♠♥ HomePoker.games
Free · No sign-up
The chart every table needs

Poker hand rankings

The best five-card hands, strongest to weakest — plus three- and four-card hands for the short-hand games, how ties break, how wild cards fit in, and how low hands are read in the lowball and split-pot games on this site.

High hands — best to worst

A poker hand is always your best five cards. When two players hold the same category, the higher cards inside it win; if the hands are truly identical, they split the pot. Suits never break a tie.

  1. Royal Flush
    A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠
    A straight flush to the ace — the top hand in poker. It can't be beaten, only tied.
  2. Straight Flush
    9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥
    Five cards in sequence, all one suit. The highest top card wins between two of them.
  3. Four of a Kind
    Q Q Q Q 7
    All four of one rank. The fifth card (the "kicker") breaks a tie between equal quads.
  4. Full House
    K K K 4 4
    Three of a kind plus a pair. The trips decide first, then the pair. "Kings full of fours."
  5. Flush
    A♦ J♦ 8♦ 6♦ 3♦
    Five cards of one suit, not in sequence. Compare the highest card, then the next, and so on.
  6. Straight
    10 9 8 7 6
    Five cards in sequence, mixed suits. The ace plays high (A-K-Q-J-10) or low (5-4-3-2-A).
  7. Three of a Kind
    8 8 8 K 4
    Three of one rank plus two unrelated cards. Higher trips win; kickers break exact ties.
  8. Two Pair
    J J 5 5 9
    Two different pairs plus a fifth card. Highest pair first, then the second pair, then the kicker.
  9. One Pair
    10 10 A 7 3
    Two cards of one rank. The pair decides first; the three remaining kickers break ties in order.
  10. High Card
    A Q 9 6 2
    No pair, no better — the hand is named for its highest card, "ace high." Compare down the line.

Three-card hands

Some games are decided by a hand of just three cards — the two- and three-card hands in Guts, and the bottom row of a Pyramid. With fewer cards the odds shift, so the order isn't the same as five-card poker: a straight is harder to make than a flush here, so it ranks higher, and any hand that needs more than three cards — a full house, four of a kind, or two pair — simply can't happen.

  1. Straight Flush
    9♣ 8♣ 7♣
    Three suited cards in sequence — the best three-card hand there is. The lowest is A-2-3 (the "wheel"); the highest is A-K-Q.
  2. Three of a Kind
    Q Q Q
    All three the same rank. Rarer than a straight with only three cards, so it ranks above one.
  3. Straight
    J 10 9
    Three cards in sequence, mixed suits. Beats a flush here — the reverse of five-card poker.
  4. Flush
    K♦ 8♦ 4♦
    Three cards of one suit, not in sequence. Compare the highest card down.
  5. Pair
    7 7 A
    Two cards of one rank plus a third. The odd card breaks a tie between equal pairs.
  6. High Card
    A K 9
    No pair, no better — named for the highest card. Compare down the line.

Four-card hands

A few games are decided by a four-card hand. These are ranked strictly by the odds — the rarer a hand is to be dealt, the higher it beats — so the order isn't the same as five-card poker. Two headline changes: four of a kind is the top hand (rarer even than a straight flush), and a full house is impossible (it needs a fifth card). The odds also put a straight above two pair above a flush — all three within a whisker of each other. The counts below are out of every one of the 270,725 possible four-card hands.

  1. Four of a Kind
    8 8 8 8
    All four of one rank. Just 13 possible — the rarest four-card hand, so it tops the chart ahead of a straight flush.
  2. Straight Flush
    7♥ 6♥ 5♥ 4♥
    Four suited cards in sequence. 44 possible; the higher top card wins between two.
  3. Three of a Kind
    K K K 5
    Three of one rank plus an odd card, which breaks ties. 2,496 possible.
  4. Straight
    10 9 8 7
    Four in sequence, mixed suits. 2,772 possible — by the odds it edges out both two pair and a flush.
  5. Two Pair
    Q Q 5 5
    Two different pairs; the higher pair decides first. 2,808 possible — rarer than a flush with only four cards.
  6. Flush
    A♠ J♠ 6♠ 3♠
    Four cards of one suit, not in sequence. 2,816 possible — the most common of the three near-ties, so it sits just below them.
  7. One Pair
    9 9 A 4
    Two cards of one rank plus two odd cards, which break ties in order. 82,368 possible.
  8. High Card
    A Q 8 3
    No pair, no better — named for the highest card. 177,408 possible, by far the most common, so the weakest.

Reading low hands

Some games on this site are played for the lowest hand — Lowe-Mac Raz, and the low half of split-pot games like 7-27 and ThreeFour War. Most use the standard ace-to-five ("California") low:

🅰️The ace plays low. It counts as a 1, the smallest card there is.
🚫Straights and flushes don't count against you. They're ignored entirely when reading a low hand.
🎯The best low is 5-4-3-2-A — the "wheel." Read a low hand from its highest card down; the lowest high card wins. Pairs count against you.

Wild cards & ties

🃏A wild card is any card you need. In wild-card games (Baseball, Follow the Queen, Lucky Sevens and friends) a wild becomes whatever rank and suit completes your best hand — which makes five of a kind possible, ranking just above a straight flush.
⚖️Kickers settle close calls. When two hands share the same made category, the unused cards are compared in order from highest to lowest until one is bigger.
🤝A true tie splits the pot. If both hands are identical across all five cards, the pot is divided evenly — suit never breaks the tie.

Want to see all of this in motion? Pick any game on the Browse Games grid and step through its four-player example hand.