Winning Poker Hands, Texas Hold’em Poker Hand Ranks
Official poker rankings: ties and kickers. Poker is all about making the best five-card poker hand from the seven cards available (five community cards plus your own two hole cards). That means in the event of a tie with four of a kind, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, or high card, a side card, or 'kicker', comes into play to decide who wins the pot. We’re now getting into royalty in this poker hand strength guide. A full house, also known as a “boat”, is usually the winning hand. It consists of three of a kind and a pair. So, if you hold K-K and the board comes K-10-6-6-8, then you have made a full house of K-K-K-6-6. You might hear this described as “kings full of sixes”.
When playing poker, sometimes the most frustrating part of the game is figuring out which hand outranks another at the poker table. Poker.com has placed the ranking of poker hands in a easy to read layout that is suitable for printing so that you are never wondering who is the winner of any poker hand at the table. We have included an illustrated example of each hand. The list is in order from strongest to weakest.
Royal Flush:
Five card sequence from 10 to the Ace in the same suit (10,J,Q,K,A).
Straight Flush:
Any five card sequence in the same suit. (eg. 8,9,10,J,Q and A, 2,3,4,5 of same suit). All the cards are of the same suit, and all are consecutive. Ranking between straights is determined by the value of the high end of the straight.
Best Full House In Poker
Four of a Kind:
All four cards of the same index (eg. J,J,J,J).
A Full House In Poker
Winning Poker Hands Chart
Full House:
Three of a kind combined with a pair (eg. A,A,A,5,5). Ties on a full house are broken by the three of a kind, as you cannot have two equal sets of three of a kind in any single deck.
Flush:
Any five cards of the same suit, but not in sequence. Don’t be tricked into thinking that all five cards are the same color. The high card determines the winner if two or more people have a flush.
Straight:
Five cards in sequence, but not in the same suit. A straight cannot wrap, meaning it is not a straight if you have a Queen, King, Ace, Two, Three. The higher straight wins if two or more people have a straight. In case of straights that tie, the pot is split.
Three of a Kind:
Three cards of the same value. The highest set of three cards wins.
Two Pair:
Two seperate pairs (eg. 4,4,Q,Q). As usual the pair with the higher value is used to determine the winner of a tie.
Pair:
One pair of two equal value cards constitutes a pair.
High Card:
If no one has any of the above winning hands, the tie is determined by the highest value card in the hand. If the highest cards are a tie then the tie is broken by the second highest card. Suits are not used to break ties.
NEW! Download the Poker.com Winning Poker Hands PDF document. The file is perfect for printing and you can refer to it at your home game. You may also need Adobe Acrobat Reader.