Gambling Online 101
beginner
4 min readHand Rankings
What beats what in poker.
BonusBell Team
Knowing what beats what is the absolute foundation of poker. Memorize these rankings—they're the same for nearly every poker variant.
The Rankings (Best to Worst)
1. Royal Flush
A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠
The highest straight flush. All same suit, 10 through Ace. Unbeatable.
2. Straight Flush
9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥
Five consecutive cards, all same suit. Higher card wins ties.
3. Four of a Kind (Quads)
K♣ K♦ K♥ K♠ 3♠
Four cards of the same rank. Higher rank wins.
4. Full House (Boat)
Q♠ Q♣ Q♦ 7♥ 7♣
Three of a kind plus a pair. "Queens full of Sevens". Higher three-of-a-kind wins.
5. Flush
A♦ J♦ 8♦ 4♦ 2♦
Five cards of the same suit, any order. Highest card wins ties.
6. Straight
10♣ 9♠ 8♣ 7♥ 6♦
Five consecutive ranks, mixed suits. Ace can be high or low (A-2-3-4-5 or 10-J-Q-K-A).
7. Three of a Kind (Trips/Set)
8♠ 8♣ 8♦ K♣ 3♥
Three cards of the same rank. Higher rank wins.
8. Two Pair
J♠ J♣ 5♦ 5♣ A♥
Two different pairs. Higher pair wins; if tied, compare second pair, then kicker.
9. One Pair
9♥ 9♣ A♠ K♦ 2♣
Two cards of the same rank. Higher pair wins; kickers break ties.
10. High Card
A♠ Q♦ 9♣ 6♠ 3♥
No matching ranks or sequences. Highest card wins.
Key Points
Good to Know
- Suits are equal. A spade flush doesn't beat a heart flush of the same ranks.
- Only 5 cards count. In Hold'em, you pick the best 5 from 7 available.
- Kickers matter. If main hands tie, the highest "side card" wins.
Common Mistakes
- Three pair isn't a hand. You use your best 5 cards, so it's two pair.
- Straights wrap around? No. K-A-2-3-4 is not a straight.
- Flush beats straight. People often mix this up.
How Rare Is Each Hand?
Rankings are not arbitrary; they track the mathematical frequency of each hand in a standard 52-card deck. With 2,598,960 possible five-card combinations, only four of them are royal flushes. That is why it sits on top. Meanwhile, one pair shows up in about 42 percent of hands and high card in roughly half. When you are deciding whether to bet, call, or fold, it helps to remember that the stronger the hand, the more improbable it is and the rarer it is to run into a bigger one.
Five-Card Hand Frequencies
| Hand | Combinations | Approx. Probability |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 4 | 0.000154% |
| Straight Flush | 36 | 0.00139% |
| Four of a Kind | 624 | 0.024% |
| Full House | 3,744 | 0.144% |
| Flush | 5,108 | 0.197% |
| Straight | 10,200 | 0.392% |
| Three of a Kind | 54,912 | 2.11% |
| Two Pair | 123,552 | 4.75% |
| One Pair | 1,098,240 | 42.3% |
| High Card | 1,302,540 | 50.1% |
Frequencies out of 2,598,960 five-card combinations.
Worked Example: Best Five From Seven
You are dealt A♠ K♠ in Hold'em. The board runs out Q♠ J♠ 10♦ 4♣ 2♥. Your two hole cards plus the three spades on the board give you A-K-Q-J-10 with three of those cards sharing a suit. The ace-high straight outranks the possible flushes your opponent might worry about, but notice that if the 10♦ had instead been the 10♠, you would have made a royal flush. Hold'em rewards players who can quickly scan seven cards and pick the best five.
Strategy Insight
A useful mental shortcut: if no pair is on the board, nobody can have a full house or quads. If there are no two cards of the same suit on the board, nobody can have a flush. Use the board texture to narrow the range of hands worth worrying about.
Key Takeaways
- 1Royal Flush beats everything; High Card loses to everything
- 2Full House beats Flush; Flush beats Straight
- 3Suits don't matter for ranking hands (only for flushes)
- 4When hands tie, kickers determine the winner
- 5In Hold'em, you use best 5 of 7 cards available
Sources & References
- Poker hand frequencies from C(52,5) = 2,598,960 total 5-card combinations: Royal Flush (4), Straight Flush (36), Four of a Kind (624), Full House (3,744), Flush (5,108), Straight (10,200), Three of a Kind (54,912), Two Pair (123,552), One Pair (1,098,240), High Card (1,302,540) — independently verifiable via combinatorial enumeration.
- Hand rankings are ordered by inverse frequency: rarer hands beat more common hands. This ranking system is consistent across virtually all standard poker variants and is independently verifiable from the probability distribution above.
- TDA Poker Rules. Kicker rules and tie-breaking procedures follow standard poker conventions codified by the Tournament Directors Association (TDA) and adopted uniformly across licensed cardrooms and online platforms.
Mathematical claims are independently verifiable. BonusBell platform analysis reflects our tracked platform directory and dated source reviews as of March 2026.