What Beats What in Poker: Every Hand Ranked
New players ask this question more than any other: what beats what in poker? The answer never changes. Every five-card poker hand fits into one of ten categories, and those categories always rank in the same order. This page gives you the full ranking up front, then works through the comparisons people actually argue about at the table: flush vs straight, full house vs flush, trips vs two pair, kicker rules, and split pots.
The short answer: from strongest to weakest, the order is royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. A hand in any category beats every hand in the categories below it, no matter which cards make up each hand. A pair of twos loses to any two pair, and the weakest flush still beats the strongest straight.
This ranking applies to Texas Hold’em, Omaha, seven-card stud, five-card draw, and nearly every other standard form of poker. Lowball games and short deck (6+) Hold’em use modified rules, which we cover near the end. If you are brand new to the categories themselves, our beginner guide to poker hand rankings walks through each one slowly before you need to worry about tie-breaks.
Poker Hand Rankings From Strongest to Weakest
Here is the complete order of poker hand rankings, with a one-line definition of each hand. If you only memorize one thing from this page, make it this list.
- Royal flush: A, K, Q, J, 10, all in the same suit. The best hand in poker.
- Straight flush: five cards in sequence, all in the same suit, such as 8-7-6-5-4 of hearts.
- Four of a kind: four cards of the same rank, such as four queens.
- Full house: three of a kind plus a pair, such as three jacks and two fives.
- Flush: five cards of the same suit, not in sequence.
- Straight: five cards in sequence, not all the same suit.
- Three of a kind: three cards of the same rank.
- Two pair: two cards of one rank plus two cards of another rank.
- One pair: two cards of the same rank.
- High card: no pair or better. The hand is named after its highest card.
The table below shows the same information in a format you can scan in seconds. It lists each hand, what it beats, what beats it, and how ties inside the same category are settled.
| Rank | Hand | Example | Beats | Loses to | Tie-break rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal flush | A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠ | Everything | Nothing | Always a tie if somehow shared |
| 2 | Straight flush | 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ | Four of a kind and below | Higher straight flush, royal flush | Highest card in the sequence |
| 3 | Four of a kind | Q♣ Q♦ Q♥ Q♠ 4♦ | Full house and below | Straight flush, royal flush | Rank of the four, then the kicker |
| 4 | Full house | J♠ J♦ J♥ 5♣ 5♦ | Flush and below | Four of a kind and above | Rank of the trips, then the pair |
| 5 | Flush | A♦ J♦ 8♦ 6♦ 2♦ | Straight and below | Full house and above | Highest card, then the next, and so on |
| 6 | Straight | 8♣ 7♦ 6♠ 5♥ 4♣ | Three of a kind and below | Flush and above | Highest card in the sequence |
| 7 | Three of a kind | 10♠ 10♥ 10♦ K♣ 3♦ | Two pair and below | Straight and above | Rank of the trips, then kickers |
| 8 | Two pair | A♠ A♦ 8♥ 8♣ Q♦ | One pair, high card | Three of a kind and above | Higher pair, lower pair, then kicker |
| 9 | One pair | K♥ K♣ 9♦ 6♠ 2♥ | High card only | Two pair and above | Rank of the pair, then kickers |
| 10 | High card | A♣ J♦ 9♠ 5♥ 3♣ | Nothing | One pair and above | Highest card, then the next, and so on |
Notice that each category beats everything below it and loses to everything above it. The categories never overlap. A full house of 2-2-2-3-3 still beats the best possible flush, because full house sits one rung higher on the ladder.
What Beats What: Every Common Head-to-Head Comparison
Most searches for what beats what in poker are really one of these specific questions. Each answer below is final for standard high-hand poker.
Does a flush beat a straight?
Yes. A flush always beats a straight. Five cards of one suit are harder to make than five cards in sequence: in a five-card deal you will see a straight about twice as often as a flush. The rarer hand ranks higher, which is the logic behind the entire ladder.
Does a full house beat a flush?
