What beats a straight?
A straight is beaten by a flush, a full house, four of a kind, a straight flush, and a royal flush.
What beats a straight?
A straight is a powerful hand and wins the large majority of showdowns, but it is not unbeatable. A handful of rarer hands sit above it on the rankings, and any one of them takes the pot when it appears. Knowing exactly which hands beat a straight tells you when to push and when to fold.
Try it yourself: use our free poker equity calculator to compare any two hands and see the exact odds.
Why
A straight sits closer to the middle of the ranking chart than the top, which is why five hand types outrank it: a flush, a full house, four of a kind, a straight flush, and the royal flush. That is more hands than beat almost any other category in this series, which is exactly why a straight needs the most caution of the hands covered here — it is a genuinely good hand, dealt only about once every 255 five-card deals, but it is far from the top of the pile. Each hand that beats it does so by adding a requirement a straight does not have: a shared suit, a matching pair, or both. Knowing this list in order — and knowing that four different hand types come between a straight and the royal flush — is what separates a player who bets a straight confidently from one who gets trapped.
Example
Your hand: 9♦ 8♠ 7♥ 6♣ 5♦ (a straight). An opponent turns over A♠ J♠ 8♠ 5♠ 2♠ (a flush). Even though a flush is the weakest hand that outranks a straight, it still wins the pot.
A second example
Board: T♦ 9♦ 8♦ 5♣ 3♠. Player A holds J♣ 7♣ and makes a jack-high straight (J-T-9-8-7). Player B holds A♦ Q♦ and rivers an ace-high diamond flush (A-Q-T-9-8). Both hands use the same three board cards, but the flush wins because it ranks a full tier above the straight.
In real play
Any board with three cards of one suit should make you treat a made straight as vulnerable rather than nailed-on — a flush is the single most likely hand to be quietly ahead of you. A paired board adds a full house risk on top of that. See our straight guide for how the hand is built, check what specifically beats a straight flush in the dedicated guide, or run the exact holdings through the equity calculator before committing chips. Because a straight itself is dealt only about once every 255 hands, treat it as a hand worth betting for value, just not one worth stacking off with blind confidence on a scary board.
How each hand is built
Here is exactly what the hand requires to be made:
- Straight: five sequential cards, mixed suits.
Odds and frequency
How often each hand is dealt in a random five-card poker hand (a rarer hand always outranks a more common one):
- Straight: 1 in 255
Full poker hand ranking
For reference, here are all ten hand categories from highest to lowest:
- Royal Flush
- Straight Flush
- Four of a Kind
- Full House
- Flush
- Straight
- Three of a Kind
- Two Pair
- One Pair
- High Card
Key takeaway
A common mistake is overvaluing a straight; it is a good hand, but always check the board for the stronger holdings that beat it before committing chips. When in doubt, work down the ranking chart from the top and the higher hand always takes the pot.
Read the full poker hand rankings chart, see our guides to Straight, or test any matchup in the poker equity calculator.
Flush vs straight, worked example. The highest hand in poker.
Related hand match-ups
