Full House in Poker: Rules, Rankings, Odds and Examples

The full house is the big hand you’ll actually see. Four of a kind and straight flushes are rare enough to remember individually, but a Hold’em player who sees the river makes a full house about once every 38.5 hands, and it wins a huge share of the biggest pots. It’s also where many of the most expensive mistakes happen: players misjudge which full house they have, forget that the three of a kind decides the comparison, and pay off opponents with a bigger full house on a paired board.

This guide covers the full house from definition to showdown. It explains how full houses rank and how two of them are compared, what counts when you have seven cards to choose from, and the exact odds: in five cards, by each street in Texas Hold’em, for pocket pairs and other starting hands, at tables of every size, and in Omaha, Short Deck, Seven Card Stud, draw poker and video poker. After that come the three ways full houses are made in Hold’em, board trips and board full houses, the “top full house” against the underfull, drawing to a full house, worked examples, how to play the hand, showdown rules, common mistakes, a quiz and a quick-reference summary.

Every probability here was calculated by the TopSitesPoker.com editorial team, either exactly, by counting every possible combination of cards, or by large simulations where exact counting isn’t practical. The only exceptions are the video poker frequency and returns, which come from the Wizard of Odds. Each example was checked with a hand evaluator.

What Is a Full House?

A full house is a five-card hand made of three cards of one rank and two cards of another: a three of a kind and a pair together. Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ 5♣ 5♦ is a full house. It’s named by the three of a kind first, then the pair, joined by “full of”: that hand is “queens full of fives.” Players also call a full house a “full boat” or simply a “boat.”

There are 13 ranks for the three of a kind and 12 remaining ranks for the pair, so there are 13 × 12 = 156 different full houses by rank. Each can be made from 4 × 6 = 24 combinations of suits, giving 3,744 full-house hands among the 2,598,960 possible five-card hands.

Rank among the 156 full houses	Full house	Example
1 (the best)	Aces full of kings	A♠ A♥ A♦ K♣ K♥
2	Aces full of queens	A♠ A♥ A♣ Q♦ Q♠
12	Aces full of deuces	A♥ A♦ A♣ 2♠ 2♥
13	Kings full of aces	K♠ K♥ K♦ A♣ A♥
14	Kings full of queens	K♠ K♦ K♣ Q♥ Q♣
145	Deuces full of aces	2♠ 2♥ 2♦ A♣ A♠
156 (the worst)	Deuces full of threes	2♠ 2♥ 2♣ 3♦ 3♥

The table shows the rule that decides everything about full houses: the three of a kind outranks the pair. Aces full of deuces, the weakest aces full, still beats kings full of aces, the strongest kings full. Deuces full of aces, with a pair of aces in it, is one of the weakest full houses there is.

 

Three of a kind plus a pair; the three of a kind names the hand.

Why it’s called a full house

The usual explanation for the name is that the hand is “full”: every one of its five cards counts, three of one rank and two of another, with nothing left over. There’s no kicker and no idle card. “Boat” and “full boat” are simply table nicknames. When players announce the hand, the three of a kind always comes first: “nines full of fours,” never “fours full of nines,” which would be a different, weaker hand.

Where the Full House Ranks

A full house is the fourth-best hand in standard poker. The full order is royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card. Here’s how it compares with its neighbors:

Hand	Five-card hands	About once in	Seven-card hands (best five)	About once in
Straight flush (including royal)	40	64,974	41,584	3,217
Four of a kind	624	4,165	224,848	595
Full house	3,744	694	3,473,184	38.5
Flush	5,108	509	4,047,644	33.1
Straight	10,200	255	6,180,020	21.6
Three of a kind	54,912	47.3	6,461,620	20.7

Exact over all 2,598,960 five-card hands and all 133,784,560 seven-card hands. Seven-card counts are by the best five-card hand. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

The full house sits between two much more common hands and one much rarer one. In five cards, a flush is about 1.4 times as common as a full house and four of a kind is six times rarer. With seven cards the flush’s lead shrinks to about 1.2 times, but a full house is still the rarer hand, which is why it ranks higher.

Two facts about seven-card hands are worth knowing. First, a full house and a flush can never appear in the same seven cards. The full house’s five cards cover only two ranks, so at most two of them can share a suit with a flush, and a flush needs five cards of one suit; together they would need at least eight cards. The same argument rules out a full house alongside a straight flush. Second, whenever your seven cards contain a full house and no four of a kind, the full house is your best hand.

What a full house beats, and what beats it

• It beats a flush, a straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card, every time.
• It loses to four of a kind, a straight flush, a royal flush and a higher full house.
• It ties only with a full house of exactly the same ranks, which in Hold’em usually means both players are using the same board cards.

Full House Rules: What Counts

A hand is a full house if the five cards that make up your hand are three of one rank and two of another. With seven cards to choose from, three extra rules decide which full house you hold:

1. Two three of a kinds make a full house. Use the higher three as the three of a kind and two of the lower three as the pair. K-K-K-7-7-7-2 is kings full of sevens.
2. Three of a kind plus two pairs: use the higher pair. 9-9-9-K-K-4-4 is nines full of kings, not nines full of fours.
3. Only cards you’re allowed to use count. In Hold’em, any mix of hole cards and board cards counts, including a full house that’s entirely on the board. In Omaha, you must use exactly two hole cards and three board cards.

Cards speak at showdown, so a full house wins even if you announce it as three of a kind, as long as you show your cards. Deliberately miscalling a hand can still be penalized.

