What Beats What in Poker? Complete Hand Comparison Guide

“Does a flush beat a straight?” is one of the most searched questions in poker, and the answer takes one line: yes. But at a real table, the hard comparisons are rarely between two different ranks. They’re between two flushes, two straights, two full houses, or a pair of kings with different kickers, and they’re shaped by what the board allows. This guide covers both: the fixed order of the ten poker hands, and how any two hands are actually compared when they collide.

It starts with the complete order and the reason behind it, then a three-step method that settles any comparison. After that, it goes hand by hand: what each one beats, what beats it, and, from our own simulations of millions of Texas Hold’em showdowns, what usually beats it when it loses. Later sections cover same-rank showdowns, the “coolers” where a big hand loses to a bigger one, how the board changes the ladder, and what beats what in Omaha, Short Deck and lowball. It finishes with a 20-question comparison quiz, the most common mistakes and a quick-reference table.

Every figure was calculated by the TopSitesPoker.com editorial team. Counts over all possible hands and boards are exact; showdown statistics come from simulations of 600,000 to 4 million deals and are labeled as such.

What Beats What: The Complete Order

Poker uses one ranking of five-card hands in every standard high-hand game: Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Five Card Draw and the high half of hi-lo games. Each hand beats every hand below it, regardless of the individual cards. The table shows what each hand beats, what beats it, and how many different versions of it exist when hands that differ only by suit are counted once.

Rank	Hand	Example	Beats	Loses to	Different versions
1	Royal flush	A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠	Every other hand	Nothing; two royal flushes split	1
2	Straight flush	9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥	Four of a kind and below	Royal flush, higher straight flushes	9
3	Four of a kind	J♣ J♦ J♥ J♠ 4♦	Full house and below	Straight flushes, higher four of a kind	156
4	Full house	10♠ 10♥ 10♦ 6♣ 6♠	Flush and below	Four of a kind or better, higher full houses	156
5	Flush	K♦ Q♦ 9♦ 5♦ 3♦	Straight and below	Full house or better, higher flushes	1,277
6	Straight	8♠ 7♣ 6♥ 5♦ 4♠	Three of a kind and below	Flush or better, higher straights	10
7	Three of a kind	5♥ 5♣ 5♠ K♦ 9♣	Two pair and below	Straight or better, higher three of a kind	858
8	Two pair	Q♠ Q♥ 7♦ 7♣ A♠	One pair and high card	Three of a kind or better, higher two pair	858
9	One pair	A♥ A♦ 10♣ 8♠ 2♥	High card	Two pair or better, higher pairs	2,860
10	High card	K♣ J♦ 8♥ 5♠ 3♣	Nothing, except a lower high card	Any pair or better, higher high cards	1,277

“Different versions” counts distinct hand strengths among all 2,598,960 five-card hands; there are 7,462 in total. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

The last column explains where comparisons get difficult. There are only ten different straights, from 5-4-3-2-A up to A-K-Q-J-10, so comparing two straights takes a glance. There are 1,277 different flushes and 2,860 different one-pair hands, which is why flush-against-flush and pair-against-pair showdowns can come down to the fourth or fifth card.

Three rules that never change

• Rank beats everything. The weakest hand of a higher rank beats the strongest hand of a lower rank. 2-2-2-3-3 beats A-K-Q-J-9 of one suit. 3-3-2-2-4 beats A-A-K-Q-J.
• Only five cards count. Players choose their best five cards, from seven in Hold’em and Seven Card Stud. A sixth card never plays and never breaks a tie.
• Suits are equal. No suit outranks another at showdown. Two hands with the same five ranks split the pot, whatever their suits.

What doesn’t beat what

A few hands people expect to win don’t:

• Pocket aces don’t beat two pair. A-A is the best starting hand in Hold’em, but as a finished hand it’s one pair, and any two pair beats it.
• A high kicker doesn’t beat a higher pair. K-K-2 beats Q-Q-A. The pair is compared first, and the kicker only matters if the pairs match.
• A straight to the ace doesn’t beat a flush. Broadway (A-K-Q-J-10) is the best straight and still loses to the lowest flush.
• The ace doesn’t wrap around. Q-K-A-2-3 isn’t a straight at all.

Why Each Hand Beats the One Below It

The order isn’t arbitrary. It was set for five-card poker, where each hand is rarer than the one below it: the harder a hand is to make, the higher it ranks. The table compares each pair of neighbors, both in five cards and with seven cards to choose from, as in Hold’em when all five board cards are out.

Comparison	Five-card hands (higher / lower)	Lower hand is this many times as common, 5 cards	Same, best 5 of 7 cards
Straight flush vs four of a kind	40 / 624	15.6	5.4
Four of a kind vs full house	624 / 3,744	6.0	15.4
Full house vs flush	3,744 / 5,108	1.36	1.17
Flush vs straight	5,108 / 10,200	2.0	1.53
Straight vs three of a kind	10,200 / 54,912	5.4	1.05
Three of a kind vs two pair	54,912 / 123,552	2.25	4.9
Two pair vs one pair	123,552 / 1,098,240	8.9	1.9
One pair vs high card	1,098,240 / 1,302,540	1.19	0.40

Five-card counts are exact over all 2,598,960 hands, with the straight flush count including the four royal flushes. Seven-card ratios are exact over all 133,784,560 seven-card combinations. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

 

Every ratio is above 1 in five cards; with seven cards, high card becomes rarer than one pair.

In five cards, every ratio is above 1, so the order matches rarity perfectly. With seven cards, three things happen:

• Some gaps almost close. Three of a kind is only 1.05 times as common as a straight, and a flush is only 1.17 times as common as a full house. The order still holds, but barely.
• One gap reverses. With seven cards, you’re 2.5 times more likely to finish with one pair than with no pair at all (a ratio of 0.40). High card (17.4% of seven-card hands) is also rarer than two pair (23.5%). If the ranking were rebuilt for seven cards, high card would rank above both one pair and two pair, which would make no sense to anyone, so the traditional order stays.
• Other gaps widen. Four of a kind becomes 15 times rarer than a full house, because seven cards make full houses much easier to complete.

None of this changes what beats what. It explains why some comparisons feel closer than others: in Hold’em, you’ll see straights and three of a kinds, or flushes and full houses, collide far more often than the five-card numbers suggest.

How to Compare Any Two Hands in Three Steps

Every comparison in standard poker, however messy it looks, follows the same three steps. Dealers use them, and so do the computer programs that settle online showdowns.

