c4s), for example, defeats all hands with just one pair or high card. Only between two hands in the same category are card ranks used to break ties.

Hand Ranking

While most hand rankings are easy enough to understand, others require an explanation. This chart will explain exactly what beats what. These hand rankings are the same for all high hand poker games. A flush will beat a straight no matter if you are playing Holdem, Omaha, etc. Click to download this cheat sheet as .pdf.

See more hand ranking cheat sheets for lowball and split pot games here.

Position

Position in poker is one of the most important considerations in any game. It can sometimes be more important than your actual hand strength. The following chart below shows each seat at a poker table and what position each seat belongs to.

Keep in mind to adjust these seats based on how many people are at your table. See example hands played out on video for every game type in our how to play card games section.

Starting Hands

The most important decision a player can make is if they should get involved in the hand at all.

Many times new players can get trapped into playing hands that seem 'close enough' to a good hand. It can be hard to draw the line between A♥J♠ and A♥T♠, especially when you are not catching good cards.

A♥T♠ for example lies just outside the top 10% of starting hands (shown right, in blue) yet is still a strong hand in late position.

It's difficult to draw up an exact cheat sheet for starting hands as it depends on your playing style. Learn more in this How to Play Texas Holdem article.

Drawing odds

Poker Rules What Beats What

When playing for a flush draw or a straight draw the key is making sure you are getting the right odds to draw. How often will that straight draw come in? How likely are you to turn your set into a full house? This chart will show you all the odds based on how many 'outs' when on the flop and then on the turn.

Learn more about pot odds math and how to play drawing hands.

Example Americas Cardroom Poker School Video