Is it a full house? Thirteen hands that look close

Cards	Full house?	What it actually is
K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥	Yes	Kings full of sevens
K♠ K♥ 7♦ 7♣ 2♥	No	Two pair, kings and sevens
K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 2♥	No	Three kings
Seven cards: K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥ 7♦ 2♠	Yes	Kings full of sevens; two three of a kinds make one full house
Seven cards: 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ K♥ 4♠ 4♦	Yes	Nines full of kings; the higher pair plays
Hold’em: 7♠ 7♥ in hand, 7♦ K♣ K♥ 2♠ 5♦ on the board	Yes	Sevens full of kings, using a pocket pair
Hold’em: A♠ K♦ in hand, A♥ A♦ K♣ 7♠ 2♥ on the board	Yes	Aces full of kings, using both unpaired hole cards
Hold’em: K♠ Q♦ in hand, 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦ on the board	Yes	Nines full of kings, using one hole card
Hold’em: 3♣ 2♦ in hand, K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥ on the board	Yes	Kings full of sevens; the board plays for you
Hold’em: 4♠ 4♥ in hand, K♦ K♣ 4♣ 9♠ 2♥ on the board	Yes, but a weak one	Fours full of kings, not kings full of fours: your three of a kind is the fours
Omaha: K♦ A♠ 5♣ 2♥ in hand, 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦ on the board	No	Three nines: with one king in hand, you can’t pair the board’s king using exactly two hole cards
Omaha: K♦ K♥ 5♣ 2♥ in hand, 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦ on the board	Yes	Kings full of nines: your two kings with the board’s king and two nines
Short Deck: 8♠ 8♥ 8♦ J♣ J♥ against A♠ Q♠ 9♠ 7♠ 6♠	Yes, but it loses	Under most Short Deck rules, a flush beats a full house

Each hand was checked with a hand evaluator by TopSitesPoker.com; Omaha hands were evaluated with exactly two hole cards and three board cards.

Comparing Two Full Houses

When two players both have a full house, the comparison takes at most two steps:

1. Compare the three of a kind. The higher three wins, whatever the pairs. Aces full of deuces beats kings full of aces.
2. If the threes are the same rank, compare the pair. This happens when the three of a kind is shared, which in Hold’em means it’s on the board. If the pairs are the same rank too, the pot is split.

Situation	Example	Result
Different threes	A♠ A♥ A♦ 2♣ 2♥ vs K♠ K♥ K♦ Q♣ Q♥	Aces full of deuces wins
Hold’em, three of a kind on the board	Board 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦; A♠ A♥ vs K♠ 2♣	Nines full of aces beats nines full of kings
Hold’em, two pair on the board	Board 7♠ 7♥ K♣ K♦ 2♠; K♠ 2♦ vs 7♦ 2♥	Kings full of sevens beats sevens full of kings
Hold’em, full house on the board, nobody improves	Board K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥; 3♣ 2♦ vs Q♠ J♦	Split pot: both play kings full of sevens
Hold’em, full house on the board, one player improves	Board K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥; A♠ A♥ vs 3♣ 2♦	Kings full of aces wins

Each comparison was checked with a hand evaluator by TopSitesPoker.com.

 

Full houses have no kickers, and suits never break a tie.

No kickers, no suits

A full house uses all five cards, so there’s never a kicker. In Hold’em, the two cards you don’t use can’t break a tie, and neither can the suits. The third row of the table is a common source of arguments: on a board with two pairs, a player who matches the higher pair makes the higher full house, even though both players “have kings and sevens.”

Full House Odds

A full house is rare in five cards and common in seven. Here are the exact odds for the situations players ask about most:

Situation	Full-house hands	Probability	About once in
Dealt five cards (Five Card Draw before the draw)	3,744 of 2,598,960	0.144%	694 hands
Texas Hold’em, by the flop	3,744 of 2,598,960	0.144%	694 hands
Texas Hold’em, by the turn (6 cards)	165,984 of 20,358,520	0.815%	123 hands
Texas Hold’em, by the river (7 cards)	3,473,184 of 133,784,560	2.60%	38.5 hands
Seven Card Stud (7 cards)	3,473,184 of 133,784,560	2.60%	38.5 hands
Omaha, by the river (4 hole cards, exactly 2 used)	Simulated	6.35%	15.8 hands
Short Deck, five cards (36-card deck)	1,728 of 376,992	0.458%	218 hands
Short Deck Hold’em, by the river	633,024 of 8,347,680	7.58%	13.2 hands
9/6 Jacks or Better video poker, optimal strategy	Sourced figure	1.15%	about 87 hands

Exact counts by TopSitesPoker.com, except Omaha (a TopSitesPoker.com simulation of 200,000,000 hands, counting hands whose best hand is a full house) and video poker (the published figure for full-pay 9/6 Jacks or Better with optimal strategy, from the Wizard of Odds). All figures count hands whose best hand is a full house; Hold’em, Stud and Omaha figures assume the hand is played to the end.

 

Seven cards make a full house about 18 times as common as five. Log scale.

Why seven cards make such a difference

In five cards, a full house needs every card to fit: three of one rank and two of another. With seven cards, there are many more ways in: a three of a kind with any pair among the other four cards, two three of a kinds, or three of a kind with two pairs. That’s why a Hold’em player who sees the river makes a full house about 18 times as often as a player dealt five cards.

Omaha’s four hole cards push it further still, and Short Deck, with only nine ranks, turns the full house into an everyday hand: a Short Deck Hold’em player who sees the river has one about once in 13 hands. That’s also why most Short Deck rules rank a flush above a full house. With so few cards in each suit, flushes become the rarer hand: 1 in 785 five-card hands against 1 in 218 for a full house.

Street by street in Hold’em

Counting every starting hand and every board, a player who sees every card makes a full house about once in 694 hands by the flop, once in 123 by the turn and once in 38.5 by the river. So of all the full houses a player holds on the river, about 5.3% were already complete on the flop and 31% by the turn; the other 69% were completed by the river card.

The most and least common full houses

In five cards, all 156 full houses are equally likely: 24 hands each. With seven cards, the higher ones come up slightly more often, because when a hand has two three of a kinds, or three of a kind with two pairs, the higher ranks are the ones that play. Aces full of kings is the most common seven-card full house, the best hand in 23,408 seven-card hands, and deuces full of threes the least common, in 21,120. The difference is only about 11%, so in practice every full house is about equally likely.

Full House Odds by Starting Hand

For a full house, the only thing about your Hold’em starting hand that matters is whether it’s a pocket pair. Suits don’t matter, and neither do ranks: pocket aces fill up exactly as often as pocket deuces, and A-K exactly as often as 7-2. We counted every starting hand against every possible board:

Your starting hand	Share of starting hands	Full house by the flop	By the turn	By the river	Share of all full houses
Pocket pair	5.9% (78 combinations)	1 in 102 (0.98%)	1 in 27 (3.71%)	1 in 11.7 (8.55%)	19.4%
Any other hand	94.1% (1,248)	1 in 1,089 (0.092%)	1 in 158 (0.63%)	1 in 45 (2.22%)	80.6%
All hands	100% (1,326)	1 in 694	1 in 123	1 in 38.5	100%

Exact counts over every flop, turn and river for every starting hand, counting hands whose best hand is a full house (four of a kind is counted separately). Includes full houses that are on the board by themselves. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

 

The chance of holding a full house on each street, seeing every card.

