Poker Hand Rankings

Poker Hands:

In Hold em poker you have two hole cards (also called pocket cards) and there could be a total of five community cards. Your hand strength is determined by combining your two hole cards with the community cards for a total of seven cards, and making the best possible five card poker hand from any five of these seven. Standard poker hand ranking applies to the five cards. Below are the hand rankings, as well as the chance of holding each one of these hands by the time that you know all seven cards. These percentages will apply to Seven Card Stud as well, but not to Draw Poker or other five or nine card poker games.

Hand	Example	Odds of having this hand once all cards are dealt
Straight Flush		0.03%
Four of a kind	6-6-6-6, A	0.17%
Full House	4-4-4, 9-9	2.60%
Flush	5 cards, same suit	3.00%
Straight	4-5-6-7-8	4.62%
Three of a kind	5-5-5, A, 3	4.83%
Two pair	5-5, 8-8, A	23.50%
One pair	A-A, 8, 5, 3	43.80%
High card	K, J, 9, 4, 3	17.40%

Note that if the community cards happen to contain a pair, all hands automatically have at least a pair. If one player has a third card of that pair, then that player has at least three of a kind and beats those hands that only have one pair.

If the five community cards happen to be all of the same suit, then all hands have at least a flush. If no hands have another card of that suit, the pot will be split. However, If one or more active hand has a card of the suit and it is higher than the lowest community card, that hand wins over any hands that do not have a card of the suit, and if more than one active hand has a card of the suit that is bigger than the smallest community card, then the hand with the bigger card of the suit wins.

For example, say the community cards are: K

Player 1 has K J
Player 2 has A 5
and Player 3 has A T

Player 1's best 5 card hand is the community cards; K J 8 6 2
Player 2 beats Player 1 with K J 8 6 5
and Player 3 wins with A K J 8 6

Similar rulings apply to straights; the higher 5 card straight after considering all 7 cards (5 community cards plus 2 hole cards) wins. When evaluating a full house, the card value where there are three is counted first, so a full house with three Queens and two Tens beats a full house of three Tens and two Aces. When comparing two two pair hands, the highest pair wins. So if

Player 1 holds AA
Player 2 holds 98

and the flop is 982, Player two has two pair and Player 1 has only one pair of Aces. But if the rest of the cards are a 5, then another 2 making the community cards to be 98252, then

Player 1 best five cards are AA229 and beats
Player 2 who has 99885

Introduction

Styles and hands
- Player Style descriptions
- Tight/Aggressive style
- Starting Hands
- Video
- Playing the flop
- Playing the turn and river

Odds and Outs
- Count your Outs
- Pot Odds
- Odds on the Turn and River
- Using Percentages
- Bet sizing, expressed versus implied odds

Rules and terms
- How to play a game
- Poker hand rankings
- Terminology and definitions

For futher study
- No Limit Hold’em starting hands; the Next Generation
- My Aces got cracked!
- Can I fold KK preflop?
- How to play JJ?
- Playing AK, Big Slick
- Should I move up to avoid the bad players? Part I
- Way ahead / Way behind
- What is ABC poker?