In Texas Hold’em, the ten hand categories rank from royal flush at the top down to high card at the bottom. This poker hands chart puts every one of them in order with example cards and the odds of finishing with each hand, and you can read it on this page, save the image, or print the PDF for the next home game where somebody asks whether a flush beats a straight. The full probability table carries the exact numbers for both five-card deals and seven-card rivers. Under the chart, the page does what a printout cannot: the tie-breaks, three showdowns settled card by card, and the spots where the order on paper trips up a beginner at a real table. One rule holds the whole way down: suits never break ties; card ranks do all the deciding.
Get the chart: print it or save it
The PDF prints on a single sheet in black and white or color, which is the version to keep near a home game. The PNG is the one to save on your phone. Both carry the same ten rows as the table below, so nothing on paper disagrees with anything on the page. If you want a wider one-pager that also covers pot odds and preflop basics, take the poker cheat sheet instead. And if you would rather be taught the order than handed it, the poker hand rankings hub walks through it hand by hand.
The poker hand rankings chart
| # | Hand | What it is | Example | Probability | About one in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal flush | A-K-Q-J-10, all the same suit | A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠ | 0.0032% | 30,940 |
| 2 | Straight flush | Five consecutive cards, same suit | 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ | 0.028% | 3,591 |
| 3 | Four of a kind | Four cards of one rank, plus a kicker | 7♣ 7♦ 7♥ 7♠ K♥ | 0.17% | 595 |
| 4 | Full house | Three of a kind plus a pair | Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ 8♣ 8♠ | 2.6% | 38.5 |
| 5 | Flush | Five cards of one suit, not in sequence | A♣ J♣ 7♣ 6♣ 2♣ | 3.0% | 33 |
| 6 | Straight | Five consecutive cards, mixed suits | 8♦ 7♠ 6♥ 5♣ 4♦ | 4.6% | 21.6 |
| 7 | Three of a kind | Three cards of one rank, two unrelated | 9♥ 9♦ 9♣ Q♠ 4♥ | 4.8% | 20.7 |
| 8 | Two pair | Two of one rank, two of another, plus a kicker | J♦ J♣ 4♥ 4♠ A♣ | 23.5% | 4.3 |
| 9 | One pair | Two cards of one rank, three unrelated | 10♠ 10♣ K♥ 7♦ 3♠ | 43.8% | 2.3 |
| 10 | High card | No pair, no straight, no flush | A♥ Q♣ 9♦ 6♠ 3♣ | 17.4% | 5.7 |
The chart is the ranking, full stop. Anything higher beats anything lower at showdown. A pair of aces, the strongest one-pair hand in the deck, loses to the weakest two-pair hand. A flush always beats a straight, even when the flush is two-three-four-six-eight of clubs and the straight is jack-high. The categories are a hierarchy, and inside each category there are tie-break rules that decide who wins when both players land in the same row.
Jump to a section
- How to read the probabilities
- How tie-breaks work at showdown
- Three showdowns, decided card by card
- Where the chart lies to you
- A live-play pattern you can run in two seconds
- Where this fits in your decision
- Common questions about the poker hands chart
How to read the probabilities
The percentages are the chance that a random seven-card deal (your two hole cards plus the five community cards) finishes with that hand category at the top. They sum to almost exactly 100% because every seven-card deal lands somewhere on the chart. They are not the rate at which a hand wins pots, because most high-card and weak-pair hands get folded before showdown. Treat the column as a rough rarity gauge, not a winning-frequency table.
How tie-breaks work at showdown
When two players land in the same hand category, the tie is broken card by card from the top down. Suits never break ties: a flush in spades and a flush in clubs of the same five ranks would split. A sixth card never breaks ties either, because only the best five count.
The rule per category, in one sentence each:
- Straight flush, straight, flush: highest card in the made hand wins. For flushes, if the top cards tie, compare the second card, then the third, and so on.
- Four of a kind: higher quads win; if both players play the same quads off the board, the kicker decides.
- Full house: the rank of the three of a kind decides first. Aces full of twos beats kings full of queens.
- Three of a kind: higher trips wins; if the trips are identical, the two kickers decide in order.
- Two pair: higher pair, then the lower pair, then the kicker.
- One pair: the pair rank, then the three kickers in order.
- High card: highest card, then the next, all the way down to the fifth.
If after applying the rule the hands are still identical, the pot is split. That is more common than beginners expect, especially on boards where most of the made hand comes from the community cards.
Three showdowns, decided card by card
Both players make a straight; the higher card wins
Hero holds J♣ 10♣. Villain holds 6♥ 5♥. The board runs 9♠ 8♦ 7♥ 4♣ 2♠.
Hero’s best five is J-10-9-8-7, a jack-high straight. Villain’s best five is 9-8-7-6-5, a nine-high straight. Both players have a straight, so the showdown comes down to the top card. Jack beats nine. Hero wins.
Two pair, two pair, kicker decides
Hero holds T♣ K♥. Villain holds T♦ Q♠. The board runs T♥ 5♦ 5♣ 9♠ 2♣.