A pocket pair already has two cards of its three of a kind, or both cards of its pair, before the flop, so it fills up almost four times as often as other hands by the river, and more than ten times as often on the flop itself. Pocket pairs are only 5.9% of starting hands but make 19.4% of all Hold’em full houses.

The other 80.6% come from unpaired hands, simply because there are 16 times as many of them. A-K becomes a full house on boards like A-A-K, A-K-K or A-A-x-K-x, and any unpaired hand can fill up whenever its cards and the board together make three of one rank and two of another, including boards where you use just one hole card, or none.

A pocket pair’s road to a full house

Many of a pocket pair’s full houses start with a set on the flop. Here’s how the chances develop for any pocket pair, say 7♠ 7♥:

Stage	Chance	About once in
Flop a full house	0.98%	102 flops
Flop exactly one more seven (a set, or a full house on a paired flop)	11.5%	8.7 flops
From a set on an unpaired flop, a full house or better by the river	33.4%	3.0 hands
From a set on the turn, a full house or better on the river	21.7%	4.6 hands
Miss the flop entirely, but still fill up by the river	2.6%	39 hands
Full house by the river, all routes	8.55%	11.7 hands

Exact. “Miss the flop” is 7♠ 7♥ on A♦ K♣ 2♠. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

The flop does most of the work. A set turns into a full house or better one time in three, while a pocket pair that misses the flop fills up only about once in 39 hands by the river, which usually isn’t worth paying for.

How Hold’em Full Houses Are Made

A Hold’em full house can use both of your hole cards, one of them, or none. Counting every combination of two hole cards and five board cards, and the fewest hole cards each full house needs:

How the full house is made	Examples	Share of all Hold’em full houses
Both hole cards, a pocket pair	7♠ 7♥ on 7♦ K♣ K♥; K♠ K♦ on 9♠ 9♥ 9♦	19.0%
Both hole cards, unpaired	A♠ K♦ on A♥ A♦ K♣	28.1%
One hole card	K♠ Q♦ on 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣; K♠ 2♦ on 7♠ 7♥ K♣ K♦	48.0%
No hole cards: the board is a full house	Any hand on K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥	4.9%

Exact over all 2,809,475,760 combinations of two hole cards and five board cards; 72,936,864 of them have a full house as the best hand. Each full house is counted by the fewest hole cards it needs, so the pocket-pair row (19.0%) is a little below the 19.4% of all full houses held by pocket pairs in the starting-hand table: the difference is pocket-pair hands whose full house needs only one hole card, or none. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

 

Only about one Hold’em full house in 20 is entirely on the board.

Almost half of all full houses need just one hole card, and fewer than one in 20 is made entirely on the board. The routes matter because they decide who else at the table can have a full house:

• With both hole cards, your full house is usually hidden. The board often shows only a pair, so opponents tend to underestimate your hand. But a pair on the board can also give an opponent a bigger full house, as the section on the underfull shows.
• With one hole card, the board already shows trips or two pair. Many opponents have something, and anyone else who pairs a board card, or holds a pocket pair, may have a full house too. The pair, or the three of a kind, you make with your card decides whose is bigger.
• With no hole cards, everyone has at least the board’s full house, and the pot goes to anyone who can improve it. The next section covers who can.

Board Trips and Board Full Houses

Three of a kind on the board: the pair decides

When the board shows three of a kind, every player has at least trips, and anyone who can add a pair has a full house. Since the three of a kind is shared, the pair decides who wins, unless someone holds the fourth card for four of a kind. Here’s how different holdings fare on one such board, counted against every hand an opponent could hold:

Your hand on 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦	What you have	Opponent hands that beat you (of 990)	Hands that tie
9♣ 2♠	Four nines	0	0
A♠ A♥	Nines full of aces	47: the 9♣ (44 hands) and pocket kings (3)	1
K♠ 2♣	Nines full of kings	51: the 9♣, pocket aces and K♥ K♦	84
Q♠ Q♥	Nines full of queens	176	1
4♠ 3♣	Nines full of fours	218	79
A♦ 3♣	Three nines with an ace kicker	341	105

Exact counts over every possible opponent holding, with a hand evaluator by TopSitesPoker.com.

Three things stand out. Pocket kings beat pocket aces here, because K-K plus the board’s king makes kings full of nines, a bigger three of a kind. A player who pairs the board’s king ties with everyone else who does, 84 hands, so pots on these boards are often split. And the plain trips at the bottom lose to about a third of all hands, because on a board with three of a kind, a full house is common.

A full house on the board

When all five board cards form a full house, every player has it, and the pot is split unless someone can improve it: with the last card of the three of a kind’s rank, or both remaining cards of the pair’s rank (either makes four of a kind), with a pocket pair higher than the board’s pair, or, when the board’s pair is higher than its three of a kind, with one card of the pair’s rank, which makes a bigger three of a kind. How often that happens depends on how high the board is:

Board	Hands that improve it (of 1,081)	Heads-up: split pot
A♠ A♥ A♦ K♣ K♥ (aces full of kings)	47 (4.3%)	91.3%
K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥ (kings full of sevens)	83 (7.7%)	85.1%
9♠ 9♥ 9♦ 4♣ 4♥ (nines full of fours)	101 (9.3%)	82.0%
7♠ 7♥ 7♦ K♣ K♥ (sevens full of kings)	141 (13.0%)	75.5%
2♠ 2♥ 2♦ 3♣ 3♥ (deuces full of threes)	201 (18.6%)	66.2%

Exact over every hand from the 47 unseen cards, and every pair of hands for the heads-up split. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

On a board of aces full of kings, only the last ace or both of the last two kings (for four kings) can improve it, so heads-up the pot is split more than nine times in ten. On a board of deuces full of threes, any pocket pair from fours to aces improves it, and so does any hand holding the last deuce or either of the last two threes, which makes threes full of deuces. On 7♠ 7♥ 7♦ K♣ K♥, pocket aces make sevens full of aces, and either of the last two kings makes kings full of sevens, a bigger full house.

Across all deals, the board itself is a full house about once in 694 hands. Heads-up, averaged over all 156 kinds of board full house, a player in that spot splits the pot about 78% of the time, wins it outright about 11% and loses about 11%, by exact count. The win and loss figures match because both players’ hands are random.