1. Build each player’s best five cards. In Hold’em, choose from the two hole cards and the five community cards; in Omaha, use exactly two hole cards and three board cards. Ignore every other card.
2. Compare the ranks. If the two hands are different ranks, the higher rank wins and you’re done.
3. If the ranks match, compare card by card in a fixed order. First the defining cards, the ones that make the hand; then the kickers, the leftover cards, from highest to lowest. The first difference decides the pot. If there’s no difference after all five cards, it’s a split.

 

Stop at the first difference; suits never break a tie.

The defining cards and kickers of every hand

Hand	Defining cards, compared first	Kickers, compared next	Example of a close comparison
Straight flush	The top card	None	K-high beats Q-high
Four of a kind	The rank of the four	1	J-J-J-J-3 beats 10-10-10-10-A
Full house	The three of a kind, then the pair	None	6-6-6-2-2 beats 5-5-5-A-A
Flush	The top card	The other four cards, in order	K-J-9-6-3 beats K-J-9-6-2
Straight	The top card	None	6-5-4-3-2 beats 5-4-3-2-A
Three of a kind	The rank of the three	2	8-8-8-A-2 beats 8-8-8-K-Q
Two pair	The higher pair, then the lower pair	1	K-K-Q-Q-2 beats K-K-J-J-A
One pair	The rank of the pair	3	Q-Q-7-5-3 beats Q-Q-7-5-2
High card	The top card	The other four cards, in order	A-Q-8-6-2 beats A-Q-8-5-4

Two patterns make this table easy to remember. First, the fewer cards a hand uses for its main combination, the more kickers it has: one pair has three, three of a kind two, two pair and four of a kind one. Second, hands that have all five cards fixed by their pattern (straights, full houses and straight flushes) have no kickers at all, so two of them either differ in their top cards or split the pot.

The one question that saves most arguments

When someone claims their kicker plays, ask: “Is that card one of your best five?” In Hold’em, the board often supplies four or five of each player’s best cards, which leaves hole cards unused. On a board of A♦ K♥ Q♣ J♠ 2♦, a player with A-9 and a player with A-8 both hold A-A-K-Q-J, and neither the 9 nor the 8 is part of their best five. They split. Counting to five before comparing prevents most showdown disputes.

Hand by Hand: What Each Hand Beats and What Beats It

This section takes each hand in turn: what it beats, what beats it, how two of them are compared, and what actually beats it most often. The “most often” figures come from our simulation of 4,000,000 heads-up Texas Hold’em deals, with both hands played to the river and no folding. They show, among the showdowns a hand lost outright, which hand beat it. Real games differ because players fold, but the pattern is a good guide to the dangers each hand faces.

Royal flush

Beats: every other hand. Loses to: nothing.

A royal flush (A-K-Q-J-10 of one suit) is simply the highest straight flush. The only way it doesn’t win outright is if two players share it, which in Hold’em means the royal flush is on the board and the pot is split among everyone still in the hand. That board comes once in 649,740 deals. You’ll finish with a royal flush about once in 30,940 Hold’em hands that reach the river.

Straight flush

Beats: four of a kind and everything below. Loses to: a royal flush or a higher straight flush.

Straight flushes are compared by their top card, like straights: a queen-high straight flush beats a jack-high one, and the lowest is 5-4-3-2-A of one suit, the “steel wheel.” For a straight flush to lose, another player needs a higher one in the same suit, which can only happen when the board holds at least three cards of that suit close enough together to make two different straight flushes. In our 4 million heads-up deals, a straight flush lost only 13 times.

Four of a kind

Beats: full houses and everything below. Loses to: straight flushes and higher four of a kind.

Four of a kind is compared by the rank of the four; four jacks beat four tens regardless of the fifth card. The fifth card, the kicker, only matters when both players have the same four of a kind, and in Hold’em that happens only when all four are on the board. That’s also how four of a kind usually loses: in our simulation, 99.6% of heads-up losses by four of a kind were to another four of a kind, and among showdowns where both players held four of a kind, 70% were decided by the kicker and 30% were split. On a board of 7♥ 7♣ 7♦ 7♠ 3♣, Q-5 beats J-4, and a player holding an ace would beat both.

Full house

Beats: flushes and everything below. Loses to: four of a kind, straight flushes and higher full houses.

Full houses are compared by their three of a kind first, then the pair: 6-6-6-2-2 beats 5-5-5-A-A because sixes beat fives, and the aces never come into it. There’s no kicker. When a full house lost heads-up in our simulation, it lost to a higher full house 76.6% of the time and to four of a kind 23.1% of the time. The classic Hold’em version is a paired board: on K♦ K♥ 6♣ 9♦ 3♠, a player holding K-6 has kings full of sixes, while a player holding 6-6 has sixes full of kings. Kings full wins, because the three of a kind is compared first.

Flush

Beats: straights and everything below. Loses to: full houses, four of a kind, straight flushes and higher flushes.

Flushes are compared card by card from the top: A-J-9-6-3 beats A-J-9-5-4 on the fourth card. When a flush lost heads-up, 86.4% of the time it was to a higher flush, 11.1% to a full house, 2.1% to a straight flush and 0.4% to four of a kind. That first figure is the key lesson: most flushes that lose are beaten by a flush with a higher card, which is why players talk about the “nut flush.” When two flushes met, the top card decided 29.6% of them, a lower card 55.8%, and 14.6% were split, because the flush was on the board and neither player could improve it.

Straight

Beats: three of a kind and everything below. Loses to: flushes, full houses, four of a kind, straight flushes and higher straights.

Straights are compared by the top card only. There are just ten of them, and the wheel (5-4-3-2-A) is the lowest. When a straight lost heads-up, it lost to a higher straight 52.1% of the time, to a flush 35.5%, to a full house 10.8%, and to a straight flush or four of a kind in the rest. When two straights meet, they’re more likely to split than any other common same-rank matchup: 62.3% of those showdowns were split, because the board so often supplies four or five cards of the straight to both players.

Three of a kind

Beats: two pair and everything below. Loses to: straights and every hand above them, and higher three of a kind.

Three of a kind is compared by the rank of the three, then two kickers. When it lost heads-up, the most common winner was a full house (40.4%), followed by a higher three of a kind or better kickers (35.8%), a straight (10.1%), a flush (8.2%) and four of a kind (5.3%). The full-house figure reflects how three of a kind is usually made in Hold’em: often with a pair on the board, which also gives other players a chance to fill up. When both players held three of a kind, almost all of those showdowns (82.5%) came down to kickers, because in most of them the three of a kind was on the board or shared.

