The Ten Hand Rankings

Assumptions: All examples use a 6-max online cash game at $0.50/$1 with 100 big blind stacks and no rake unless a different setup is stated.

Every showdown in Hold'em is decided by one ladder: ten hand categories, ranked from high card at the bottom to royal flush at the top. The ladder isn't arbitrary — it's ordered by rarity. Out of the 2,598,960 possible five-card hands you can deal from a 52-card deck, the categories that occur less often beat the ones that occur more often, with no exceptions. Learn the ladder cold and you'll never again freeze at showdown wondering whether your straight beats his flush. (It doesn't. We'll see exactly why.)

The ladder, bottom to top

For each ranking: what it is, a concrete five-card example, and how many of the 2,598,960 possible five-card hands fall into the category.

• 1. High card — five unconnected, unsuited, unpaired cards. Example: A♦ J♣ 8♠ 5♥ 2♣ ("ace high"). Frequency: 1,302,540 hands — just over half of all possible hands. When two high-card hands collide, compare the highest card, then the second highest, and so on.
• 2. One pair — two cards of the same rank plus three side cards. Example: 9♠ 9♦ K♣ 7♥ 4♠ ("a pair of nines, king kicker"). Frequency: 1,098,240. Higher pair wins; equal pairs go to the side cards.
• 3. Two pair — two cards of one rank, two of another, one side card. Example: J♥ J♣ 6♦ 6♠ Q♣ ("jacks and sixes, queen kicker"). Frequency: 123,552. Compare the top pair first, then the bottom pair, then the kicker.
• 4. Three of a kind — three cards of the same rank. Example: 7♠ 7♥ 7♦ A♣ 2♦ ("trip sevens"). Frequency: 54,912. When you make trips using a pocket pair plus one board card, players call it a "set" — same ranking, sneakier disguise.
• 5. Straight — five ranks in a row, mixed suits. Example: 9♣ 8♦ 7♠ 6♥ 5♦ ("nine-high straight"). Frequency: 10,200. The ace plays high (T-J-Q-K-A, "Broadway") or low (A-2-3-4-5, "the wheel"), but straights never wrap around — Q-K-A-2-3 is nothing.
• 6. Flush — five cards of one suit, any ranks. Example: K♥ J♥ 8♥ 6♥ 3♥ ("king-high flush"). Frequency: 5,108. Flushes compare card-by-card from the top, so an ace-high flush beats a king-high flush regardless of the other cards. Suits never break ties.
• 7. Full house — three of one rank plus two of another. Example: 5♦ 5♣ 5♥ Q♠ Q♦ ("fives full of queens"). Frequency: 3,744. The trips part dominates: fives full of queens loses to sixes full of deuces. Say it as "X full of Y" — trips first.
• 8. Four of a kind — all four cards of one rank ("quads"). Example: T♠ T♥ T♦ T♣ 6♣. Frequency: 624.
• 9. Straight flush — five ranks in a row, all one suit. Example: 8♣ 7♣ 6♣ 5♣ 4♣ ("eight-high straight flush"). Frequency: 36 (not counting royals).
• 10. Royal flush — T-J-Q-K-A of a single suit, the unbeatable hand. Example: A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ T♠. Frequency: exactly 4, one per suit.

Read the frequency column from bottom to top and the logic of the ladder jumps out: 1,302,540 high-card hands, 4 royal flushes, and a strictly shrinking count at every step in between. Rarer always beats more common.

How to memorize it

Don't memorize ten arbitrary names — memorize three ideas, and the ladder reconstructs itself:

1. Matching cards beat nothing, and more matching beats less. That generates the spine: high card < one pair < two pair < three of a kind … < full house (a 3-match plus a 2-match) < four of a kind. Within the spine, more matched cards or a bigger second group always wins.
2. Connected and suited combinations slot in between trips and quads. A straight (five connected ranks) and a flush (five suited cards) are each harder to make than trips but easier than a full house — so the run-and-suit hands occupy slots 5 and 6, right above three of a kind. Flush above straight (we're about to prove why).
3. Combine the two themes and you get the penthouse. A straight flush is connected and suited — rarer than everything, so it sits on top, with the royal flush as its ace-high special case.

Spine of matches, runs-and-suits in the middle, both-at-once on top. That's the whole structure.

Why a flush beats a straight

This is the comparison beginners doubt most, so let's settle it with the actual counts. Among all 2,598,960 five-card hands there are exactly 10,200 straights and only 5,108 flushes (excluding straight flushes from both counts). Straights are almost exactly twice as common as flushes — 0.39% of hands versus 0.20%.

The intuition: to make a straight you need five specific ranks, but each rank can be any of four suits, which multiplies the possibilities fast (4⁵ suit assignments for every rank sequence). To make a flush you're locked into a single suit and must hit five of its thirteen cards — far more restrictive. Rarer hand, higher rank: flush beats straight. The same logic settles every neighboring pair on the ladder: full house (3,744) beats flush (5,108), quads (624) beat full houses, and so on. If you ever forget an ordering, ask "which is harder to make?" and you'll almost always reconstruct the right answer.

Best five from seven

At showdown you have seven cards available — your two hole cards plus the five-card board — and your hand is the best five of them, full stop. You can use both hole cards, one, or none. The other two cards are completely ignored: they don't break ties, they don't "play," they don't exist. Spotting your best five from seven quickly is a skill; here's the scan order that works:

1. Are five cards of one suit available? (Flush — and check whether they're also connected for a straight flush.)
2. Do any ranks appear three or four times across the seven cards? (Trips, quads, or — with another pair — a full house.)
3. Can you string five ranks in a row? (Straight.)
4. Otherwise: pairs, then high cards.