The Top Full House and the Underfull

On a paired board, several different full houses are possible, and they’re not close in strength. The one that uses the board’s pair as its three of a kind is on top; a full house that uses the board’s pair as its pair, the “underfull,” is near the bottom. Here’s every kind of holding on one paired board, counted against every hand an opponent could hold:

Your hand on K♦ K♣ 4♣ 9♠ 2♥	What you have	Opponent hands that beat you (of 990)	Hands that tie
K♠ 9♦	Kings full of nines (the nuts)	0	2
K♠ 4♦	Kings full of fours	3	2
9♦ 9♥	Nines full of kings	15	0
4♠ 4♥	Fours full of kings	18	0
2♦ 2♣	Deuces full of kings	21	0
K♠ A♥	Three kings with an ace kicker	18	3

Exact counts over every possible opponent holding, with a hand evaluator by TopSitesPoker.com.

The underfull is the hand that makes a set of fours or deuces feel strong and play weak. With 4♠ 4♥ you flopped a set, and the board paired to give you a full house, but your three of a kind is the fours. Any opponent holding a king with a nine, a four or a deuce has kings full, pocket nines have nines full and pocket kings have four kings: 18 hands in all. That’s only 1.8% of random hands, but opponents who put a lot of money in on this board are far more likely to hold a king than a random hand is.

The comparison with three kings is telling. K♠ A♥ is “only” trips, yet it’s beaten by exactly as many hands as the fours full, 18, because holding one of the kings removes most of the kings-full combinations an opponent could have. On paired boards, which cards you hold can matter as much as the name of your hand.

How to spot which full house you have

• Find your three of a kind. That’s the part that decides. If it’s the board’s pair plus your card, you have the top kind of full house; if it’s your pocket pair plus one board card, you might have an underfull.
• Look for a higher pair on the board. If the board’s pair is higher than your three of a kind, anyone holding one card of that pair with a matching kicker has a bigger full house.
• Count the case cards. On K♦ K♣ 4♣ 9♠ 2♥, only two kings are left. If you hold one of them, the kings-full combinations drop sharply.

A Full House at the Table: How Often, and How Often It Loses

The odds earlier in this guide are for one player’s cards. At a real table, two other questions matter more: how often does anyone make a full house, and how often does a full house run into something bigger? To answer them, we simulated 400,000,000 Texas Hold’em deals for each table size from two to nine players, with every player seeing the river.

Players	Someone has a full house by the river	A full house loses to a bigger full house	Four of a kind beats a full house
2	1 in 21.0 deals	1 in 429 deals	1 in 1,440 deals
3	1 in 14.9 deals	1 in 171 deals	1 in 601 deals
4	1 in 11.8 deals	1 in 99 deals	1 in 355 deals
5	1 in 10.0 deals	1 in 68 deals	1 in 246 deals
6	1 in 8.7 deals	1 in 52 deals	1 in 188 deals
7	1 in 7.8 deals	1 in 41 deals	1 in 152 deals
8	1 in 7.1 deals	1 in 35 deals	1 in 127 deals
9	1 in 6.6 deals	1 in 30 deals	1 in 110 deals

TopSitesPoker.com simulation, 400,000,000 deals per table size, every player seeing the river. The last two columns count deals in which at least one full house was beaten that way at showdown.

Heads-up, a full house shows up about once in 21 deals. At a full nine-handed table where everyone saw the river, someone would have one about once every six or seven deals. The coolers grow even faster: a full house losing to a bigger full house goes from about once in 429 deals heads-up to once in 30 at nine players, and four of a kind over a full house from once in 1,440 to once in 110. Going from two players to nine makes a full house about three times as likely to appear, but makes both coolers 13 to 14 times as common, because a cooler needs two strong hands in the same deal.

How often a full house wins at showdown

Here’s what happens to every full house in those simulated deals, counted from the point of view of the player holding it:

Players	Wins	Splits	Loses	Loses to a bigger full house	Loses to four of a kind
2	87.0%	7.2%	5.8%	4.5%	1.3%
3	80.2%	8.9%	11.0%	8.3%	2.7%
4	74.4%	10.2%	15.5%	11.4%	4.0%
5	69.4%	11.1%	19.5%	14.1%	5.4%
6	65.2%	11.8%	23.0%	16.3%	6.7%
7	61.4%	12.3%	26.2%	18.1%	8.0%
8	58.2%	12.7%	29.1%	19.6%	9.4%
9	55.3%	13.0%	31.7%	20.9%	10.7%

TopSitesPoker.com simulation, 400,000,000 deals per table size, every player seeing the river. Includes full houses that are on the board. The small remainder of losses, 0.01% heads-up to 0.11% at nine players, is to a straight flush.

 

Every player seeing the river; includes full houses on the board.

Heads-up, a full house is almost always good: it wins 87% of the time and splits another 7%. At a full table, with everyone in to the river, it wins only a little more than half the time. Two things drive that. Each extra opponent is another chance for a bigger full house on a paired board, and another chance for the pocket pair that turns a board pair into four of a kind. Four of a kind’s share of the losses grows from under a quarter heads-up to about a third at nine players.

A straight flush is almost never the problem. Heads-up, about one full house in 7,400 loses to one; at nine players, about one in 940.

Full houses made with your own cards

The table above includes board full houses, which are usually split heads-up and often lost at bigger tables, since anyone who improves the board wins. Leave those out, and look only at full houses that use at least one hole card:

Players	Wins	Splits	Loses
2	91.5%	3.0%	5.5%
6	68.6%	9.7%	21.7%
9	58.2%	11.9%	29.9%

TopSitesPoker.com simulation, 400,000,000 deals per table size, every player seeing the river; deals in which the board itself is a full house are excluded.

Splits don’t disappear when the board isn’t a full house. On a board with three of a kind, or with two pairs, two players who hold the same board rank often end up with the same full house, and at a six- or nine-handed table that happens to roughly one full house in ten.