Two pair

Beats: one pair and high card. Loses to: three of a kind and everything above, and higher two pair.

Two pair is compared by the higher pair, then the lower pair, then one kicker: K-K-Q-Q-2 beats K-K-J-J-A. When two pair lost heads-up, it lost to a better two pair 53.2% of the time, to three of a kind 15.6%, to a full house 14.4%, to a straight 9.3% and to a flush 7.1%. In Hold’em, one pair on the board means every player has at least that pair, so “two pair” is often just one real pair plus the board’s pair, and it loses to anyone with a higher one.

One pair

Beats: high card. Loses to: two pair and everything above, and higher pairs.

One pair is compared by the rank of the pair, then three kickers. It’s the most common hand at showdown and the hand that most often turns on a kicker overall: when both players had one pair, 45.1% of those showdowns were decided by the rank of the pair, 48.1% by a kicker and 6.8% were split. When one pair lost, the winner was two pair 39.6% of the time and a higher pair or better kicker 39.2%, with straights (7.4%), three of a kind (7.0%), flushes (4.4%) and full houses (2.3%) making up the rest.

High card

Beats: only a lower high-card hand. Loses to: any pair or better.

High-card hands are compared like flushes, card by card from the top: A-Q-8-6-2 beats A-Q-8-5-4. When a high-card hand lost heads-up, 57.8% of the time it lost to one pair, 19.3% to a better high-card hand, 11.0% to two pair and 6.6% to a straight. In Hold’em, a finished hand with no pair is weak: our simulation found it wins outright only about 16% of the time against one opponent who also plays to the river.

Win rates at a glance

Putting the hands side by side shows how quickly strength drops as you move down the ranking, and how much more it drops when more players reach the river:

Your final hand	Wins outright heads-up	Wins outright six-handed	When it loses heads-up, most often to
Straight flush (incl. royal)	94.6%	93.5%	A higher straight flush
Four of a kind	91.4%	86.3%	A higher four of a kind or kicker
Full house	87.0%	65.1%	A higher full house (76.6%)
Flush	85.1%	59.4%	A higher flush (86.4%)
Straight	80.6%	49.5%	A higher straight (52.1%)
Three of a kind	72.7%	46.4%	A full house (40.4%)
Two pair	64.3%	20.1%	A better two pair (53.2%)
One pair	40.8%	5.8%	Two pair (39.6%)
High card	15.8%	Almost never	One pair (57.8%)

TopSitesPoker.com simulation: 4,000,000 heads-up and 2,000,000 six-handed Hold’em deals, all hands dealt to the river with no folding. “Wins outright” excludes split pots. Straight flush and four of a kind figures rest on small samples and can vary by a point or two.

What Actually Beats What at Showdown

The ranking chart says a full house beats a flush. It doesn’t say how often a flush actually runs into a full house, or whether a flush that loses is more likely to lose to a bigger flush. For that you need showdown data. We dealt millions of Texas Hold’em hands to the river and recorded, every time a hand lost, what beat it. Heads-up, that’s the other player’s hand; six-handed, we compared the second-best hand at the table with the winner.

Losing hand	Heads-up: beaten by the same rank	Heads-up: most common higher rank	Six-handed: beaten by the same rank	Six-handed: most common higher rank
One pair	39.2%	Two pair, 39.6%	40.6%	Two pair, 34.9%
Two pair	53.2%	Three of a kind, 15.6%	39.3%	Three of a kind, 26.1%
Three of a kind	35.8%	Full house, 40.4%	16.7%	Straight, 32.7%
Straight	52.1%	Flush, 35.5%	48.1%	Flush, 34.3%
Flush	86.4%	Full house, 11.1%	81.2%	Full house, 15.8%
Full house	76.6%	Four of a kind, 23.1%	76.1%	Four of a kind, 23.5%

TopSitesPoker.com simulation: 4,000,000 heads-up and 2,000,000 six-handed Hold’em deals, every hand dealt to the river, split pots excluded. “Same rank” means a higher hand of the same type, or the same hand with better kickers.

 

Big hands mostly lose to a bigger version of themselves; three of a kind is the exception.

What the numbers say

• Big hands mostly lose to a bigger version of themselves. A losing flush was beaten by a higher flush more than four times in five, and a losing full house by a higher full house about three times in four. At the top of the ranking, “what beats what” is mostly a question of which flush or which full house.
• Three of a kind is the clear exception. Among made hands, it’s the only one whose most common conqueror, both heads-up and six-handed, is a different rank: a full house heads-up, and a straight six-handed. Three of a kind often comes with a paired board or a coordinated one, which gives other players full houses and straights.
• Straights live dangerously. A losing straight was beaten by a flush about a third of the time, both heads-up and six-handed. When three cards of one suit are on the board, a straight is often second-best.
• One pair loses to two pair about as often as to a higher pair. For the most common showdown hand, the danger is split roughly evenly between a bigger pair (or a better kicker) and any two pair: 39.2% and 39.6% heads-up.

These results assume nobody folds, so they include many weak hands that would never reach a real showdown. In real games, the hands that reach the river are stronger and more often close in rank, which likely makes same-rank comparisons even more common.

Same Rank, Different Winner: How Close Showdowns Are Decided

Many showdowns never test the ranking chart at all, because both players have the same kind of hand. In our heads-up simulation, 61.5% of showdowns were settled by rank alone. The other 38.5% were between two hands of the same rank, and were decided by the cards that make the hand, by a kicker or not at all. Here’s how that breaks down for each hand:

Both players hold	Share of all heads-up showdowns	Decided by the defining cards	Decided by a kicker	Split pot
High card	5.9%	34.4%	58.5%	7.1%
One pair	20.7%	45.1%	48.1%	6.8%
Two pair	8.8%	61.9%	24.2%	13.8%
Three of a kind	1.0%	0.8%	82.5%	16.7%
Straight	0.9%	37.7%	No kickers	62.3%
Flush	0.7%	29.6%	55.8%	14.6%
Full house	0.4%	56.1%	No kickers	43.9%

TopSitesPoker.com simulation of 4,000,000 heads-up Hold’em deals to the river. Defining cards: the pair, the two pairs, the three of a kind, the top card of a straight, flush or high-card hand, or both parts of a full house. Kicker: any other card. Four of a kind and straight flushes are left out because both players held them too rarely to measure reliably.

 

More than a third of heads-up showdowns are decided inside a single rank.

