Poker Hand Rankings
From best to worst, here are the ten hand rankings you will use at any Texas Hold'Em table. Every rank below is shown with the real cards from a hand that actually happened — not an invented example. The story attaches to those five cards; it is one famous example of the rank, not another name for it.
Royal Flush
Famous hand: Moneymaker's Second Miracle
Chris Moneymaker rivered a royal flush, ace to ten, all clubs, to bust Jason Mercier's pocket kings at the 2010 North American Poker Tour stop at the Venetian — seven years after the bluff that made him famous. It is the rarest hand in poker, caught on camera, by the same player twice in one career.
Ten to ace, all one suit. The best hand in the game, and the only one nothing beats.
Ties and kickers
Nothing breaks this tie. Two royal flushes split the pot — and on a shared board, that is the only way it happens.
Common mistake
Waiting for one. It is the rarest hand in poker — play what you are dealt, not what you are hoping for.
Straight Flush
Famous hand: Bond's Winning Hand
James Bond's four-to-eight straight flush is the hand that actually beats Le Chiffre's aces full in Casino Royale's climactic pot — the one hand at the table nobody saw coming. It is the rarest hand in the game, and the film built its entire final act around it landing at exactly the right moment.
Five cards in a row, all the same suit. Only a royal flush beats it.
Ties and kickers
The higher top card wins. Nine-high beats eight-high.
Common mistake
Reading the run and forgetting the suit. Five in a row across mixed suits is only a straight, and a straight loses to any flush.
Four of a Kind
Famous hand: Hansen's Turn
Gus Hansen turned quad fives against Daniel Negreanu's own full house, made on the very same card, on a High Stakes Poker cash game table — and neither player had any reason to slow down. The pot ran to 575,700 dollars — one of the biggest ever shown on television — decided the moment the fourth five hit the felt.
All four cards of one rank, plus your best remaining card.
Ties and kickers
Higher quads win. If the board itself holds all four, the fifth card — the kicker — decides it.
Common mistake
Slow-playing it into silence. Quads are strong enough that nobody stays in the hand unless you give them a reason to.
Full House
Famous hand: Le Chiffre's Aces Full
In Casino Royale's final poker hand, Le Chiffre goes all in with aces full of sixes — a hand that would win almost any pot in the world. It loses anyway: James Bond is sitting across the table with a straight flush, and a hundred and fifteen million dollars change hands on the turn of one card.
Three of one rank and two of another — trips and a pair in the same hand.
Ties and kickers
The three-card rank decides it first. Only if those match does the pair matter.
Common mistake
Assuming the bigger pair wins. Tens full of fours beats fours full of aces, every time.
Flush
Famous hand: The Eleven Million Dollar Cooler
Alex Foxen's ace-high flush ran straight into Ossi Ketola's full house at Triton Poker's Jeju Super High Roller Series in 2025, in the biggest pot ever recorded on camera. Five cards of one suit is normally an unbeatable hand — Foxen just had the bad luck to hold it on the one board where it wasn't.
Five cards of one suit, in any order.
Ties and kickers
Highest card wins, then the next, and so on down. Suits never break the tie — every suit ranks the same.
Common mistake
Chasing a low one. If four of a suit are already on the board, everyone still in the hand has the flush too, and your low card beats nobody.
Straight
Famous hand: Chan's Trap
Johnny Chan slow-played jack-nine into the nut straight against Erik Seidel at the final table of the 1988 World Series of Poker Main Event, checking behind until Seidel moved all in on the river. Chan's calm call won him his second world championship in a row — and the hand is the one Rounders replays, real footage and all, in its closing scene.
Five cards in a row, suits ignored. The ace runs high or low — ace to five counts, and so does ten to ace.
Ties and kickers
The higher top card wins. If both runs end on the same card, the pot is split.
Common mistake
Counting the ace both ways at once. Queen, king, ace, two, three is not a straight — the run has to stop at the ace.
Three of a Kind
Famous hand: The Set That Got Bluffed Off
On a High Stakes Poker cash game table, Sam Eastgate flopped a set of deuces against Tom Dwan — three of a kind, one of the strongest flops there is — and still found a fold on the turn. Dwan's barrage of bets never needed to show a card, and it is one of the most replayed bluffs in the show's history.
Three cards of one rank, plus your two best remaining cards.
Ties and kickers
Higher trips win. When the board supplies all three, both kickers decide it.
Common mistake
Playing it like a finished hand on a coordinated board. Trips lose to straights and flushes, and both are easy to miss.
Two Pair
Famous hand: The Dead Man's Hand
Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back of the head at a card table in Deadwood on 2 August 1876, and legend has it he was holding aces and eights — two pair, nothing more — when he fell. Nobody agrees on the fifth card; some say a queen of hearts, some a queen of clubs, some none at all. The legend did not take hold until decades later, and it has outlived every other hand in poker since.
Two cards of one rank, two of another, and one card spare.
Ties and kickers
The higher pair decides it, then the lower pair, then the last card.
Common mistake
Over-trusting the bottom two. When both your pairs sit on the board, everyone has them, and the fifth card is the whole hand.
Pair
Famous hand: The Biggest Pair in History
Jamie Gold's queen-nine turned into a plain pair of queens on the final board of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, and it held. Paul Wasicka's pocket tens never caught up, and Gold took home 12 million dollars — still the largest first prize the Main Event has ever paid, for a single pair of queens.
Two cards of the same rank, plus your three best remaining cards.
Ties and kickers
The higher pair wins. Matching pairs go to the kickers, one at a time.
Common mistake
Ignoring the kicker. Ace-four and ace-king both make a pair of aces — and the king wins it.
High Card
Famous hand: Moneymaker's Bluff
Chris Moneymaker turned an eighty-six-dollar satellite seat into the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event, then bluffed the game's best player, Sammy Farha, off a real pair while holding nothing but king-high. Farha folded, Moneymaker won the whole tournament three hands later, and the poker boom that followed is still named after him.
No pair, no run, no matching suits. Your five highest cards, and nothing else.
Ties and kickers
Highest card first, then straight down the line until one hand is higher.
Common mistake
Treating an ace as a hand. An ace with nothing attached still loses to the smallest pair on the table.