What these numbers mean in a real game

Real hands aren’t played with everyone going to the river. Most players fold before the flop, and the players who stay in to call big bets on the turn and river hold stronger hands than a random deal would give them. So the simulations show how crowded the top of the hand rankings gets as a table fills up, not what will happen in any one pot. Three practical points follow from them:

• Heads-up, a full house is a hand to get paid with. It loses about once in 17 showdowns, mostly to a bigger full house.
• In multiway pots, check which full house you have. With four or more players in, the chance that someone holds a bigger full house or four of a kind is no longer small, and the underfull is the hand most likely to be behind.
• Board pairs are where coolers come from. Every Hold’em full house needs a pair on the board, so the same paired boards that give you a full house give opponents theirs.

Drawing to a Full House

Most full houses in Hold’em are made on the turn or the river, which means that before they’re full houses, they’re draws. How often you “fill up” depends on what you have on the flop:

Your hand on the flop	Example	Outs to a full house or better	By the river (from the flop)	On the river (from the turn)
A set, on an unpaired board	7♠ 7♥ on 7♦ K♣ 2♠	7 on the turn; 10 on the river if the turn misses	33.4%	21.7%
Trips, with a pair on the board	A♠ 7♠ on 7♦ 7♣ K♥	7 on the turn; 10 on the river if the turn misses	33.4%	21.7%
Two pair, using both hole cards	K♠ 7♥ on K♦ 7♣ 2♠	4	16.7%	8.7%
A pocket pair, no set	7♠ 7♥ on A♦ K♣ 2♠	None on the turn; runner-runner only	2.6%	—
Top pair	A♠ Q♥ on A♦ 8♣ 3♠	None on the turn; runner-runner only	2.6%	—

Exact over every possible turn and river, checked with a hand evaluator by TopSitesPoker.com; “or better” includes the rare four of a kind. The river column is for the same hand on a turn that didn’t improve it.

 

A set has 7 outs on the turn, and 10 on the river if the turn misses.

Counting the outs

With a set of sevens on 7♦ K♣ 2♠, the last seven gives you four of a kind, and the three remaining kings and three remaining deuces pair the board to give you a full house: seven outs. If the turn is a blank, say the 9♥, the board has a fourth rank, and its three remaining cards join your outs: ten on the river. That’s where the 33.4% comes from, and why sets are among the most valuable hands in Hold’em: even when they’re behind, they fill up a third of the time.

Two pair has only four outs, the two remaining cards of each of your ranks, so it fills up about half as often as a set: 16.7% from the flop and 8.7% from the turn. And a single pair almost never becomes a full house: it needs both the turn and the river to help.

A worked example: set against a flush

You hold 7♠ 7♥ on K♥ 7♦ 2♥ 9♥. Your opponent has bet the pot, $100 into $100, and you’re sure they’ve made the flush. You have three sevens, which lose to the flush now, and ten outs to a full house or better on the river: the 7♣, three kings, three deuces and three nines. None of those cards is a heart that could give your opponent a straight flush here. That’s 10 of 46 unseen cards, or 21.7%.

To call $100 to win $200, you need to win at least 100 ÷ 300 = 33.3% of the time. With 21.7%, calling is a mistake unless you expect to win enough extra on the river when you fill up to make up the difference. This is the most common spot where a full-house draw is overvalued: a set feels strong, but against a made hand with one card to come, it’s a 3.6-to-1 underdog.

Full House Examples

These examples cover the main ways of making a full house in Texas Hold’em, the coolers it runs into, and how Omaha, Seven Card Stud and Five Card Draw change the picture. Every hand was checked with a hand evaluator.

Example 1: a set that fills up

You hold 7♠ 7♥ and flop a set on 7♦ K♣ 2♠. The turn is the K♥, pairing the board and giving you sevens full of kings; the river is the 4♦. An opponent holding K♠ Q♦ has three kings and loses. But an opponent holding K-4, K-2 or K-7 has kings full, and pocket kings would have four of a kind: 15 of the 990 hands an opponent could hold beat you here. When the board pairs its highest card, your full house isn’t the top one.

Example 2: two unpaired cards

You hold A♠ K♦ and the board is A♥ A♦ K♣ 7♠ 2♥. You have aces full of kings, using both hole cards. With the A♠ in your hand, only one ace is left, so nobody can have four aces, and no straight flush is possible: your hand is the nuts. The only hands that tie are the A♣ with one of the last two kings.

Example 3: one hole card on a board with two pair

The board is 7♠ 7♥ K♣ K♦ 2♠. You hold K♠ 2♦ and have kings full of sevens; your opponent holds 7♦ 2♥ and has sevens full of kings. Both of you “have kings and sevens,” but your three of a kind is kings, so you win.

Example 4: three of a kind on the board

The board is 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦. You hold A♠ A♥ for nines full of aces; your opponent holds K♠ 2♣ for nines full of kings. The threes are the same, so the pair decides, and your aces win. If your opponent had held pocket kings instead, they would have kings full of nines and beaten you, because their three of a kind would be higher.

Example 5: a full house on the board

The board is K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥. You hold 3♣ 2♦ and your opponent holds Q♠ J♦: you both play the board’s kings full of sevens and split the pot. If your opponent had held A♠ A♥ instead, they would have kings full of aces and taken the whole pot.

Example 6: the underfull

You hold 4♠ 4♥ on K♦ K♣ 4♣ 9♠ 2♥ for fours full of kings. Your opponent holds K♥ 9♦ for kings full of nines. You flopped a set and made a full house, and you still lose, because your opponent’s three of a kind is kings.

Example 7: a full house against four of a kind

You hold K♠ K♣ on 7♦ 7♣ K♥ 2♠ 9♦ for kings full of sevens, the best full house possible. Your opponent holds 7♠ 7♥ for four sevens. Only one hand in 990 beats you, and your opponent has it. This is the classic cooler. Played with bigger cards, such as aces full losing to four of a kind, it’s the kind of beat many bad-beat jackpots are built around, if the losing hand meets the room’s minimum.

Omaha: a pocket pair and the trap

You hold K♦ K♥ 5♣ 2♥ on 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦. Your two kings with the board’s K♣ and two nines give you kings full of nines, the same hand pocket kings make in Hold’em on this board. Now change your hand to K♦ A♠ 5♣ 2♥. In Hold’em, the K♦ would pair the board’s king for nines full of kings. In Omaha, you must use exactly two hole cards and three board cards, and there’s no way to combine one king from your hand with the board’s king and two nines: your best hand is three nines. On this board, an Omaha player needs a pocket pair, or the last nine, to beat trips.