A few results are worth remembering:

• One pair against one pair is a kicker battle half the time. It’s by far the most common same-rank showdown, a fifth of all heads-up showdowns, and in 55% of them both players had the same pair: 48.1% were decided by a kicker and 6.8% split. That’s the Hold’em reality behind “top pair, top kicker”: when you and an opponent both pair the top card of the board, your other card decides the pot.
• Three of a kind is almost always decided by kickers. When both players had three of a kind, it was the same three of a kind 99% of the time, usually because it was on the board or both players shared a board pair. Kickers decided 82.5% of these showdowns, and almost all the rest were split.
• Straights and full houses split often. With no kickers, two straights either differ in their top card or split, and 62.3% split. Two full houses split 43.9% of the time, typically when the full house is on the board.
• Two flushes are rarely decided by the top card alone. Only 29.6% of flush-against-flush showdowns were decided by the highest card; most came down to the second, third, fourth or fifth card, because the top card is often the same board card for both players.

Six-handed, the rank’s own cards matter more

With six players, the best two hands at the table are more often different versions of the same rank, and less often the same hand with different kickers. Comparing the winner with the second-best hand in 2,000,000 six-handed deals, one pair against one pair was decided by the rank of the pair 76.6% of the time and by a kicker only 18.2%. Two flushes were decided by the top card 41.7% of the time and split only 0.8% of the time. The takeaway is the same at any table size: in a close showdown, compare the defining cards first, and don’t assume your kicker is relevant until you’ve checked whether the pairs or top cards are the same.

What Beats What on Five Real Boards

In Hold’em, the board decides which hands are possible, so the practical version of “what beats what” is always “what beats what on this board.” For each board below, we took every one of the 1,081 two-card holdings a player could have and sorted them by the hand they make. The columns run from the strongest hand type to the weakest, so every holding in a column beats every holding in the columns to its right.

Board	Straight flush or four of a kind	Full house	Flush	Straight	Three of a kind	Two pair	One pair	High card
Q♠ 10♥ 7♦ 4♣ 2♠	0	0	0	0	15	90	528	448
J♥ 10♥ 9♣ 5♥ 2♦	0	0	45	45	15	89	512	375
K♠ K♦ 8♣ 8♥ 3♠	2	179	0	0	0	900	0	0
A♣ 6♣ 6♦ 9♣ 4♥	1	27	45	0	72	396	540	0
7♦ 8♦ 9♦ 10♦ J♣	91	0	287	703	0	0	0	0

Each row counts all 1,081 possible two-card holdings on that board, sorted by the best five-card hand they make. Checked with a hand evaluator by TopSitesPoker.com.

 

Any two clubs make a flush, but 28 holdings beat every flush on this board.

Reading the five boards

• Q♠ 10♥ 7♦ 4♣ 2♠ (dry). No straight, flush or full house is possible. The best hand is three queens, and only 105 holdings (the 15 three of a kinds and 90 two pairs) make anything better than one pair. On a board like this, top pair with a good kicker is a strong hand.
• J♥ 10♥ 9♣ 5♥ 2♦ (wet). Three hearts and three connected cards make both flushes and straights possible. A set of jacks, the best three of a kind, is only the third-best type of hand here: 45 flushes and 45 straights beat it.
• K♠ K♦ 8♣ 8♥ 3♠ (double-paired). Every player has at least two pair, because the board has two pairs on its own. The real question is who has a king, an eight or pocket threes: those 179 holdings make a full house, and K-K or 8-8 make four of a kind. Among the 900 two-pair holdings, a pocket pair higher than eights improves one of the pairs; otherwise, the fifth card decides.
• A♣ 6♣ 6♦ 9♣ 4♥ (paired with three clubs). This is the board where “flush beats straight” is irrelevant and “full house beats flush” is everything. Any two clubs make a flush, but 28 holdings (27 full houses and the last two sixes for four of a kind) beat every flush.
• 7♦ 8♦ 9♦ 10♦ J♣ (straight on the board). Every player has at least a jack-high straight. Any single diamond makes a flush, and 91 holdings make a straight flush: every hand containing the J♦ or the 6♦. A player holding A-K of clubs, with two high cards, has exactly the board’s straight.

The general rule: before you judge your hand, find the best hand the board allows, then count how many categories sit above yours. A hand that’s “good” in the abstract, such as a set or a flush, can have two or three categories of hands above it on the wrong board.

Counting exactly what beats your hand

The board ladder becomes a decision tool once you remove your own two cards and count what’s left. On the river, with your hand and the board known, there are 990 two-card holdings an opponent could have. Here’s how four hands look when you count every one of them:

Your hand	Board	What you have	Holdings that beat you (of 990)	What they are
K♣ Q♣	A♣ 6♣ 6♦ 9♣ 4♥	The best possible flush	28 (2.8%)	27 full houses and four sixes
J♠ J♣	J♥ 10♥ 9♣ 5♥ 2♦	Top set	90 (9.1%)	45 flushes and 45 straights
A♠ Q♦	Q♠ 10♥ 7♦ 4♣ 2♠	Top pair, top kicker	100 (10.1%)	13 sets, 78 two pairs and pocket kings or aces (9); 6 more tie
A♥ K♦	K♠ K♣ 8♣ 8♥ 3♠	Kings full of eights	1 (0.1%)	Only 8♠ 8♦, for four eights; 44 holdings with the last king tie

Exact counts over every two-card holding an opponent could have, with your cards and the board removed. Checked with a hand evaluator by TopSitesPoker.com.

Two lessons come out of the counts. First, the best possible flush on a paired board is still beaten by 28 holdings, while top pair on a dry board is beaten by 100: the category matters less than what the board allows. Second, counts overstate the danger in real play, because opponents don’t hold random cards. A player who raised before the flop is more likely to hold pocket kings or aces; a player who called along with a draw is more likely to hold the flush. Counting tells you which hands to fear; your opponent’s actions tell you how likely each one is.

What Beats What Before the Flop

Many “what beats what” questions are really about starting hands: do pocket kings beat A-K, does A-K beat a pair of queens? Before the flop, nothing has been made yet, so no starting hand “beats” another in the ranking sense. What you can measure is equity: how often each hand wins if both players go all the way to the river. These figures were calculated exactly over all 1,712,304 possible boards for the suits shown, with split pots counted as half a win.