Now watch two real showdowns get resolved with that scan.

Showdown one: nut flush over a set of queens

BTN

A♥♥A♥

K♥♥K♥

BB

Q♠♠Q♠

Q♣♣Q♣

Run the scan for each player on the final board Q♥ 9♥ 2♥ 7♣ 3♦. The button holds A♥K♥: five hearts are available (A♥ K♥ Q♥ 9♥ 2♥) — that's a flush, and an ace-high one, the nut flush, the best flush possible on this board. The big blind holds Q♠Q♣: the rank Q appears three times across his seven cards, so his best five is Q-Q-Q plus the two highest remaining cards, 9 and 7 — three of a kind. Flush (slot 6) beats three of a kind (slot 4). The button drags the pot.

Two instructive details. First, the big blind's hand looks enormous — top set is a top-1% flop — and it still loses; the ladder doesn't care how pretty the loser is. Second, this pot was genuinely close while cards remained: on the flop the flush was only about a 65/35 favorite, because the set improves to a full house or quads whenever the board pairs or a fourth queen arrives. The set's redraw is exactly why the ladder slot above flush belongs to the full house.

Showdown two: a full house over a busted flush draw

CO

8♣♣8♣

8♦♦8♦

BTN

A♠♠A♠

K♠♠K♠

Final board: 8♠ 5♠ 5♥ J♦ 2♣. The cutoff holds 8♣8♦. Scan: the rank 8 appears three times (8♣ 8♦ 8♠) and the rank 5 appears twice (5♠ 5♥) — three of one rank plus two of another is a full house, eights full of fives (8-8-8-5-5). The jack and deuce are ignored. The button holds A♠K♠: only four spades are available (A♠ K♠ 8♠ 5♠), so the flush never completed; no pair, no straight — his best five is A-K-J-8-5, ace high. Full house (slot 7) annihilates high card (slot 1).

Here's the number that should recalibrate your respect for full houses: on that flop, the made full house was a 99% favorite over the nut flush draw. Even when the button's flush comes in, it loses — a flush is slot 6, the full house is slot 7. The button's only real escape hatches were runner-runner aces or kings, making a bigger full house (aces or kings full of fives), plus the freak runner-runner 5-5 — quad fives on the board, where his ace kicker plays. Together those cover roughly the remaining 1% (exactly 7 of the 990 possible runouts). When the board is paired, every flush and straight is under threat from full houses. That single observation will save you entire stacks later in your poker life.

Settling ties inside one category

Knowing flush-beats-straight is half the job; most real showdowns are same category versus same category, and each rung has its own tiebreak procedure:

• High card: compare the five cards in descending order; first difference wins. A-Q-9-5-3 beats A-Q-8-7-6 — the third card decides.
• One pair: higher pair wins. Same pair? March through the three kickers in order.
• Two pair: compare the top pairs first — and this is where beginners go wrong. Aces and deuces beats kings and queens, because A > K ends the comparison before the second pair is ever consulted. Only equal top pairs move you to the bottom pairs, then the lone kicker.
• Three of a kind: higher trips win. In Hold'em two players can hold the same trips (one card in hand, a pair on board), and then the two kickers decide.
• Straight: highest top card wins; suits are irrelevant. The wheel (A-2-3-4-5) is the lowest straight — its ace plays as a one, so 6-5-4-3-2 beats it. Identical straights chop, always.
• Flush: compare all five cards top-down, like high card but within the suit. A♥9♥7♥4♥2♥ beats K♥Q♥J♥9♥8♥ on the first card. There is never a "tie broken by suit."
• Full house: trips component first, pair component second. Sixes full of deuces beats fives full of aces.
• Quads: higher rank wins; with quads on the board, the single kicker decides.
• Straight flush: highest top card, same as straights. The royal is just the ace-high straight flush — nothing outranks it, and two players can only "both have it" by playing the same five board cards.

One warning that ties this section to the last one: when comparing, you never reach outside the five cards. "My two pair had a better sixth card" is not a thing — if the five-card hands are identical, the pot splits no matter what the leftovers look like. The kicker lesson coming next is built entirely on this point.

The misreads that cost real money

Three patterns account for most botched showdowns at low stakes, and all three are curable with the scan from this lesson:

1. Calling four to a flush a flush. You hold one heart and the board shows three hearts — that's four hearts total, which is no flush at all. Five or nothing. Count to five out loud if you must.
2. Missing a straight that uses one hole card. Boards like 8-7-6-5 with a lone 9 in your hand make a straight beginners routinely overlook because "I only have nine high." Scan the board's connectivity every street, exactly as the next lesson drills.
3. Announcing "three pair." Seven cards can contain three pairs, but a hand is five cards: best two pairs plus the highest remaining card. The third pair is just a kicker candidate — and usually a bad one.

Reading your hand strength aloud

Train yourself to name your hand the way the rankings define it, because precise naming prevents misreads:

• "Two pair, queens and nines, ace kicker" — not just "two pair."
• "Eights full of fives" — trips component first, always.
• "King-high flush" — name a flush by its top card, since that's how flushes are compared.
• "Nine-high straight" — name a straight by its top card too; T-9-8-7-6 beats 9-8-7-6-5.

And keep the two structural facts from this lesson within arm's reach at all times. One: the ladder is ordered by rarity — 1,302,540 high-card hands down to 4 royal flushes, with the flush-over-straight ordering (5,108 vs 10,200) as the classic proof. Two: showdown compares exactly five cards chosen from your seven, using both, one, or neither hole card. The next lesson stress-tests that five-card rule in the place beginners lose the most money: kickers and split pots.