Poker Hand Rankings: Royal Flush to High Card, With the Odds

Published: October 27, 2026

Poker hand rankings arrange every five-card hand on a single ladder of nine kinds, and learning the order lets you name any hand and say which of two is stronger. The straight flush sits at the top and the royal flush is its best form, while a full house, a flush and a straight come in the middle and high card holds the bottom rung. A higher kind always beats a lower one regardless of the cards involved, and suits never decide a contest. On this page you will find a sample of each kind with its odds, a four-step routine for naming a hand, the ways an ace can serve in a straight and a look at what seven cards do to the odds. Five face-offs let you test your reading.

Key Takeaways: Poker Hand Rankings and Odds

Hand Hierarchy: Hands rank strictly by rarity, where higher categories always beat lower ones regardless of rank, and card suits never break ties.
Straight Rules: Aces play high in broadway or low in the five-high wheel (5-4-3-2-A), but card sequences cannot wrap around the ace.
Tie-Breaking: Equal hand types are resolved by comparing matching ranks first and then kickers in descending order, sharing pots if tied.
Seven-Card Dynamics: Extra cards make straights and flushes far more frequent than in five-card deals, though the hierarchy order remains unchanged.

The Ladder, Strongest First

Each hand in the table below beats every hand listed under it. A row shows how many of the 2,598,960 five-card hands in a 52-card deck belong to it, followed by the matching probability and a one-in figure.

Hand	Sample cards	Deals that make it	Probability	Frequency
Royal flush	As Ks Qs Js Ts	4	0.000154%	1 in 649,740
Straight flush	8h 7h 6h 5h 4h	36	0.00139%	1 in 72,193
Four of a kind	9c 9d 9h 9s Kd	624	0.0240%	1 in 4,165
Full house	Jh Js Jd 4c 4s	3,744	0.144%	1 in 694
Flush	Kc Tc 8c 5c 3c	5,108	0.197%	1 in 509
Straight	Td 9c 8h 7s 6d	10,200	0.392%	1 in 255
Three of a kind	5c 5d 5h Qs 8d	54,912	2.11%	1 in 47.3
Two pair	8c 8d 3h 3s Kc	123,552	4.75%	1 in 21.0
One pair	Qh Qd 9c 6s 2d	1,098,240	42.26%	1 in 2.37
High card	Kh 9d 7c 4s 2h	1,302,540	50.12%	1 in 2.00

Scarcity explains the order. High card turns up in 50.12% of deals and one pair in 42.26%, while every higher kind is much rarer. Hands from three of a kind upward occur in only 2.87% of deals, and from a straight upward in 0.759%.

The Royal Flush Is Not a Separate Rung

A royal flush is a straight flush topped by an ace: T-J-Q-K-A in one suit. Charts list it on its own line simply because its odds are so much longer. The deck contains 40 straight flushes. Exactly 4 of them are royal, one per suit, and the other 36 are lower, so a straight flush of either type shows up about 1 in 64,974.

Straight flushes are ranked by their top card: nine-high above six-high, and the royal above all of them.

Naming a Hand in Four Steps

Five cards are few enough for a short routine, and no chart is needed.

Tally the ranks. Four matching ranks make four of a kind, and a triple together with a pair makes a full house.
Without those, look for repeats: three alike is three of a kind, two different pairs make two pair and a lone pair is one pair.
When nothing repeats, check suits and sequence. A single suit gives a flush, five ranks in order give a straight and a hand with both is a straight flush.
A hand that fits none of these is high card, named after its top card.

Try 6h 6d 6s Qc Qd: three sixes and two queens, so a full house, sixes full of queens. Next, Jc 9c 7c 4c 3c repeats no rank and has a single suit, so a flush, jack-high. Last, 8s 7d 6h 5c 4d is five consecutive ranks in mixed suits, which is a straight, eight-high.

The Ace at Both Ends

An ace may start or finish a straight, but a straight cannot wrap past it. T-J-Q-K-A is the highest. The lowest is A-2-3-4-5, the wheel, which counts as five-high, so even 2-3-4-5-6 beats it. A hand like K-A-2-3-4 is not a straight at all.

Straight	Cards in order	Order
Ace-high	T-J-Q-K-A	1st
King-high	9-T-J-Q-K	2nd
Queen-high through six-high	Seven further runs, each a rank lower	3rd to 9th
Five-high, the wheel	A-2-3-4-5	Lowest
Wrapped sequences	K-A-2-3-4 or Q-K-A-2-3	Invalid

Breaking a Tie Between Two Equal Kinds

When both hands are of one kind, compare the cards inside them from the most important group downward. Suits are not consulted.

