Poker hands ranked: all 10 hands in order
The 10 poker hands run from the royal flush at the top down to high card at the bottom. That is the standard order in any game where a full 52-card deck is dealt without wild cards and the highest hand takes the pot, which covers Hold'em, Omaha, stud and draw. Short deck and low games are the exceptions. When two players make the same hand, the higher cards inside it settle the pot, and a showdown hand is always exactly five cards.
The order at a glance
A hand higher on this list beats every hand under it, in any Hold'em pot dealt from a full 52-card deck.
- Royal flush
- Straight flush
- Four of a kind
- Full house
- Flush
- Straight
- Three of a kind
- Two pair
- Pair
- High card
The rankings, best to worst
The royal flush at the top is A-K-Q-J-10 of one suit, which is the ace-high straight flush. Some charts fold it back into the straight flushes and stop at nine hands. This one lists it on its own, so the table has ten rows.
| Rank | Hand | What it is | Example | Beats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal flush | A, K, Q, J, 10, all one suit | A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 10♥ | Every other hand |
| 2 | Straight flush | Five in a row, all one suit | 9♠ 8♠ 7♠ 6♠ 5♠ | Everything below it |
| 3 | Four of a kind | All four cards of one rank | Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ Q♣ 7♠ | Full house and below |
| 4 | Full house | Three of one rank plus a pair | J♠ J♥ J♦ 4♣ 4♠ | Flush and below |
| 5 | Flush | Any five cards of one suit | A♦ J♦ 8♦ 6♦ 2♦ | Straight and below |
| 6 | Straight | Five in a row, mixed suits | 8♠ 7♥ 6♦ 5♣ 4♠ | Three of a kind and below |
| 7 | Three of a kind | Three cards of one rank | 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 6♠ | Two pair and below |
| 8 | Two pair | Two different pairs | A♠ A♥ 7♦ 7♣ Q♠ | One pair and high card |
| 9 | Pair | Two cards of one rank | 10♠ 10♥ A♦ 8♣ 3♠ | High card only |
| 10 | High card | Nothing made, so your best card plays | A♠ Q♥ 9♦ 5♣ 2♠ | A lower high card |
Print it or keep it on your phone
The same ten hands on one page, with the odds of making each one next to it, or the hand order on its own at Letter or A4. Every file is free and none of them asks for an email.
Card order, high to low
Every hand above is built out of this one order, ace at the top and deuce at the bottom.
- No suit outranks another, so a king-high straight with a spade king and one with a heart king split the pot.
- A queen beats a jack because the queen sits higher in the order. Ranks mark a position in that order, so no hand adds its cards up to a score.
- The ace plays at both ends of the order. It runs low only in the wheel, A-2-3-4-5. Straights do not turn the corner, so Q-K-A-2-3 is ace-king high rather than a straight.
How ties break
When two players make the same hand, the higher version of it wins: a king-high flush beats a queen-high flush. If the made part is identical, the kicker decides. Every showdown hand is exactly five cards under the best five rule, so a sixth card never breaks a tie. Two hands still equal after all five split the pot.
Show which five cards play
Your hand wins: the ace decides
Show which five cards play
Your hand wins: the queen decides
Show which five cards play
Split pot: all five match
The best five card rule, worked through shows which five play in each combination of hole cards and board, including the flushes and the straights that get read wrong.
Which hand is better?
Both hands below are full houses. Decide which one wins before you open the answer.
Show the answer
Hand A wins: the jack decides
In a full house the three-card rank is read first, so jacks full beats nines full whatever the pairs are. The pair only matters when both players make the same three of a kind. Which full house wins takes the boat-over-boat pots board by board, including the paired boards where the trips come from the table rather than your hand. Poker Skill's first lessons are made of questions like this one, from one pair against two pair to a straight flush against quads, with the reason for every answer.
How many poker hands are there
The table above has ten rows, or nine categories on the charts that fold the royal flush in. A 52-card deck makes 2,598,960 different five-card hands. The odds column on the printed sheet counts something else again: 133,784,560 seven-card sets, each one scored by its best five, of which 41,584 contain a straight flush and 4,324 are royal. All four counts are worked out on the odds of every poker hand.
The order does not follow rarity. Across seven cards a hand with no pair turns up less often than one pair and still loses to it.
What to read next
- What beats what in poker goes through the matchups one at a time, with the tie-breaks that decide the close ones.
- Quads is what four of a kind is called at the table, and a full house is a boat.
- Three of a kind comes as a set or as trips, and the difference is where the pair sits: in your hand, or on the board where the table can see it.
- Five card draw and seven card stud use exactly the ranks above, and deal the cards differently.
- How to play poker is the rest of the game around the hands: the blinds, the betting rounds and the showdown itself.
Short deck, low hands and starting-hand charts each sit outside the table above:
- Short deck takes the twos through fives out, and in that 36-card deck a flush beats a full house and A-6-7-8-9 is the lowest straight. Whether three of a kind beats a straight varies from table to table.
- Low hands are read by their own rules rather than this ladder, and in some games the pot goes to the worst hand instead of the best.
- Which two cards to play before the flop is a different question. The ranks above only apply once a hand reaches showdown, and a starting-hand chart is about whether you play at all.
The files above come from the printable rankings chart, and the wider poker cheat sheet carries the common draws, the seat order and the pot-odds shortcut on top of the rankings.
Drill the rankings in the app
Poker Skill drills real hand-reading decisions and explains each answer. The reps are short, the app is free forever and there is no wagering.