Seven Card Stud: reading the board

An opponent shows 8♠ 8♥ Q♦ Q♣ face up. They have two pair showing and a full house if any of their three hidden cards is an eight or a queen. Every eight or queen you can see elsewhere at the table makes that less likely. If you can see all four, their only way to a full house is three of a kind among their hidden cards, which is rare.

Five Card Draw: two pair

You’re dealt K♠ K♥ 7♣ 7♦ 2♠. Keep both pairs and draw one card: four of the 47 cards you haven’t seen, the last two kings and the last two sevens, give you a full house, 8.5% of the time.

How to Play a Full House

A full house wins most of the time, but “most” hides a lot of variation. The same hand can be the nuts on one board and a trap on the next, so playing it well starts with reading the board.

Step 1: check what can beat you

• A bigger full house. If the board has a pair higher than your three of a kind, or three of a kind with a higher possible pair, someone can have a bigger full house. On K♦ K♣ 4♣ 9♠ 2♥, fours full of kings loses to any king that pairs another board card.
• Four of a kind. Any pair on the board can become four of a kind for a player holding the other two cards of that rank; any three of a kind on the board, for a player holding the last one.
• A straight flush. Only possible when the board has three suited cards close together. A full house and a straight flush can’t share one player’s seven cards, but an opponent can have one.

If none of these is possible, you have the nuts. If they are, the size of the pot and the betting tell you how worried to be.

Step 2: know whether yours is the top full house

On a paired board, the full house that uses the board’s pair as its three of a kind is on top, and the rest are underfulls. With the top full house, you want the most money in the pot. With an underfull, you want to see a showdown cheaply: call bets you would have called with trips, but think twice before raising, and be ready to let go when an opponent who rarely bluffs puts in a big raise.

Step 3: bet for value on boards that give others a hand

A full house often arrives on the turn or river when the board pairs. That’s exactly when opponents holding a flush or a straight become cautious, but many will still call a reasonable bet with them. Size your bets so that a straight or flush can call: a pot-sized bet on a paired board can get folds from hands that would have paid a half-pot bet. When the board has three of a kind, many opponents have trips or their own full house, and bigger bets get called.

Step 4: flopped full houses

Flopping a full house, like K♠ K♥ on K♦ 7♣ 7♠ for kings full of sevens, is rare, and it leaves opponents with little. Most will have missed a board this paired, and those with a seven are the ones who’ll pay. Checking or betting small gives the rest a chance to catch up or bluff. Only one hand beats you on this flop, the last two sevens for four of a kind, so slowing down costs little.

Before the flop: sets, not full houses

No starting hand is played “for a full house.” Pocket pairs make one by the river only about once in 12 hands, often by flopping a set first, so they’re played for the set: a hidden, strong hand that fills up a third of the time. Unpaired hands fill up about once in 45 hands, too rarely to change which hands you play.

The Full House in Other Games

Omaha

Omaha’s four hole cards make full houses far more common: a player who sees the river has one as their best hand about once in 15.8 hands, and full houses win a large share of Omaha pots. But the rule that you must use exactly two hole cards and three board cards changes which full houses are possible:

• On a board with three of a kind, you need a pocket pair. One card that pairs another board card isn’t enough, as the examples above showed.
• On a paired board, you need a card of the pair’s rank plus a card matching another board card, or a pocket pair that makes three of a kind. With 7♣ 7♠ on the board, 7♥ K♦ in your hand makes sevens full of kings if the board has a king; K♥ K♦ makes kings full of sevens.
• A full house on the board doesn’t play for everyone. On K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥, you can use only three board cards, so you need a pocket pair for a full house. A single seven still leaves you with three kings, while the last king gives you four of a kind.

Short Deck (6+ Hold’em)

Short Deck removes the 2s through 5s, and it’s the one popular game where a full house usually ranks below a flush. With only nine cards in each suit, flushes become rarer: 1 in 785 five-card hands, against 1 in 218 for a full house. Most Short Deck rules therefore rank the flush higher. With seven cards, a Short Deck player who sees the river has a full house about once in 13 hands and a flush about once in 48.

Seven Card Stud

A Stud player who stays to seventh street makes a full house as often as a Hold’em player who sees the river, about once in 38.5 hands. Because each player’s cards are their own, two players can never share a three of a kind, and a full house can only tie an identical one in another player’s hand, which is impossible, since that would need two identical sets of three. The up cards tell you a lot: an opponent showing two pair needs just one of the four remaining cards of those ranks among their hidden cards.

Five Card Draw

You’re dealt a full house once in 694 hands. On the draw, your chances depend on what you keep:

You keep	You draw	Full house	Four of a kind
Two pair	1 card	8.5% (4 of 47)	0%
Three of a kind	2 cards	6.1%	4.3%
Three of a kind plus a kicker	1 card	6.4% (3 of 47)	2.1% (1 of 47)
One pair	3 cards	1.0%	0.28%

Exact over every possible draw from the 47 unseen cards; examples K-K-7-7, 7-7-7 with K-2, and 7-7 with K-9-2. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

Drawing two to three of a kind gives nearly the same chance of a full house as keeping a kicker, and doubles your chance of four of a kind.

Lowball and wild-card games

In lowball games such as deuce-to-seven and Razz, pairs count against you, and a full house is a very poor low hand. In home games with wild cards, full houses become much easier to make, and five of a kind becomes possible above everything else in many house rules.

Video poker

In Jacks or Better video poker, the full house is so important that the pay table is named after it: “9/6” means the machine pays 9 for 1 for a full house and 6 for 1 for a flush. With optimal strategy, a full house comes about once in 87 hands and supplies about 10.4 percentage points of the full-pay game’s 99.5% return. Cutting the full house payout from 9 to 8 lowers the return by about 1.2 points, to about 98.4% on an 8/6 machine; an 8/5 machine returns about 97.3%.

Dealt hand	Option	Return on 9/6	Return on 8/5	Best play
K♠ K♥ 7♣ 7♦ 2♠	Keep both pairs, draw one	2.60	2.51	Keep two pair
K♠ K♥ 7♣ 7♦ 2♠	Keep only the kings, draw three	1.54	1.53
7♠ 7♥ 7♦ K♣ 2♦	Keep the three sevens, draw two	4.30	4.24	Keep three of a kind

Average coins returned per coin bet at maximum coins, exact over every possible draw. 9/6 pays 800, 50, 25, 9, 6, 4, 3, 2 and 1; 8/5 pays the same except 8 for a full house and 5 for a flush. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com; the full house frequency and the machine returns are published figures from the Wizard of Odds.