Matchup	First hand’s equity	Second hand’s equity	In words
A♥ A♦ vs K♠ K♣	81.3%	18.7%	The higher pair is about a 4-to-1 favorite
K♠ K♥ vs A♣ Q♦	71.6%	28.4%	A pair against one higher card is about 5 to 2
A♥ K♥ vs K♠ Q♠	71.4%	28.6%	A dominated hand, sharing the king, is about 5 to 2 behind
7♥ 7♦ vs A♠ K♠	52.1%	47.9%	A small pair against two suited overcards is a coin flip
Q♥ Q♦ vs A♠ K♠	53.8%	46.2%	Pocket queens are a slight favorite over A-K suited
J♥ J♣ vs A♠ K♦	57.3%	42.7%	A pair against A-K offsuit is about 57/43
A♥ K♦ vs J♠ 10♠	58.8%	41.2%	Two high cards against two suited, connected lower cards

Exact all-in equities for the specific suits shown; other suit combinations move the figures by a few points. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

So, before the flop: pocket kings are a big favorite over A-Q and about 70/30 against A-K (70.0% for K♥ K♦ against A♠ K♣); a pair is usually a small favorite over two higher cards; and A-K, the best unpaired hand, is an underdog to almost every pocket pair when both players go all-in. Against the smallest pair it’s a coin flip: A♠ K♠ has 50.1% equity against 2♥ 2♦. None of that contradicts the ranking chart, which only applies once five cards are complete. It’s the reason “what beats what” means two different things in poker: the fixed order of finished hands, and the changing odds of the hands that are still being made.

Coolers: When a Big Hand Meets a Bigger One

A “cooler” is a hand where a strong holding loses to an even stronger one, and there’s no realistic way to avoid losing a lot of chips: set over set, flush over flush, full house over full house. Coolers feel common because they’re memorable, so it’s worth knowing how often they really happen.

How often classic coolers happen

Situation	How often	Who usually wins
Two players hold different pocket pairs, and both flop a set or better	1.04% of flops	The higher set, unless the lower one improves
You flop a set, and one opponent holds a different pocket pair: they flopped a set too	8.5%	Whoever has the higher set
8♠ 8♥ against 5♣ 5♦: both finish with three of a kind or better	8.75% of boards	8-8 wins 6.8%, 5-5 wins 1.5%
A♥ 5♥ against K♥ Q♥: both finish with a flush or better	4.54% of boards	A-5 wins 4.0%, K-Q only 0.2%
9♠ 8♠ against J♦ 10♦: both finish with a straight or better	2.67% of boards	Close: J-10 1.2%, 9-8 1.0%
A♠ K♠ against Q♦ Q♣: both finish with a full house or better	1.0% of boards	A-K 0.8%, Q-Q 0.2%

Exact counts: flops over all 17,296 possible flops with both pairs removed; the set-over-set figure conditions on your set; the four matchups over all 1,712,304 possible boards, with “wins” as a share of all boards. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

The pattern is clear. When two players make the same kind of big hand, the one with the higher cards wins most of the time: the ace-high flush beats the king-high flush more than 20 times as often as the reverse. That’s why experienced players value holding the top card of a suit, and why “second-nut” hands are dangerous when a lot of money goes in.

The hand you usually have to beat

Coolers aside, what you need to beat depends on how many players reach the river. From our simulations of every hand dealt to the river with no folding:

Players at showdown	Winning hand is two pair or better	Winning hand is a straight or better	Second-best hand is a straight or better	Second-best hand is a full house or better
2	56.9%	18.3%	2.5%	0.5%
6	83.9%	39.4%	14.4%	3.1%
9	90.6%	49.4%	22.6%	5.1%

TopSitesPoker.com simulation: 4,000,000 heads-up, 2,000,000 six-handed and 1,000,000 nine-handed deals, all hands to the river. A hand that ties the winner counts as second-best.

The last two columns measure coolers at the table level: how often a strong hand finishes second. Heads-up, the second-best hand is a straight or better only 2.5% of the time. Nine-handed, with everyone seeing the river, it’s more than one deal in five. Real games have far fewer players at showdown, but the direction is the lesson: the more opponents who see the river, the more often a hand you’d normally consider a winner is only second-best or has to share the pot.

Comparing Three or More Hands at Once

With more than two players at showdown, the same comparison rules apply, just more times. Every player’s best five cards are ranked against every other player’s, the best hand wins, and exactly equal best hands split. The one extra rule to remember is that when someone is all-in, each pot is decided separately, among only the players who contributed to it.

Example. The board is K♠ 9♦ 9♣ 4♥ 2♠. Player A is all-in with 4♠ 4♣, and Players B and C built a side pot between them. Player B holds A♠ K♦ and Player C holds K♣ Q♦.

• Player A has fours full of nines (4-4-4-9-9), a full house.
• Player B has kings and nines with an ace kicker (K-K-9-9-A).
• Player C has kings and nines with a queen kicker (K-K-9-9-Q).

Player A’s full house beats both two pairs, so A wins the main pot. The side pot is contested only by B and C, and there B’s ace kicker beats C’s queen, so B wins the side pot. Notice that B, holding the second-best hand at the table, still collects a pot, and that the comparison between B and C comes down to a kicker even though a full house was in play. If a fourth player had held A♥ K♥, they would have tied B exactly (K-K-9-9-A) and split whatever pots both were eligible for; the suits of the ace and king don’t matter.

Two habits make multiway showdowns easy to follow. First, rank all the hands from best to worst before anyone touches the chips. Second, settle the side pots first, working from the last one created back to the main pot, comparing only the players eligible for each pot.

What Beats What in Omaha

Omaha uses exactly the same hand ranking as Hold’em. What changes is how often each hand shows up. Every player gets four hole cards and must use exactly two of them with exactly three board cards, which gives each player six two-card combinations to work with instead of one. More combinations mean bigger hands, so the hand that wins, and the hand that beats yours, is higher up the chart.

Winning hand, six players to the river	Texas Hold’em	Omaha
One pair or high card	16.1%	0.2%
Two pair	30.5%	10.3%
Three of a kind	13.9%	11.3%
Straight	16.6%	26.5%
Flush	10.8%	21.0%
Full house	10.9%	27.3%
Four of a kind or straight flush	1.1%	3.4%

TopSitesPoker.com simulation: 2,000,000 six-handed Hold’em deals and 600,000 six-handed Omaha deals, all hands dealt to the river with no folding. Columns may not add to exactly 100% because of rounding.

 

With four hole cards, Omaha showdowns are won by much bigger hands.

