---

Poker Hands: Complete Rankings, Examples and Odds

Every poker hand reduces to one question: which five cards are strongest? The answer comes from the poker hand rankings below. Learn this order once and every variant you meet online, Texas Hold'em, Omaha or Short Deck, uses the same vocabulary, with small edits we flag in this guide.

Here is the short version. Five cards of one suit in running order crash everything. Four of the same rank crashes most of the rest. Down the ladder sit full houses, flushes, straights and pair hands, decided by rank and kickers when two players build matching shapes. The full poker hands table, examples, tie rules and odds follow.

Note on versions: the ranking below applies to all online poker games you will find in 2026 unless a room states otherwise. Tables believed to be standard have footnotes where a variant inverts them.

Players must be 18 or older. Online poker from Saudi Arabia sits in a legal grey zone; read our KSA player guide before you deposit, and never stake money you cannot afford to lose.

The 10 poker hands, strongest to weakest

Three footnotes matter for the table:

• The royal flush is a nickname, not a separate category. It is the highest straight flush, so most probability charts fold it into the straight-flush line.
• The ace plays high and low. High: ace-to-ten (Broadway). Low: A-2-3-4-5, called the wheel, which is the smallest straight and loses to 2-3-4-5-6.
• A straight never wraps around. Q-K-A-2-3 reads as ace-high high card, not a straight.

Hand strength never depends on the suit. A spade flush and a club flush with the same ranks split the pot.

How to read the cards: suits and ranks

Ranks from highest to lowest: A, K, Q, J, 10 through 6 in online variants, down to 2 in full 52-card games. Every combination above uses five cards, and that rule is absolute. When seven cards exist (your two plus the five board cards in Hold'em), you pick the strongest five and the rest are discarded.

Kicker rules: how ties are broken

A kicker is a decisive card, the one outside your completed pattern. When two live hands finish in the same category, poker compares their five cards card by card, starting with the category's own ranks, then kickers. Suits never break ties.

Compare full houses carefully: the trips decide first, the pair second. Between kings full of queens and queens full of kings, the kings-full side wins even though the queens side shows a higher pair.

Split pots: when the board plays

Two outcomes create a split pot in community-card games:

1. Identical five-card hands. Both players hold A K and the board runs out a flush for neither player's hole cards, or both flop the same straight.
2. The board plays alone. Board K♠ K♥ K♦ K♣ 5♦ gives everyone K K K K 5; the winner is nobody, and all live hands chop. In Hold'em you may use zero, one or both hole cards, so four board kings leave nothing to compete with.

The kicker on the board does not count for anyone. If the best five cards are all community cards, every live hand ties.

Poker hands probability

Two columns matter. Five-card probabilities describe classic draw poker. Seven-card probabilities describe what you see by the river in Texas Hold'em, because two extra cards turn distant draws into real situations. Rows count hands whose best five cards land exactly in that category, so each column adds to 100%.

The columns tell the same story two ways. With seven cards, roughly one player in three finishes the hand with two pair or better, and unmade hands fall from a coin-toss majority to about one in six. The contrast between the columns explains why raise sizes and board texture matter so much after the flop.

What beats what in each variant

The ranking stays fixed, but each variant changes which five cards you may use:

Two practical notes follow. In Hold'em, four board cards of one suit can give a flush to every hand still live, so a naked ace-high on a paired board often means a chop. In Omaha, A-A-K-K in hand looks like a full house machine; the exactly-two-and-three rule makes it trip aces at most. Full walkthroughs live on the Texas Hold'em rules, Omaha poker rules and Short Deck (6+) rules pages, each with a worked example.

Common hand-ranking mistakes

1. Q-K-A-2-3 as a straight. Straights never wrap. The hand is ace-high only.
2. Believing suits rank in flop games. Unless a room declares odd rules, suits matter for nothing except bring-in games you will not meet online against Hold'em rules.
3. Two pair beats trips? Never. Two pair is two small sets; three of a kind is one big one, and the bigger category wins.
4. Six-card hands. No hand uses six cards. Best five, always.
5. Omaha boat illusion. A-A-K-K with an ace on the board produces trips, not a full house, because the boat would use four hand cards.
6. Short-deck flush habits. In 6+, a flush outranks the full house; carrying the standard ladder into Short Deck gives away stacks.
7. Kicker stuck on the board. A community-card kicker belongs to everyone. Your fold-half-call strength comes only from hole cards.

FAQ — marked for FAQPage schema

Q1: What is the highest poker hand? Royal flush, the ace-to-ten straight flush. In Texas Hold'em the odds run one in 30,940 by the river; in five-card draw, one in 649,740.

Q2: Does a flush beat a full house? No in Hold'em, Omaha, and five-card draw. Yes in Short Deck (6+), where the stripped deck makes flushes far rarer than houses.

Q3: Is the ace high or low? Both, per hand: high on Broadway or the Ace-2-3-4-5 wheel, never in wraps like Q-K-A-2-3. Short Deck extends the low option with a six-high A-6-7-8-9.

Q4: Two players show the same hand, who wins? The next card counts. Kickers decide pair and category ties one by one. When all five cards match, the pot splits, and suits never break the decision.

Q5: What are the odds of hitting a royal flush? Five-card draw: 0.000154%. Hold'em, seven cards to the river: 0.0032%, or one in 30,940.

Q6: What does "the board plays" mean? The strongest five-card hand ends up on the community cards. All live hands tie and split the pot, because no hole card improves anyone's five.

Related reading

• Poker rules hub — the blinds, betting rounds and showdown shared by every variant.
• Texas Hold'em rules — the full guide with a worked hand and pot math.
• Omaha poker rules — the exactly-two-cards rule and pot-limit betting math.
• Short Deck (6+) rules — the 36-card game, antes and the flush/full-house flip.
• Poker strategy for beginners — which of these hands to actually play, not just rank.
• Bankroll management — variance example and the stake-sizing math.

---

How we verify guides: Every rules and rankings page is checked against the official hand-order notes published in operator rulebooks, then re-checked each content cycle. Method and reviewer credits live on our about page.

18+, play sensibly: poker is entertainment with financial risk built in. Set a session budget before you play.

Last updated: November 2026 · Editorial review: Saudipoker team