Showdown, Promotions and Bad-Beat Jackpots

At showdown

• Show all your cards. Cards speak, so a full house wins even if you announce “trips.” Under the TDA rules and in most cardrooms, you must show all your hole cards face up to win any part of the pot, including when the board’s full house plays for you.
• Name the three of a kind first. “Kings full of sevens” and “sevens full of kings” are different hands. If you announce the wrong one, the cards still decide, but a clear announcement avoids arguments.
• Check the board when full houses meet. When two players both have a full house, the dealer compares the threes and then the pairs. On boards with two pair or three of a kind, it’s worth reading both hands yourself before anything is mucked.
• Keep your cards out of the muck until the pot is pushed. Under TDA rules, cards are dead once the dealer pushes them into the muck or they can no longer be identified and retrieved, and most rooms work the same way.

High-hand promotions

A full house can win a high-hand promotion when nothing better turns up during the qualifying period, and some cardrooms pay bonuses for specific hands such as aces full. The rules vary: many promotions require both hole cards to play, which excludes about 52% of all Hold’em full houses, mostly those that need only one hole card or none.

Bad-beat jackpots

The full house is the classic losing hand in bad-beat jackpots. Many jackpots set the qualifying hand at a high full house, such as aces full of tens or better, beaten by four of a kind or a straight flush, and often require both of the losing player’s hole cards to play. The exact rules differ by room, so check the posted requirements.

Full house against four of a kind is far more common than the coolers above it. In our heads-up simulations with both players seeing the river, four of a kind beat a full house about once in 1,440 deals, and a full house lost to a bigger full house about once in 429 deals. Qualifying beats are much rarer, because most jackpots require a high full house, both hole cards in play and a pot that reaches the river.

Common Full House Mistakes

Most full house mistakes come from reading the hand the wrong way round: seeing the pair first instead of the three of a kind.

Mistake	Example	What’s actually true
Comparing the pairs first	“My aces beat your kings” with 2-2-2-A-A against K-K-K-3-3	The three of a kind decides: kings full wins
Naming the hand backwards	Calling 4♠ 4♥ on K♦ K♣ 4♣ “kings full of fours”	It’s fours full of kings, a much weaker hand
Overvaluing the underfull	Raising big with 4♠ 4♥ on K♦ K♣ 4♣ 9♠ 2♥	Any king that pairs another board card, pocket nines and pocket kings beat you
Using the lower pair with trips and two pairs	9-9-9-K-K-4-4 read as “nines full of fours”	The higher pair plays: nines full of kings
Thinking a board full house is always a split	Board K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥	Pocket aces make kings full of aces; the last king makes four kings
Thinking pocket aces beat any pocket pair on a board of trips	A♠ A♥ against K♠ K♦ on 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦	Kings full of nines beats nines full of aces
Pairing the board with one card in Omaha	K♦ A♠ in hand on 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦	You need two hole cards: that’s only three nines
Chasing a full house with one pair	Calling big bets with 7♠ 7♥ on A♦ K♣ 2♠	You fill up only 2.6% of the time by the river
Calling a pot-sized turn bet with a set against a made flush	7♠ 7♥ on K♥ 7♦ 2♥ 9♥ facing a pot bet	10 outs is 21.7%; you need 33.3%
Forgetting four of a kind on paired boards	Stacking off with the top full house on 7♦ 7♣ K♥	Pocket sevens make four of a kind
Assuming a flush beats a full house	Standard Hold’em	A full house always beats a flush, except under most Short Deck rules

The fix for most of these is the same habit: find the three of a kind first, then the pair, and then look at the board for a bigger three of a kind someone else could hold.

Test Yourself: Full House Quiz

Ten questions on reading, comparing and playing full houses. Decide before you read the answer. Every hand was checked with a hand evaluator.

#	Question	Answer	Why
1	Which wins: 2-2-2-A-A or K-K-K-3-3?	K-K-K-3-3	The three of a kind decides first: kings beat deuces
2	What’s the correct name for 9-9-9-4-4?	Nines full of fours	The three of a kind is named first
3	Hold’em: you hold 4♠ 4♥ and the board is K♦ K♣ 4♣ 9♠ 2♥. What do you have?	Fours full of kings	Your three of a kind is the fours; a king that pairs a board card makes kings full
4	Hold’em: the board is 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦. A♠ A♥ against K♠ K♦: who wins?	K♠ K♦	Kings full of nines beats nines full of aces
5	Hold’em: the board is K♠ K♥ K♦ 7♣ 7♥. 3♣ 2♦ against Q♠ J♦: who wins?	Split pot	Both play the board’s kings full of sevens
6	Seven Card Stud: your seven cards are K-K-K-7-7-7-2. What’s your hand?	Kings full of sevens	With two three of a kinds, the higher is the three and the lower supplies the pair
7	Omaha: you hold K♦ A♠ 5♣ 2♥ and the board is 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ K♣ 4♦. What do you have?	Three nines	With exactly two hole cards and three board cards, one king can’t pair the board’s king alongside the nines
8	Hold’em: how often does a pocket pair make a full house by the river?	About 8.5%, once in 12 hands	Other starting hands manage about 2.2%, once in 45
9	You flop a set on an unpaired board. How often do you fill up by the river?	33.4%	Seven outs on the turn, ten on the river if the turn misses
10	In Short Deck, which wins: a flush or a full house?	Usually the flush	With nine cards per suit, flushes are rarer, and most Short Deck rules rank them above a full house

Questions 3, 4 and 7 are the ones that cost money at the table. All three come down to finding the three of a kind first, and checking which cards you’re allowed to use.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a full house in poker?

A full house is three cards of one rank plus two cards of another, such as J♠ J♥ J♦ 6♣ 6♠, “jacks full of sixes.” It’s the fourth-best hand in standard poker, below the royal flush, straight flush and four of a kind, and above the flush.

Does a full house beat a flush?

Yes, in standard poker a full house always beats a flush. Short Deck is the exception: with the 2s through 5s removed, flushes are rarer than full houses, and most Short Deck rules rank the flush higher.

What beats a full house?

Four of a kind, a straight flush, a royal flush and a higher full house. A higher full house means a higher three of a kind, or the same three of a kind with a higher pair.