In a six-handed Hold’em showdown with no folding, the winner most often has two pair. In Omaha, it most often has a full house, closely followed by a straight, and one pair almost never wins. The same shift shows up in what beats a hand when it loses. In Omaha, when the second-best hand at the table was a flush, it lost to a higher flush 60.5% of the time and to a full house 35.4%, compared with 81.2% and 15.8% in Hold’em. When it was a straight, it lost to a higher straight 36.8%, a flush 34.8% and a full house 26.1%.

Three Omaha comparisons that trip up Hold’em players

• The board doesn’t play for you. On a board of A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 2♣, a Hold’em player with any heart has a flush. In Omaha, you need two hearts in your hand; a single heart gives you no flush, even the 10♥.
• A single card doesn’t fill up a full house. On a board of 9-9-9-K-2, any Hold’em player holding a king or a two has a full house. In Omaha, you must use exactly two hole cards and three board cards, so a single king isn’t enough: you need a pocket pair for a full house, or the last nine for four of a kind.
• Holding four cards of a suit doesn’t help. Only two of them can play, and the other two reduce the cards left for you to catch.

The practical lesson: in Omaha, “what beats what” moves up the chart. A hand that’s usually good in Hold’em, such as a small flush or a straight when the board is paired, is often beaten in a multiway Omaha pot.

What Beats What in Short Deck

Short Deck Hold’em, also called 6+ Hold’em, removes the 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s, leaving 36 cards. The game keeps the principle that rarer hands rank higher, and with fewer ranks, and so fewer cards in each suit, the rarities change. That’s why it’s the one popular high-hand game where the order itself is different:

Hand	Five-card hands, 52-card deck	Five-card hands, 36-card Short Deck
Straight flush (incl. royal)	40	24
Four of a kind	624	288
Flush	5,108	480
Full house	3,744	1,728
Straight	10,200	6,120
Three of a kind	54,912	16,128
Two pair	123,552	36,288
One pair	1,098,240	193,536
High card	1,302,540	122,400
Total	2,598,960	376,992

Exact counts over every five-card hand. In Short Deck, A-6-7-8-9 counts as a straight, with the ace playing low. Calculated by TopSitesPoker.com.

With only nine cards per suit, flushes become rare: 480 five-card flushes against 1,728 full houses. So in Short Deck, a flush beats a full house. Apart from the straight-versus-three-of-a-kind question below, the rest of the order is unchanged, and the lowest straight is A-6-7-8-9, because the ace can play below the 6.

Straight or three of a kind?

One comparison in Short Deck depends on the room. By five-card counts, straights (6,120) are rarer than three of a kinds (16,128), which supports ranking a straight above three of a kind, as in standard poker. But Short Deck is played like Hold’em, with seven cards, and with seven cards the picture flips. In our simulation of 1,500,000 seven-card Short Deck hands, players finished with a straight 14.0% of the time and three of a kind only 7.3%. Because straights come so often, some Short Deck games rank three of a kind above a straight, while others, including the Triton series, keep the straight on top. Both versions are in use, so always check the house rules before you play.

The same simulation shows how different the game feels. With seven cards from 36, a flush was the best hand only 2.1% of the time, against 7.6% for a full house, and high card fell to 2.8%. In Short Deck, big hands are common, and the comparisons that decide pots are more often straights against straights and full houses against full houses.

What Beats What in Lowball and Hi-Lo Games

In lowball games, the lowest hand wins, so the usual comparisons are reversed. There are two main systems, and they disagree on aces, straights and flushes:

Comparison	Ace-to-five low (Razz, the low half of Omaha Hi-Lo and Stud Hi-Lo)	Deuce-to-seven low (2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw)
Best possible hand	5-4-3-2-A (the wheel)	7-5-4-3-2, not all one suit
Aces	Always low	Always high
Straights and flushes	Ignored: 5-4-3-2-A is a perfect low	Count as high hands, so they’re bad lows
7-5-3-2-A vs 7-6-3-2-A	7-5 wins (second card is lower)	Both are weak ace-high hands; A-7-5-3-2 still beats A-7-6-3-2
8-6-4-3-2 vs 8-5-4-3-2	8-5 wins	8-5 wins
6-5-4-3-2 vs 8-6-4-3-2	6-5 wins	8-6 wins, because 6-5-4-3-2 is a straight
A pair vs no pair	No pair wins	No pair wins

Low hands are compared from the highest card down, and the lower card wins at the first difference. They’re named by their top one or two cards: an “8-6” low loses to an “8-5,” and a “7 low” beats any “8 low.”

Hi-lo: two comparisons in one pot

In high-low split games such as Omaha Hi-Lo and Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, the pot is divided between the best high hand and the best qualifying low hand. A low qualifies only if it has five different ranks of 8 or lower. So every showdown is really two comparisons: the standard ranking decides the high half, and the ace-to-five ranking decides the low half. The same five cards can do both: A-2-3-4-5 is a straight for high and the best possible low, which is why it’s so valuable. If no hand qualifies for low, the high hand wins the whole pot. And when two players tie for one half, that half is split again, which is how a player can win a quarter of the pot and still lose money.

What Beats What in Seven Card Stud and Draw Games

Stud and draw games use the standard ranking, but because players don’t share community cards, comparisons work differently in practice. In Seven Card Stud, each player makes the best five-card hand from seven cards of their own. Nobody can “play the board,” so two players almost never have identical hands. In our simulation of 1,000,000 heads-up Seven Card Stud showdowns, with both players dealt all seven cards, only 0.025% of pots were split, compared with 4.1% in heads-up Hold’em. Both players held the same rank in 28.7% of stud showdowns, against 38.5% in Hold’em.

The winning hands look similar to Hold’em heads-up: one pair won 34.6% of stud showdowns and two pair 34.1%, followed by straights (8.5%), three of a kind (8.4%), flushes (5.8%) and full houses (5.1%). The difference is in how you read them. In stud, four of each player’s seven cards are dealt face up, so you can often rule hands in or out: an opponent showing four cards of different suits can’t have a flush, and an opponent with no pair showing needs hidden cards to make one.

In Five Card Draw, you see none of your opponents’ cards, but you do see how many they draw. A player who draws one card is often drawing to a straight or flush, or holding two pair; a player who draws three usually started with a pair. That’s the draw-game version of reading what beats you: not the board, but the draw.

