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Poker Hand Rankings

There are a lot of different variations of poker out there, but almost all of them have one thing in common: poker hand rankings. This is what defines a game as poker, and in fact, many other games that are sprouting up that can’t be considered poker use this ranking system as well. In any case, in poker, at the showdown, the player who has the hand that has the highest poker hand ranking, as listed below, wins. If two or more players have hands that are in the same category, then ties are broken by who has the higher cards, also detailed below.

Hand	Example	Description
Straight Flush	Six-high straight flush	Five cards of the same suit in sequence. The higher straight flush wins. AKQJT, the highest straight flush, is also known as the “royal flush”, thus, the royal flush really has the highest poker hand ranking.
Four of a kind	Quad tens, Queen kicker	Four cards of the same rank and a "kicker" (left-over card). The higher four of a kind wins. If two players have the same “quads”, then the highest kicker card(s) win(s).
Full House	Sevens full of fives	Three of a kind and a pair. The higher three of a kind wins. If two hands have the same three of a kind, then the highest pair wins.
Flush	King-high flush	Five cards of the same suit. The flush with the highest card wins. If two flushes have the same high card, then the hand with the higher second highest card wins, etc.
Straight	Ace-high straight	Five cards in sequence. The straight with the highest card wins.
Three of a kind	Trip fours, nine kicker	Three cards of the same rank and two kickers of different ranks. If two hands have the same three of a kind, the two kickers break the tie.
Two pair	Eights over sixes, Ace kicker	A pair of pairs. The hand with the highest top pair wins. If these are the same the bottom pairs are used to break the tie. As a last resort, the kicker is used to break the tie.
One pair	Pair of twos, Ace kicker	The hand with the highest pair wins. The kickers are used to break the tie in the event that these are equal.
High card	King-high	If a hand does not fall into any of the above categories, it is simply judged by its highest card. This sad state of affairs, of course, falls into the lowest poker hand ranking. If two players have equal top cards, the next highest cards are compared, and so on.