Poker Hand Rankings: The Complete Chart

The Full Ranking, Strongest to Weakest

Ten hand categories, in order. This ranking is identical in Texas Hold'em, Omaha and Seven-Card Stud, so learning it once covers every game you are likely to sit down in.

How Ties Are Broken

This is where most beginners lose money without understanding why. Two players can hold the same category and one still wins.

The kicker

When two players hold the same pair, the highest unpaired side card decides it. You hold A♠9♥ and your opponent holds A♦K♣. The board runs out:

A♣7♦4♠3♥2♣

You both have a pair of aces. Their king outkicks your nine and they take the pot.

This is why ace-rag is a trap. Hitting your ace feels like hitting, but you are frequently the one paying off someone with a better kicker.

Same category, different height

A flush beats a flush by its highest card. A straight beats a straight by its top end. A full house is ranked by the three-of-a-kind first, so 8-8-8-2-2 beats 7-7-7-A-A.

Playing the board

If the five community cards make the best hand and neither player improves on it, the pot is split. Both players are playing exactly the same five cards.

The Two Rules People Get Wrong

Suits have no rank

Spades are not better than hearts. If two players hold identical flushes of different suits, the pot is split. Suit only matters for making a flush in the first place.

The ace does double duty

An ace can be the highest card in a Broadway straight or the lowest in the wheel:

5♠4♥3♦2♣A♠

That is the weakest straight there is. What an ace cannot do is wrap around — Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight.

What This Chart Doesn't Tell You

Knowing the rankings tells you who wins at showdown. It does not tell you how often you should expect to make each hand, and that gap is where beginners lose money.

You will be dealt one pair vastly more often than a flush. Most pots are won with one pair or less. If you sit down waiting for a full house before you commit chips, you will fold your way through the session while more aggressive players take the small and medium pots that make up most of the money.

The practical version of this chart is: top pair with a decent kicker is a genuinely strong hand in most situations, and playing it as though it were weak is one of the more expensive beginner habits. If you want the exact numbers, our starting hands reference shows how every one of the 169 possible holdings actually performs.

Memorising It

You do not need to memorise ten items. The internal logic does most of the work — the rarer a hand is to make, the higher it ranks. Four of a kind beats a full house because it happens less often. Once you see that, the order reconstructs itself.

The tie-breaking rules are what deserve real attention. Nobody misreads a flush. Plenty of people lose a stack to a better kicker.

Keep our poker rules cheat sheet alongside this one — it has the rankings plus positions, bet sizes and pot odds on a single page. If you are still learning the mechanics, start with how to play poker.