Yes. A full house beats a flush every time. Three of a kind plus a pair is significantly rarer than five suited cards, so it sits one category higher. This is one of the most commonly confused comparisons because both hands feel strong, but the ranking is not close. If you want more worked examples, our breakdown of full house poker hands covers the rankings and edge cases in detail.
Does three of a kind beat two pair?
Yes. Three of a kind beats two pair. Two pair looks bigger because it uses four cards instead of three, but matching three cards of one rank is the rarer event. Trips appear in about 1 in 47 five-card deals, while two pair shows up in about 1 in 21.
Does a straight beat three of a kind?
Yes. A straight beats three of a kind. This one trips up beginners constantly, especially in Hold’em where trips feel like a monster hand. The math is clear: five-card deals produce three of a kind more than five times as often as they produce a straight.
Does two pair beat one pair?
Yes. Two pair beats one pair, and one pair beats any high-card hand. These are the two most common showdown hands in Hold’em, so this comparison decides more pots than any other on the list.
Does four of a kind beat a full house?
Yes. Four of a kind beats a full house. A full house is a strong hand that loses only to quads, a straight flush, or a royal flush. If you lose with a full house to four of a kind, you were beaten by a hand that appears roughly six times less often.
Does a straight flush beat four of a kind?
Yes. A straight flush beats four of a kind, and a royal flush beats a lower straight flush. In Hold’em, two players cannot hold royal flushes at once in the same pot because the board only has five community cards, but a straight flush vs quads collision does happen, and the straight flush wins.
Tie-Break Rules: When Both Players Have the Same Category
Category only settles the first question. When two showdown hands share a category, poker uses a fixed tie-break procedure, and this is where most casual players get lost. The general principle: compare the cards that define the hand first, then compare the remaining cards (the kickers) from highest to lowest.
- Pair vs pair: the higher pair wins. If the pairs are equal, compare the three kickers one at a time from the top.
- Two pair vs two pair: compare the higher pair first, then the lower pair, then the fifth card. Aces and twos beats kings and queens because the top pair is compared first.
- Trips vs trips: the higher set wins. If the trips match (possible in Hold’em when the board is paired), the two kickers decide it.
- Straight vs straight: the straight with the higher top card wins. A queen-high straight beats a jack-high straight. Note that A-2-3-4-5 is a five-high straight, the lowest straight possible, even though it contains an ace.
- Flush vs flush: compare the highest card in each flush, then the second highest, and so on down all five cards. An ace-high flush beats a king-high flush. Suits are never compared.
- Full house vs full house: compare the three-of-a-kind part first. Tens full of deuces beats nines full of aces, because only the trips matter first. The pair is compared only if the trips are equal.
- Quads vs quads: the higher four of a kind wins. If the quads are on the board and shared, the fifth-card kicker decides the pot.
- High card vs high card: compare all five cards from the top down, exactly like a flush tie-break.
In Hold’em, always build the best five-card hand from the seven available cards (your two hole cards plus the five community cards). A player does not have to use both hole cards. One, both, or neither can play, whichever produces the strongest five-card combination.
Kicker Rules Explained
A kicker is any card in your five-card hand that is not part of the main combination. Kickers only matter when two players tie on the main part of the hand.
Take a Hold’em example. You hold A♠ 9♦, your opponent holds A♥ 8♣, and the board runs out A♦ K♣ 5♥ 3♠ 2♦. Both players have a pair of aces. Your five-card hand is A-A-K-9-5; theirs is A-A-K-8-5. The pair ties, the first kicker (the king, which is on the board) ties, and the second kicker decides it: your nine beats their eight.
Kickers matter in one pair, two pair, three of a kind, four of a kind, and high-card hands. They never matter in straights, flushes, or full houses, because those hands use all five cards to define themselves. There is no kicker in a flush; the lower cards simply act as built-in tie-breakers.
Split Pots and When the Board Plays
If two players produce exactly the same five-card hand, the pot is split evenly between them. There is no sixth-card tie-break and no suit comparison. If the pot does not divide evenly, the odd chip usually goes to the player closest to the left of the button, though house rules vary.