Kind	First comparison	Second comparison
Straight flush, straight	The top card of the run	Nothing further
Four of a kind	The rank held four times	The fifth card
Full house	The rank of the triple	The rank of the pair
Flush, high card	The best card	Each lower card in turn
Three of a kind	The rank of the triple	Both side cards, high first
Two pair	The higher pair	The lower pair, then the fifth card
One pair	The rank of the pair	All three side cards, high first

When every comparison is level, the hands are equal and the pot is shared. The kicker rules guide covers these side cards in more depth.

What Changes With Seven Cards

With seven cards, as in Texas Hold’em and Seven Card Stud, a player takes the best five, and the number of possible deals is 133,784,560. More cards make strong hands easier to build: a flush appears 3.03% of the time with seven cards compared with 0.197% with five, and a straight appears 4.62% against 0.392%.

The extra cards also rearrange the bottom of the table. Among seven cards, one pair (43.82%) and two pair (23.50%) both occur more often than high card (17.41%), yet high card is still the weakest kind. The order never changes, whereas rarity follows the odds only in five-card deals. The Texas Hold’em hands guide explains how the best five is picked.

Exercises: Five Face-Offs

Each face-off shows two five-card hands. Name both kinds, decide which is stronger and then open the answer.

❓ Practice: Which Hand Wins?

Maya holds 9h 8h 7h 6h 5h and Jean holds Ac Ad Ah As Kd. Which hand wins?

Maya has a straight flush, nine-high. Jean has four of a kind, aces. Four aces look hard to top, but a straight flush is one rung higher, and the ranks inside the lower kind never come into it. Maya wins.

Maya holds 5s 5d 5c Kh 2d and Jean holds Ac Ad 9s 9h Jd. Which hand wins?

Maya has three of a kind, fives. Jean has two pair, aces and nines. Aces and nines are high cards, but two pair is below three of a kind, and no comparison of ranks is needed. Maya wins.

Maya holds Ac 2d 3h 4s 5c and Jean holds 2h 3d 4c 5s 6h. Which hand wins?

Maya has a straight, five-high, the wheel, where the ace counts low and the five is the top card. Jean has a straight, six-high. Both hands are straights, and the six-high straight is higher. Jean wins.

Maya holds Th Td Ac 7s 4d and Jean holds Ts Tc Ah 7h 3s. Which hand wins?

Maya has a pair of tens, and so does Jean, with a pair of tens each. The ace and the seven match, so the comparison reaches the last card, where Maya’s four is higher than Jean’s three. Maya wins.

Maya holds Ks Qs 9s 6s 3s and Jean holds Kh Qh 9h 6h 3h. Which hand wins?

Each player has a flush, king-high in a different suit, and the ranks match all the way down. Suits are not ranked against each other, so nothing separates the hands. Maya and Jean split the pot.

More Guides in the Series

Part of the online poker series, this page begins a four-stage route through reading hands in the common games. The pages nearest to the rankings are:

Poker cards and suits: the deck, and the short codes written for each card.
Poker kicker rules: how side cards separate hands of one kind.
Texas Hold’em hands: picking five cards from seven.
Poker showdown rules: the order of showing, and tied pots.
Razz poker rules: the game that flips the ladder over.
Three Card Poker rules: a dealer game with its own ladder.

Limits Before the First Deal

A chart of rankings tells you how a hand is judged and nothing about what will be dealt. However you play, set a spending limit and a time to stop before the first hand, and keep to both. If gambling is no longer fun, ConnexOntario offers free help at 1-866-531-2600 in Ontario, and our responsible gambling page covers more tools and support services.

❓ Poker Hand Rankings Questions: Frequently Asked Questions

Where does a flush sit relative to a straight?

Above it. The ladder follows how scarce each hand is among five cards, and a flush turns up about 1 in 509 while a straight turns up about 1 in 255. Two flushes are compared from the top card down, and two straights are compared by their highest card. A flush is stronger than a straight.

Is a royal flush a different kind of hand?

Not really. It is the straight flush whose top card is the ace, so it sits on the same rung as every other straight flush and wins any comparison with them. The deck holds 40 straight flushes, and 4 of those are royal. A royal flush is the best straight flush.

Is one suit ever better than another at a showdown?

No. Clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades are worth the same in the standard rankings, so two hands with matching ranks are equal even when the suits differ. A suit order may be used for other jobs, such as awarding an odd chip in some rooms, but it never lifts one hand above another. Suits never decide a winner.

Why is A-2-3-4-5 a special straight?

It is the lowest straight, called the wheel, because the ace counts as the bottom card and the five is the top one. Any run that reaches the six beats it. Because an ace cannot sit at both ends at once, K-A-2-3-4 does not qualify. The wheel is the lowest of all straights.

Author:

Lucas Portela

Owner, BoldGambler • Avanhandava/SP

Oddsmaker, affiliate and content creator in the iGaming industry.

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