Both players make tens and fives. The board pairs the fives, and each player pairs the ten on the board with a ten in their hand. Their best fives are T-T-5-5-K and T-T-5-5-Q. Same two pair, different kicker. King beats queen. Hero wins.
Playing the board, both players chop
Hero holds 7♥ 2♣. Villain holds 8♣ 3♦. The board runs A♥ K♥ Q♣ J♠ 10♦.
Neither hole card improves the board. The five community cards already form A-K-Q-J-10, which is Broadway, the highest possible straight. Each player’s best five is the board itself. They are playing the board, and their hands are identical. The pot splits.
One detail beginners trip on: you claim a chop by turning both hole cards face up, not by announcing it. A hand pushed into the muck face down is dead in most rooms, and saying you were playing the board afterwards does not bring it back, even though those cards would have chopped.
Where the chart lies to you
The chart says the order. It does not say the cases where the order needs reading carefully.
Aces are the highest card and also the lowest. A-K-Q-J-10 is the best straight; that is Broadway. A-2-3-4-5 is also a straight; that is the wheel. The wheel is a five-high straight, not an ace-high straight. The two ways the ace plays are mutually exclusive on a single hand: the ace is high, or the ace is low, never both. That is why straights cannot wrap around the king. Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight; it just plays as an ace-high hand.
“Three of a kind” has two names. When your trips include both your hole cards as a pocket pair plus a third matching card on the board, the standard name is a set. When your trips use one hole card and a pair on the board, the standard name is trips. Same row on the chart, very different stories at the table. Sets are usually disguised, trips are usually obvious to everyone watching.
Cards speak. You cannot beat your own cards by misreading them. If you hold the nut flush and you say at showdown “I have a pair,” the dealer will read your cards correctly and award you the pot anyway. The flip side: you cannot win a hand you do not have, no matter how confident your declaration. Show both cards to claim the pot.
A live-play pattern you can run in two seconds
Read the board first. Read your hand second. Read the kicker third.
The board is the cheap part. Three to a flush, three to a straight, a pair on the board, a four-flush, a four-straight: these are public facts visible to everyone at the table. They tell you the ceiling and the floor of what anyone can have.
Your hand is what you add on top of the board. Most of the time it is a pair, two pair, or nothing. Sometimes it is a straight or a flush; rarely it is a set, full house, or quads. You only need to find the row on the chart your hand sits in, then ask whether the board allows anything higher.
Then the kicker, but only when your hand category is one a tie-break could land on. If you have one pair and the board makes a straight, the kicker is irrelevant. If you have one pair on a dry board, the kicker is the whole conversation.
That three-step read gets faster with repetition. Poker Skill drills it on real hands, a few minutes at a time, until naming the winner stops being a lookup.
Where this fits in your decision
The chart is the answer to “what beats what.” The two questions that come right after it are “how do I make my best five from the seven cards I can see,” which the best-five-card-hand rule walks through with worked examples, and “how often will my draw get there,” which the rule of 2 and 4 handles in your head at the table. With those three pieces, you can read any showdown and any drawing decision without doing real arithmetic.
Common questions about the poker hands chart
What are the poker hands in order?
Royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. That order is fixed in Hold’em and never changes with the table, the stakes, or the number of players. The chart above gives an example of each so you can match it against what you are holding.
What is the best hand in poker?
The royal flush: A-K-Q-J-10 of one suit. It is the top straight flush, nothing beats it, and the only way to share it is when the board itself makes it and the pot chops. It arrives about once every 30,940 seven-card hands, and the royal flush odds article turns that number into hours at the table.
Does a flush beat a straight?
Yes, every time. A flush is harder to make than a straight, so it sits one row higher, and the weakest flush beats the best straight. The same lookup settles every other matchup: find both hands on the chart, and the higher row wins.
Does a full house beat a flush?
Yes. A full house is rarer than a flush across seven cards, 2.6% against 3.0%, so it ranks a row above. The two run into each other more often than that gap suggests, because a board with a pair and three of a suit hands one player the boat and another the flush at the same time. The full house against a flush breakdown reads that board out card by card.
What are the best starting hands in poker?
Pocket aces, kings, and queens, plus ace-king, are the strongest starting hands, with jacks, tens, and nines a tier below them. That is a different question from this chart: hand rankings decide who wins at showdown, while starting hands decide what is worth playing before the flop, which is what preflop ranges cover, and our free preflop charts show seat by seat.
How does a kicker work in a tie?
A kicker is an unpaired card outside the made part of your hand. When two players have the same pair, two pair, or three of a kind, the dealer compares the kickers in descending order until one player has a higher card. If every kicker matches, the pot is split.
Is A-2-3-4-5 a straight?
Yes. It is called the wheel. The ace plays low, so the straight is five-high, not ace-high. The wheel is the only Hold’em hand where the ace is below the two. It loses to a six-high straight (6-5-4-3-2) and to every higher straight.