Poker Hand Rankings: Every Hand From Best to Worst, With Odds
Poker hand rankings, from best to worst, are: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card. That order is the same in Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud and five-card draw, and it is set by math: the rarer the hand, the higher it ranks. A royal flush comes once in 649,740 five-card deals; a pair comes about four times in ten.
Poker hand rankings chart, best to worst
The table lists each hand with an example and how many of the 2,598,960 possible five-card hands make it. We counted every combination ourselves; the totals match the standard figures and add up to the full deck exactly.
| Hand | What it is | Example | Combos | Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Royal flush | A, K, Q, J, 10, all the same suit | A♠K♠Q♠J♠10♠ | 4 | 1 in 649,740 |
| 2. Straight flush | Five in a row, all the same suit | 9♥8♥7♥6♥5♥ | 36 | 1 in 72,193 |
| 3. Four of a kind | Four cards of the same rank | Q♠Q♥Q♦Q♣4♠ | 624 | 1 in 4,165 |
| 4. Full house | Three of a kind plus a pair | K♦K♠K♥7♣7♦ | 3,744 | 1 in 694 |
| 5. Flush | Any five of the same suit | A♣J♣8♣6♣2♣ | 5,108 | 1 in 509 |
| 6. Straight | Five in a row, mixed suits | 10♦9♠8♥7♣6♦ | 10,200 | 1 in 255 |
| 7. Three of a kind | Three cards of the same rank | 8♠8♥8♦K♣3♠ | 54,912 | 1 in 47 |
| 8. Two pair | Two different pairs | J♥J♠5♣5♦A♥ | 123,552 | 1 in 21 |
| 9. One pair | Two cards of the same rank | 10♠10♣K♥6♦2♠ | 1,098,240 | 1 in 2.4 |
| 10. High card | None of the above | A♥Q♦9♠6♣3♥ | 1,302,540 | 1 in 2 |
Hand rankings in Texas Hold'em: odds with seven cards
In Texas Hold'em you make the best five-card hand from seven cards: your two hole cards and the five on the board. More cards means strong hands show up far more often. A flush goes from 1 in 509 to about 1 in 33, and two pair becomes almost a one-in-four result. These are the chances that the best five of seven random cards make each hand, out of 133,784,560 possible seven-card sets.
| Best hand from 7 cards | Probability | Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 0.003% | 1 in 30,940 |
| Straight flush | 0.028% | 1 in 3,590 |
| Four of a kind | 0.17% | 1 in 595 |
| Full house | 2.60% | 1 in 38.5 |
| Flush | 3.03% | 1 in 33 |
| Straight | 4.62% | 1 in 21.6 |
| Three of a kind | 4.83% | 1 in 20.7 |
| Two pair | 23.5% | 1 in 4.3 |
| One pair | 43.8% | 1 in 2.3 |
| High card | 17.4% | 1 in 5.7 |
How ties are broken in poker
When two players have the same type of hand, the higher cards win, and only five cards ever count. Suits do not matter in standard poker, so two identical hands split the pot.
Common poker hand ranking mistakes
Texas Hold'em hand strength before the flop
Hand rankings tell you who wins at showdown. Before the flop, the question is how often your two cards win. (New to the game? Start with how to play Texas Hold'em, and see pot odds and outs for drawing hands.) There are 1,326 possible two-card starting hands, which group into 169 distinct types. You are dealt a pocket pair 5.9% of the time (1 in 17), pocket aces 0.45% of the time (1 in 221), and two suited cards 23.5% of the time.
The table below shows how often the first hand wins against the second when both players go all-in before the flop. We ran 12,000 random boards per matchup with our own hand evaluator, so each figure is within about one percentage point; ties count as half a win.
| Matchup, all-in before the flop | First hand wins | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| AA vs KK | 81% | The biggest pair is about a 4-to-1 favorite over the next one |
| AA vs 7-2 offsuit | 88% | Even the worst hand wins about 1 time in 8 |
| KK vs AQ offsuit | 72% | A pair over two overcards |
| QQ vs AK offsuit | 57% | The classic coin flip is not quite 50-50 |
| AK suited vs QQ | 46% | Suited ace-king nearly closes the gap |
| AK offsuit vs 22 | 47% | Any pocket pair is a slight favorite over two overcards |
| AK offsuit vs JT suited | 59% | Two high cards over two lower ones |
| AK offsuit vs AQ offsuit | 74% | A shared ace makes the kicker the whole fight |
Knowing the rankings is half of it; the other half is which two cards to start with. See the Texas Hold'em starting hands chart for all 169 hands ranked by equity.