What Beats What With Wild Cards

Casino and cardroom poker almost never uses wild cards (the main exception is the joker, or “bug,” in some California-style draw games), but many home games do, with jokers, “deuces wild” or a card named by the dealer. Wild cards add one hand that doesn’t exist in standard poker and raise a few questions the standard ranking doesn’t answer:

• Five of a kind. With a wild card, a player can hold five cards of the same rank, such as four queens and a joker. Most home-game rules rank five of a kind as the highest hand, above a royal flush, because with a single joker it’s the hardest to make. Some groups rank the royal flush higher. Agree before the first deal.
• Natural vs wild hands. Some games say a “natural” hand, made without wild cards, beats the same hand made with one. Others treat them as equal. Neither rule is standard, so it needs agreeing too.
• What a wild card can be. Usually any card the holder chooses (house rules differ on whether it can duplicate a card already in the hand), so a joker with A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ can become a second ace for a pair, or the 10♠ for a royal flush. The holder chooses whatever makes the best hand.
• “The bug.” In some games, especially draw poker with a joker, the joker can only be used as an ace or to complete a straight or flush. It’s a limited wild card, and it can’t make five of a kind except five aces.

Wild cards also change the rarity that the standard ranking is built on. Every extra wild card makes three of a kind, straights and full houses more common, and with enough wild cards three of a kind even becomes more common than two pair, yet most games keep the standard order and simply add five of a kind. The safest approach for a home game is to write the ranking down, including where five of a kind sits, before anyone looks at their cards.

Test Yourself: 20 Hand Comparisons

Decide the winner before you read the answer. The first ten compare two five-card hands directly; the second ten are Texas Hold’em showdowns where you have to build each player’s best five cards first. Every answer was checked with a hand evaluator.

Part 1: five-card hands

#	Hand A	Hand B	Winner	Why
1	6-6-6-2-2	5-5-5-A-A	A	Full houses are compared by the three of a kind first
2	A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 9♥	10-9-8-7-6 (mixed suits)	A	Any flush beats any straight
3	6-5-4-3-2 (mixed suits)	A-A-A-K-Q	A	Any straight beats any three of a kind
4	K-K-Q-Q-2	K-K-J-J-A	A	The second pair decides before the kicker
5	9-9-4-4-K	9-9-4-4-Q	A	Identical two pair: the kicker decides
6	Q-Q-7-5-3	Q-Q-7-5-2	A	The third kicker decides
7	5-4-3-2-A (mixed suits)	6-5-4-3-2 (mixed suits)	B	The wheel is the lowest straight
8	8♠ 7♠ 6♠ 5♠ 4♠	A-A-A-A-K	A	A straight flush beats four of a kind
9	J-J-J-J-3	10-10-10-10-A	A	Four of a kind is ranked by the four, not the kicker
10	K♦ J♦ 9♦ 6♦ 2♦	K♣ J♣ 9♣ 6♣ 3♣	B	Flushes are compared down to the fifth card

Part 2: Hold’em showdowns

#	Board	Player A	Player B	Winner	Why
11	9♣ 9♦ 4♠ 4♥ K♣	A♠ 2♦	Q♠ Q♦	B	Q-Q-9-9-K beats 9-9-4-4-A: the higher pair decides first
12	A♥ K♥ 8♥ 8♣ 3♦	8♦ 3♠	Q♥ 2♥	A	Eights full of threes beats an ace-high flush
13	10♠ 9♠ 8♦ 2♣ 2♥	J♣ 7♣	Q♠ J♠	B	Queen-high straight beats jack-high straight
14	5♣ 6♦ 7♥ 8♠ K♣	4♦ 4♠	9♥ 2♣	B	Nine-high straight beats eight-high straight
15	Q♣ Q♦ Q♥ 7♠ 7♣	A♣ K♦	7♦ 2♠	Split	Both play the board’s queens full of sevens; B’s sevens full of queens is lower
16	J♥ J♠ 6♣ 6♦ 2♠	A♦ 3♣	K♣ Q♣	A	Both have jacks and sixes; the ace kicker beats the king
17	4♥ 5♥ 6♥ 9♣ 10♦	A♥ 2♥	8♥ 7♣	A	A-2 makes an ace-high flush; 8-7 makes a straight
18	A♠ A♦ 7♣ 7♦ 7♥	K♠ Q♠	A♣ 2♣	B	Aces full of sevens beats the board’s sevens full of aces
19	K♣ 10♣ 7♣ 4♦ 2♥	A♣ 3♥	9♣ 8♣	B	One club with three on the board is only four to a flush; 9-8 of clubs makes the flush
20	3♠ 3♦ 3♥ 3♣ 9♠	K♥ 2♦	Q♣ Q♥	A	Both have four threes; the king kicker beats the queens

Numbers 11, 15 and 18 are the ones most players get wrong. In 11, Player A’s ace looks strong, but two pair is compared by the higher pair first, and pocket queens make a higher top pair than the board’s nines. In 15, the sevens in Player B’s hand make a full house, but a lower one than the board already shows. In 18, the board gives Player A sevens full of aces, while Player B’s ace makes aces full of sevens, which is higher because the three of a kind is compared first.

The Most Common Comparison Mistakes

When players misjudge who won, it’s almost always one of the mistakes below. Each one comes from skipping a step of the three-step comparison.

Mistake	Example	What’s actually true
Comparing card sizes before ranks	“My aces beat your twos” when the twos are two pair	Rank first: any two pair beats a pair of aces
Letting a sixth card play	A-9 vs A-8 on A-K-Q-J-2	Only five cards count: both play A-A-K-Q-J and split
Comparing kickers before the second pair	K-K-J-J-A vs K-K-Q-Q-2	The second pair decides: kings and queens win
Ranking full houses by the pair	5-5-5-A-A vs 6-6-6-2-2	The three of a kind decides: sixes full win
Treating the wheel as ace-high	5-4-3-2-A vs 6-5-4-3-2	The wheel is the lowest straight; 6-high wins
Counting a flush with one suited card	A♣ on a board with three clubs	Four cards of a suit aren’t a flush; you need five
Ignoring a paired board	Ace-high flush on a board with a pair	Full houses and four of a kind are possible and beat any flush
Using suits as a tie-breaker	Spade flush vs heart flush with the same ranks	Identical ranks split the pot
Assuming a “bigger” full house when the board already beats it	7-2 on Q-Q-Q-7-7	Sevens full of queens is lower than the board’s queens full; the board plays
Assuming a board flush can’t be improved	Five hearts on the board	Anyone with a higher heart than the board’s lowest has a better flush
Using Hold’em logic in Omaha	One heart on a four-heart board	Omaha needs exactly two hole cards: no flush
Using standard rankings in Short Deck	Full house vs flush	In Short Deck, the flush wins

The fix for almost all of these is to write out, or say out loud, each player’s exact five cards before comparing. It takes a few seconds, and it’s what dealers do in every close showdown.