The most common split pot scenario: the board itself forms the best possible hand. Say the community cards are 10♠ J♠ Q♠ K♠ A♠, a royal flush on the board. Every player still in the hand plays the board, everyone ties, and the pot is split. The same thing happens with more ordinary runouts, such as a board showing a straight where neither hole card improves it.
Split pots are also frequent with one pair on a dry board. If both players have ace-high paired with the board and identical kickers from the community cards, neither hole card plays and they chop.
Do Suits Matter in Poker?
No. In standard poker, all four suits are equal. A spade flush is not better than a heart flush, and an ace of spades does not outrank an ace of clubs. When two hands are identical in rank, the pot is split rather than awarded by suit. The only place suits appear in the rules at all is in tournament procedures for things like breaking ties for chip races or determining the bring-in in stud, never for deciding who wins a pot.
Why the Hands Rank in This Order
The ranking ladder is not arbitrary. Each hand outranks the ones below it because it is mathematically rarer. The table below shows the probability of being dealt each hand in a five-card deal from a standard 52-card deck, out of 2,598,960 possible combinations.
| Hand | Combinations | Probability | Roughly 1 in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 4 | 0.000154% | 649,740 |
| Straight flush | 36 | 0.00139% | 72,193 |
| Four of a kind | 624 | 0.0240% | 4,165 |
| Full house | 3,744 | 0.144% | 694 |
| Flush | 5,108 | 0.197% | 509 |
| Straight | 10,200 | 0.392% | 255 |
| Three of a kind | 54,912 | 2.11% | 47 |
| Two pair | 123,552 | 4.75% | 21 |
| One pair | 1,098,240 | 42.3% | 2.4 |
| High card | 1,302,540 | 50.1% | 2 |
Hold’em changes the raw frequencies because you make your hand from seven cards instead of five, but the ranking order stays identical. A few useful reference points: you will be dealt a pocket pair about once every 17 hands (5.9%), and a pocket pair flops three of a kind or better about 11.8% of the time. Community cards also make strong hands more common overall, which is why a flush in Hold’em wins far less often than its rarity in five-card draw might suggest. For more of this math, see our guide to poker hand probabilities.
Does This Ranking Apply to Every Poker Variant?
Almost. Texas Hold’em, Omaha, seven-card stud, and five-card draw all use the standard order above. Omaha adds one wrinkle: you must use exactly two of your four hole cards and exactly three community cards, so you cannot play the board or use only one hole card. That rule creates mistakes where players think they have a flush or straight that they do not actually have.
Two exceptions are worth knowing. Short deck (6+) Hold’em removes the twos through fives from the deck, and most rule sets rank a flush above a full house because flushes become harder to make with only nine cards per suit. Lowball games such as 2-7 triple draw flip the ladder entirely: the goal is to make the worst hand, so a pair loses to high card and the nut low is the best hand. Unless a game explicitly says otherwise, assume the standard rankings on this page apply.
FAQ
What beats a full house in poker?
Three hands beat a full house: four of a kind, a straight flush, and a royal flush. A higher full house also beats a lower one, decided by the rank of the three-of-a-kind part first, then the pair. Everything else, including any flush or straight, loses to a full house.
What happens if two players have the exact same hand?
The pot is split evenly. Poker hands are always exactly five cards, so if both players’ best five cards are identical in rank, neither wins and they chop. Suits never break a tie, and there is no sixth-card tie-break.
Does a flush beat a straight?
Yes, always. A flush ranks one category above a straight because it is roughly twice as hard to make. The only exceptions are rule-modified variants such as some short deck games, and even there a flush still beats a straight.
What is the best possible hand in poker?
The royal flush: A, K, Q, J, 10 of the same suit. It is simply the highest possible straight flush, and it cannot be beaten. If two players somehow both have one (only possible with shared community cards), they split the pot.
Does an ace count as high or low in a straight?
Both, but never at the same time. An ace can sit above the king (A-K-Q-J-10, the highest straight) or below the two (A-2-3-4-5, the lowest straight, known as a wheel). It cannot wrap around: Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight.
