Poker hand rankings
All ten poker hands from best to worst, how often each one shows up, and how ties are broken.
On this page
Every poker game in this guide uses the same ten hands. A hand is always exactly five cards — in Hold'em you pick the best five from your two cards plus the five on the board. The rarer a hand is, the higher it ranks.
Best to worst
How often you get each hand
The first column is the chance of being dealt the hand in five cards — the numbers the ranking is built on. The second is the chance a Hold'em player’s best five out of seven cards (two hole cards plus a full board) is that hand.
| Hand | Dealt 5 cards | Best of 7 cards |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 1 in 649,740 | 1 in 30,940 (0.003%) |
| Straight flush | 1 in 72,193 | 1 in 3,591 (0.03%) |
| Four of a kind | 1 in 4,165 | 1 in 595 (0.17%) |
| Full house | 1 in 694 | 2.6% |
| Flush | 1 in 509 | 3.0% |
| Straight | 1 in 255 | 4.6% |
| Three of a kind | 1 in 47 | 4.8% |
| Two pair | 1 in 21 | 23.5% |
| One pair | 42.3% | 43.8% |
| High card | 50.1% | 17.4% |
Straight flush excludes royal flushes; flush and straight exclude straight flushes.
Breaking ties
Suits never count. Two flushes of the same ranks split the pot.
Compare the part that makes the hand first, then the leftover cards (the kickers) from highest to lowest.
Two pair: higher pair first, then the lower pair, then the kicker.
Full house: the three of a kind decides first. Kings full of twos beats queens full of aces.
Flush and high card: compare the highest card, then the next, down to the fifth.
Straights: the top card decides. The ace can be low in A-2-3-4-5 (the lowest straight), but a straight can’t wrap around: Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight.
Quick memory trick
Flush beats straight, full house beats flush. If you forget, remember that it’s easier to collect five cards in a row than five of one suit — and easier still to get three of a kind.
Read next
Poker glossary (English ↔ 中文)
The words you’ll hear at a home game, with plain-English meanings and the terms Chinese-speaking players use.
Dealing a hand (and fixing mistakes)
How to shuffle, deal and burn like a pro, plus what to do when a card is exposed or someone gets the wrong number of cards.
Omaha (PLO): what’s different from Hold'em
Four hole cards, the exactly-two-plus-three rule that trips up every new player, and how to work out a pot-sized bet.
Hold’em & PLO equity calculatorShowdown and side pots, explained simply
Who shows first, why “cards speak”, and a step-by-step way to split the pot when players are all-in for different amounts.
Home game settlement