Poker Hand Rankings

To win at poker you need to know what the winning poker hands are. Ideally, you should be able to rank poker hands without having to think about it. Knowing the best poker hands also means knowing the worst poker hands.

To make it complicated, all winning poker hands may not be the best poker hands, and the best poker hands may not always win!

This ranking of poker hands shows the order of poker hands from the best down to the worst, or lowest, which is the order of winning hands in poker. Remember, not holding the best poker hands doesn't always mean you are not holding the winning poker hands!

ROYAL FLUSH
The highest possible ranked hand. To achieve this hand you need an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and 10 of the same suit.

STRAIGHT FLUSH
Five cards of the same suit in ascending order.

FOUR OF A KIND
Four cards of the same value.

FULL HOUSE
Three of a kind and a pair. The player with the higher value three of a kind, wins in the event of a tie.

FLUSH
A hand containing five cards of the same suit. If two players have the same hand the winner is the player holding the highest valued cards.

STRAIGHT
Five cards of any suit in ascending order. The ace can be either high or low and the high straight wins the tie.

THREE OF A KIND
Three of a kind is simply three cards of the same value.

TWO PAIR
Two sets of pairs. The player holding the highest pair takes the pot in the event that more than one player is holding two pairs.

PAIR
One pair of cards in a hand.

HIGH CARD
Highest card takes all in the event there is a complete absence of the above hands.

Best Poker Hands

There you have the rank of poker hands in order of winning. You need to learn this list, until you are able to rank poker hands automatically.

Knowing the best poker hands is important, no doubt about it, but there is more to poker than that. If you wait for unbeatable winning poker hands then you'll probably go broke before you get them. Lots and lots of winning poker hands come from the lower rank of poker hands, hands that may not seem like the best poker hands.

Poker Hands Rule - Rank Poker Hands

When you rank poker hands, you only count five cards, never six or more. This is true for all types and variations of poker - you rank poker hands by five cards only. When it comes to determining the winning poker hands, and if two players had hands of a similar rank, say both had two pairs, kings and tens, then in order to find the winning poker hand you would compare the fifth card. The player with the highest fifth card would win in this example. If both had the same fifth card (kicker) then they would tie and split the pot - that is they would both have winning poker hands.