How do you compare two full houses?

Compare the three of a kind first; the higher three wins. Only if the threes are the same rank, which in Hold’em means they’re on the board, compare the pairs. If both match, the pot is split.

Which is better, aces full of twos or kings full of aces?

Aces full of twos. The three of a kind decides, and three aces beat three kings, whatever the pairs are.

What are the odds of getting a full house?

1 in 694 in a five-card hand. In Texas Hold’em, a player who sees every card has a full house about once in 123 hands by the turn and once in 38.5 by the river. It’s the same 1 in 38.5 in Seven Card Stud, about 1 in 16 in Omaha and about 1 in 13 in Short Deck Hold’em.

What are the odds of a full house with a pocket pair?

About 1 in 12 by the river, or 8.5%, if you see every card. You flop a full house about once in 102 flops. With a set on an unpaired flop, you fill up by the river 33.4% of the time.

How many full houses are there?

156 different full houses by rank, 13 choices for the three of a kind times 12 for the pair, and 3,744 five-card hands in all, since each can be made from 24 combinations of suits.

Is there a kicker in a full house?

No. A full house uses all five cards, so the other cards you hold never matter. Two identical full houses split the pot.

What happens when the board is a full house?

In Hold’em, everyone still in the hand has at least the board’s full house, and the pot is split unless someone improves it: with the last card of the three of a kind’s rank or both remaining cards of the pair’s rank (four of a kind), with a pocket pair higher than the board’s pair, or with a card that makes a bigger three of a kind. Heads-up, a board full house ends in a split about 78% of the time. In Omaha, a board full house doesn’t play for everyone, because you must use exactly two hole cards.

What is an underfull?

An underfull is a full house that uses the board’s pair as its pair rather than its three of a kind. With 4♠ 4♥ on K♦ K♣ 4♣, you have fours full of kings, and any opponent with a king that pairs another board card has kings full, a bigger hand.

Why is it called a full house or a boat?

The usual explanation is that the hand is “full”: all five cards count, three of one rank and two of another. “Boat” and “full boat” are table nicknames with the same meaning.

Can two players have the same full house?

In Hold’em, yes, when they share the board’s cards: both playing a board full house, both pairing the same board card when the board has three of a kind, or both holding the same rank on a board with two pairs, such as a king each on 7♠ 7♥ K♣ K♦ 2♠. In Seven Card Stud, no: two players can’t hold the same three of a kind.

How often does a full house lose?

Heads-up, with both players seeing the river, a full house wins about 87% of the time, splits about 7% and loses about 6%, mostly to a bigger full house. At full tables the losses grow, because more players means more bigger full houses and more four of a kinds.

What are the odds of filling up with two pair?

With two pair on the flop, you have four outs, the two remaining cards of each rank, and you fill up by the river about 16.7% of the time. With one card to come, it’s 4 of 46, about 8.7%.

What does 9/6 mean in video poker?

It’s the Jacks or Better pay table: 9 for 1 for a full house and 6 for 1 for a flush. Full-pay 9/6 returns about 99.5% with optimal strategy; machines that pay 8 or 7 for a full house return less.

Full House: Quick-Reference Summary

Question	Answer
What it is	Three of a kind plus a pair, named “X full of Y”
How many exist	156 by rank; 3,744 five-card hands
Rank	Fourth: beats a flush; loses to four of a kind, straight flush, royal flush (under most Short Deck rules, a flush beats it)
Comparing two	Higher three of a kind wins; same three: higher pair; both the same: split; no kickers
Seven-card rules	Two trips: higher is the three; trips and two pairs: higher pair plays
Odds in five cards	1 in 694
Odds by the Hold’em river	1 in 38.5 (1 in 123 by the turn)
Pocket pair / other hands	About 1 in 12 / 1 in 45 by the river
How Hold’em full houses are made	Both hole cards 47.1%; one hole card 48.0%; board 4.9%
Fill up by the river	From a set 33.4%; from two pair 16.7%
Board full house, heads-up	Split about 78% of the time
Omaha / Short Deck	About 1 in 15.8 / 1 in 13.2 by the river
Video poker (9/6 Jacks or Better)	Pays 9 for 1, about once in 87 hands; keep two pair and draw one

About This Guide

This guide uses the standard poker hand rankings used in casinos, cardrooms and online, and the TDA 2026 rules (version 1.0, September 7, 2026) where showdown procedure is concerned. House rules, especially on Short Deck, wild cards, promotions and jackpots, vary, and the rules of the room or site where you play always apply.

Every probability except the video poker figures was produced by the TopSitesPoker.com editorial team rather than copied from other sources:

• Exact counts: five-, six- and seven-card counts over all 2,598,960, 20,358,520 and 133,784,560 hands; the full-house types in seven cards; starting-hand, street and route figures over all 2,809,475,760 combinations of two hole cards and five board cards; Short Deck over all 376,992 five-card and 8,347,680 seven-card hands; and every example, board, draw and opponent-holding figure over all possible remaining cards.
• Simulations: the Omaha figure from 200,000,000 simulated hands, and the table-size, win-loss and board full house figures from 400,000,000 simulated deals per table size, with every player seeing the river.
• Video poker: the hold values are exact over every possible draw. The full house frequency under optimal 9/6 Jacks or Better strategy, its share of the return and the returns of the 8/6 and 8/5 machines are published figures from the Wizard of Odds.
• Evaluator checks: every example, look-alike hand, comparison and quiz answer was verified with a hand evaluator, with Omaha hands evaluated using exactly two hole cards and three board cards.

Hold’em, Omaha and Stud figures assume every hand is played to the end. Real players fold often, so full houses, and the coolers they create, appear less often in real games than these figures suggest.

The Bottom Line

A full house is three of a kind plus a pair, the fourth-best hand in poker. Everything about comparing full houses comes back to one rule: the three of a kind decides first, and the pair only matters when the threes are the same. That rule explains why aces full of deuces beats kings full of aces, why pocket kings beat pocket aces on a board of three nines with a king, and why fours full of kings is a dangerous hand.

A Hold’em player makes a full house about once in 38.5 hands played to the river, a pocket pair about once in 12, and a set fills up a third of the time. Almost every full house uses at least one of your hole cards, so the board tells you who else could have one. Read it before you bet: find your three of a kind, look for a bigger one someone else could hold, and play the top full house hard and the underfull with care.