A Printable What-Beats-What Chart

Frequently Asked Questions

What beats what in poker, in order?

From highest to lowest: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. Each hand beats every hand below it.

Does a flush beat a straight?

Yes. Any flush beats any straight, even the lowest flush (7-5-4-3-2 of one suit) against the highest straight (A-K-Q-J-10). Flushes are rarer: 5,108 five-card flushes against 10,200 straights.

Does a full house beat a flush?

Yes, in every standard game. The lowest full house (2-2-2-3-3) beats the best flush. The one common exception is Short Deck, where the flush ranks higher because there are fewer cards of each suit.

Does a straight beat three of a kind?

Yes. Even the lowest straight, 5-4-3-2-A, beats three aces. Some Short Deck games are the exception and rank three of a kind above a straight, so check the rules in that game.

Does three of a kind beat two pair?

Yes. Three twos beat aces and kings. Three of a kind is compared by the rank of the three, then by two kickers.

What beats four of a kind?

Only a straight flush, including a royal flush, or a higher four of a kind. When two players share the same four of a kind on the board, the higher fifth card wins.

What beats a full house?

Four of a kind, a straight flush or a higher full house. Full houses are compared by the three of a kind first: aces full of twos beats kings full of queens.

Which is higher, two pair or a pair of aces?

Two pair. Any two pair, even threes and twos, beats any one pair, including aces.

What happens when two players have the same hand?

Compare the defining cards (the pair, three of a kind or top card), then the kickers in order. If all five cards are equal in rank, the pot is split equally. Suits never break a tie.

Does the kicker matter in a full house or a straight?

No. Straights, full houses and straight flushes use all five cards in their pattern, so there’s no kicker. Flushes are compared card by card, all five of them. Two straights with the same top card split; two full houses with the same three of a kind are compared by the pair, and split if that’s the same too.

Can two players both have a royal flush?

Only if the royal flush is on the board, in which case everyone still in the hand plays it and the pot is split. In Hold’em, two players can’t make royal flushes in different suits: each would need at least three board cards of its own suit, and a five-card board can’t hold three cards of two different suits.

Is an ace high or low?

Both, in straights: A-K-Q-J-10 is the highest straight and 5-4-3-2-A the lowest. Everywhere else in high-hand poker, the ace is the highest card. In ace-to-five lowball, it’s always low.

Does what beats what change in Omaha?

The ranking is identical, but because you must use exactly two of your four hole cards, bigger hands are more common. In our six-handed simulation with every hand dealt to the river, the winning Omaha hand was most often a full house or a straight, while in Hold’em it was most often two pair.

Does a pair beat A-K?

At showdown, yes. A-K with no pair is only an ace-high hand, and any pair beats it. Before the flop, A-K is a strong starting hand and a slight underdog to most pocket pairs if all the chips go in: pocket eights have about 55.6% equity against A-K offsuit, for example, in our exact calculation over every possible board.

Does a higher straight beat a flush?

No. Every flush beats every straight, however high the straight. Broadway (A-K-Q-J-10) loses to the lowest possible flush.

What beats two pair?

Three of a kind or any hand above it, and a higher two pair. Two pair is compared by the higher pair first, then the lower pair, then the fifth card: aces and twos beat kings and queens.

What beats a straight flush?

Only a higher straight flush, including the royal flush. Straight flushes are compared by their top card, so a king-high straight flush loses only to a royal flush.

What’s the most common hand that wins in Hold’em?

It depends on how many players see the river. Heads-up, with both hands dealt to the river, one pair wins most often (37% of showdowns), followed by two pair (31%). With six players, two pair wins most often (31%), and straights, three of a kinds, flushes and full houses each win between 10% and 17% of the time.

What Beats What: Quick-Reference Summary

Question	Answer
The full order	Royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card
How to compare	Best five cards each; higher rank wins; same rank: defining cards, then kickers; all equal: split
Flush vs straight	Flush wins
Full house vs flush	Full house wins (flush wins in Short Deck)
Straight vs three of a kind	Straight wins (some Short Deck games reverse it)
Two pair vs a pair of aces	Two pair wins
Two full houses	Higher three of a kind wins, then the higher pair
Two flushes	Compare every card from the top
Two straights	Higher top card wins; the wheel is the lowest
Suits	Never break a tie
What usually beats a losing flush	A higher flush (86% heads-up)
What usually beats a losing three of a kind	A full house heads-up (40%), a straight six-handed (33%)
Showdowns between hands of the same rank	About 38% heads-up, including splits
Omaha	Same ranking; exactly two hole cards and three board cards; bigger hands win

About This Guide

This guide uses the standard poker hand rankings used in casinos, cardrooms and online, with the differences for Short Deck, lowball and hi-lo games noted where they apply. House rules on Short Deck rankings vary, and the rules of the room or site where you play always apply.

Every figure was produced by the TopSitesPoker.com editorial team rather than copied from other sources:

• Exact counts: five-card and seven-card hand frequencies over all 2,598,960 and 133,784,560 combinations; distinct hand strengths (7,462); the five board ladders over all 1,081 holdings per board; Short Deck five-card counts over all 376,992 hands; and the cooler probabilities over every possible flop or board.
• Simulations: the showdown statistics come from 4,000,000 heads-up, 2,000,000 six-handed and 1,000,000 nine-handed Hold’em deals, 600,000 six-handed Omaha deals, 1,000,000 heads-up Seven Card Stud deals and 1,500,000 seven-card Short Deck hands, with every hand dealt to the river and no folding. Real games include folding, so treat these as a guide to how hands collide, not as win rates for real play.
• Evaluator checks: every example and quiz answer was verified with a hand evaluator.

The Bottom Line

What beats what in poker is fixed and short: ten hands, each beating everything below it, with ties broken by the cards that make the hand and then the kickers. A flush beats a straight, a full house beats a flush, three of a kind beats two pair, and suits never matter. That’s the part you can learn in minutes.

The part that wins money is knowing how hands actually collide. Most big hands that lose are beaten by a bigger version of themselves, so the top card of a flush or the rank of a full house matters as much as the hand type. Three of a kind is the exception, most often losing to full houses and straights. And the board decides which of the ten hands are possible in the first place. Build the best five cards, compare the ranks, then compare the cards in order, and check what the board allows before you put your chips in.