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Poker Terms
Poker What Beats What - Hand and Card Rankings
To help you learn in poker what beats what here is the full list of hand rankings for Texas Hold’em poker.You can either choose to memorise the rankings list below or add this page to your favourites. That way you can use it as a reference guide while you play online until you know it off by heart.
A = Ace K = King Q = Queen J = Jack 10 or T = Ten
Royal Flush: Ace to Ten all of the same suit eg A K Q J 10
Straight Flush: 5 cards in a row suited eg 7 8 9 10 J
4 of a Kind: 4 cards of one ranking eg 8 8 8 8 A
Full House: Three of a kind plus one pair eg 4 4 4 J J
Flush: Five cards suited eg Q 10 8 4 2
Straight: Five cards in order eg A 2 3 4 5
3 of a Kind: Three cards of one ranking eg 2 2 2 A Q
2 Pair: 2 cards of one ranking and 2 cards of another ranking eg 10 10 K K Q
1 Pair: 2 cards of one ranking eg 2 2 4 K Q
High Card: Failed to make 1 pair or better eg K 10 8 5 4 This example makes King high as the highest ranking card of the five is a King.
Suits: Clubs, Spades, Diamonds, or Hearts Suited means multiple cards of the same suit.
Card ranking high to low: A K Q J T 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Pairs best to worst: Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks, Tens, Nines, Eights, Sevens, Sixes, Fives, Fours, Threes, twos.
For example a pair of aces beat kings and all other pairs, and jacks beat eights etc.
Straights and flushes high to low: Ace high, King high, Queen high, Jack high, Ten high, Nine high, Eight high, Seven high, Six high, Five high.
For example a Queen high straight beats a Ten high straight etc. The lowest possible flush is a Six high flush and the lowest straight is Five high, a five high straight is called the wheel and is possible as an Ace can also act like a one in poker when it comes to straights.
A key skill in poker is being able to read the board in combination with the poker hands order described here and the other players actions to work out what your opponent is likely holding. By putting your opponent on a hand or range of hands you can then firstly work out if you have the best hand or not and secondly decide the best play to make against them. Many players in poker make bets without first considering what they actually want to achieve with it. Do you think you have the best hand and you want your opponent to call? If so how strong do you think their hand is, quite strong and they will call a lot or weak so they will only call a small amount. These are the kinds of things the best poker players are thinking about during a hand and the better the players, the deeper it gets.