Poker Hand Rankings: What Beats What in Texas Hold 'em

Every hand of Texas Hold ’em ends the same way: whoever makes the best five-card hand wins the pot. You build that hand from your two hole cards plus the five community cards – any combination, and you never have to use both of your own cards. Knowing the ranking order cold is the first thing every poker player learns, because you cannot decide whether to bet or fold until you know what you are holding and what could beat it.

Here is the full ladder of poker hand rankings, from the strongest hand in the game down to the weakest.

Poker hand rankings, strongest to weakest

1. Royal flush

Ten, jack, queen, king and ace, all of the same suit. It is simply the highest possible straight flush – the best hand in poker and unbeatable.

2. Straight flush

Five cards in sequence, all the same suit.

3. Four of a kind

All four cards of one rank, often called “quads.”

4. Full house

Three of one rank plus a pair of another – spoken as “jacks full of eights.”

5. Flush

Any five cards of a single suit, ranked by the highest card. The sequence does not matter.

6. Straight

Five cards in a row of mixed suits.

7. Three of a kind

Three cards of one rank. Called “trips” when two come from the board, or “a set” when you hold a pocket pair that hits.

8. Two pair

Two cards of one rank and two of another, ranked by the higher pair.

9. One pair

Two cards of the same rank. Unglamorous, but the hand most real showdowns are actually won with.

10. High card

No pair at all; your hand is simply your highest card.

How ties are broken

When two players make the same category of hand, the higher cards decide it. A king-high flush beats a ten-high flush. A pair of aces with a king kicker (the highest unpaired side card) beats a pair of aces with a queen kicker. If both hands are identical rank for rank across all five cards, the pot is split. The whole system rests on one idea: the rarer a hand is to make, the higher it ranks.

Reading the board: your best five of seven

In Hold ’em your hand is always the best five cards out of the seven available (your two plus the five community cards). That has two consequences beginners miss. First, sometimes the board itself outranks part of your hand. Say you hold A♠9♣ on a board of A♦9♥K♦K♣2♠. You do not have aces and nines – the board’s pair of kings outranks your nines, so your best five cards are A-A-K-K-9: two pair, aces and kings.

Second, when the board makes a strong hand all by itself – five to a flush, for instance – everyone can use it. On the board below, every player has a flush, and the winner is whoever holds the highest additional heart (or splits, “playing the board,” if nobody can beat it).

The discipline that prevents most misreads is simple: at showdown, lay out all seven cards, pick the best five, and say the hand out loud – “two pair, aces and kings, nine kicker.” Naming it forces you to check the board against your own cards.

Learn the rankings by using them

Memorizing the list is step one; the goal is reading a board instantly under pressure. Inside Poker School you drill exactly that – graded scenarios that ask “what do you have, and what beats you?” – and the free Poker IQ Test gives you five real decisions in two minutes. From here, the natural next step is how to play Texas Hold ’em – the rules, the betting rounds, and how a hand actually unfolds.