If you’re learning to play poker, you’ll need to understand poker hand rankings before you can do anything else.
The hand order is the same in all forms of poker. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing Texas Hold’em poker, Omaha, Stud or any other form of the game, all poker hands use five cards. But which are the best poker hands and which are the worst? Keep reading for our handy guide to get you ready to join the Poker Club community!
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Poker Hand Rankings
Pocket Aces – statistically the best starting hand in Hold’em – are less than a 75% favorite against 2 or more opponents according to my Texas Hold’em hand rankings. If you’ve ever played Texas Hold’em you already know how important starting hand selection is. Although the order of the best poker hands to start with is sometimes contested, this list will give you a rough idea of which hands are stronger than others: #1. Pocket Aces (A♠ A♥). The very best starting hand in Texas Hold'em. Regular Holdem players must adapt quickly in 6+ Hold’em, migrating from a world where good hands are relatively rare, to one where they come along much more frequently. We shall get into the strategic.
In Texas Hold’em, you’ll receive two hole cards, which are the hidden cards only used by you. Throughout the course of the game, five more cards will be dealt into the middle of the table, and they’re called community cards. These community cards can be used by everyone at the table.Once all cards have been dealt, you’ll need to make the best five-card poker hand from the seven available cards. You can use any combination from your hand and the board. Here are the complete poker hand rankings, starting with the best hands first, down to the weakest hands in order.
NB: In the following poker hand hierarchy examples, the first character represents the rank of the card, while the second represents the suit. For example, Ks means “King of Spades”.
Royal flush
The “Royal Flush” is famously the best possible hand in poker, so-called because it contains all of the “royal” cards, i.e. the five best cards, in the same suit. It is really just an Ace high straight flush, thus it sits at the top of the poker hand rankings.
The probability of making a Royal Flush in Texas Hold’em Poker is tiny, just 1 in 649,739, so don’t expect to see them very often!
Example hand:
Ah Kh Qh Jh 10h
Straight flush
Next up, there’s the straight flush, which is simply a less regal version of the royal flush. You’ll have a straight flush if you have five consecutive cards, all of the same suit. So, for example, 5-6-7-8-9, all of clubs, would be a straight flush. In Texas Hold’em poker, with average luck, you will complete a straight flush once every 3,590 hands. If two or more players have a straight flush, the player with the highest card in their hand will be declared the winner.
Example hand:
7d 6d 5d 4d 3d
Four of a kind
Just as the name suggests, this poker hand contains 4 cards of the exact same rank, with any other random fifth card completing the hand. A relatively strong hand among the poker rankings, the chances of making four of a kind in Texas Hold’em are just 1 in 595. This is an exceptionally strong hand but if two players have four of a kind, the four of a kind made up of the highest cards will win. If this still doesn’t lead to a winner, the kicker is used. Kickers are discussed further down this page.
Example hand:
Js Jd Jc Jh 3s
Full house
The next hand is the first of the more commonly seen hands. A full house is a hand containing three cards of the same value, and two other identical cards of a different value. For example, A-A-A-K-K would be a full house. The three of a kind part plays first, so “aces full” would beat “kings full”, for example. The below example is referred to as “Aces full of fours”, since it’s three of a kind Aces, with a pair of fours.The odds against completing a full house in Texas Hold’em poker are around 37.5 to 1. If two or more players have a full house, the player with the highest three of a kind will win. If this doesn’t lead to a winner, the player with the highest pair wins.
Example hand:
Ah Ac Ad 4s 4h
Flush
A flush is a hand featuring five cards all of the same suit. These five cards won’t be consecutive ones – if they were, you’d have a royal flush or straight flush instead. It’s a reasonably strong hand, but be careful before shoving all your money into the middle of the table, as it can often be beaten.If more than one player has a flush, the winner will be the player with the highest card in their flush. The second highest, then third highest, and so on are then used to separate hands.
Example hand:
Ks 9s 7s 6s 2s
Straight
Sitting right in the middle of the poker hand hierarchy, a straight is a hand with any five cards in running order, but not of the same suit.
The chances of making a straight are a little under 21 to 1 against in a game like Texas Hold’em. The player with the highest card in their hand will be declared the winner if multiple players have straights.
Example hand:
Qs Jd 10c 9h 8d
Three of a kind
No prizes for guessing that this is a hand that contains three cards all of the same suit. The other two cards will be different from one another – if they aren’t, you’ve got a full house, which is a much better hand. In Texas Hold’em poker, you’ll make three of a kind roughly once every 20 hands. The player with the highest cards in their three is the winner if more than one player has this hand. In the event of two or more players having the same three of a kind, then kickers are used.
Example hand:
9c 9h 9s 7h 5d
Two pair
If you are holding two different pairs with a random, unmatched card in your hand, then you have “two pair”. The bigger of the two pairs plays first, with the lesser pair only acting to break a tie. So Kings and threes would beat Queens and tens, for example, while Jacks and nines would beat Jacks and sevens.
Example hand:
Qs Qc 3h 3c 8d
Pair
One of the more common poker hands, and towards the bottom of the hand rankings. A pair is simply two cards of the same rank, with no other matching cards. In Texas Hold’em poker, you will find a pair in your two starting hole cards once every 17 hands on average.
Example hand:
10s 10d 6s 5h 2c
High Card
If your final five card hand doesn’t fit into any category in the above poker hand rankings, then you have the worst possible type of hand – high card. The best card in your hand plays, so the below example is “Ace high”. Ace high beats King high, and so on.
Example hand:
As Jh 9s 5d 4c
Understanding Kickers
To really bring your A-game, it helps to have a grasp on kickers too. Kickers are essentially spare cards in your hand. For example, if you had A-A-K-K-10, you’d have two pair and your kicker would be the 10.You might not think that your kicker is important, but it can be the difference between winning or losing a pot. This is because the kicker will be used to determine the winner when two players have the same hand. For example, if both players have A-A-K-K in their hand, however, one has a 10 kicker and the other has an 8, the player with the 10 wins, as they have the higher kicker.If both kickers are also the same and the hand allows, the second kicker will then be used, then the third. If two players have exactly the same hands though, the pot will be split.
Now you’re ready to raise your game in Poker Club, available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
See you at the table!
Only starting out with poker in 2020?
I remember when I started with poker, I found remembering the important parts of the game challenging.
But your journey can become easier with this printable poker cheat sheet for beginners (I wish I had this when starting out!).
Table Of Contents
- How To Use This Texas Holdem Poker Cheat Sheet.
- How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing River Bet Example
- How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing Flop Bet Example
- Poker Hands Cheat Sheet: Best Texas Hold em Hands
Poker Cheat Sheet For Texas Holdem:
Download the high-quality Poker Cheat Sheet printable (PDF) version:
The cheat sheet includes hyperlinks for further reading on any material you may not yet know.
Click here for more information on pre-flop and post-flop. We also discuss Texas Holdem bet sizing in the highlighted link.
If you like the cheat sheet, you may also enjoy these these awesome starting hand charts from upswing poker. They are a more detailed version of the starting hands section in the cheat sheet above which supplement it nicely. Amazingly they have been downloaded almost 200,000 times!
How To Use This Texas Holdem Poker Cheat Sheet.
Step 1: Find your hand on the chart (example KT suited)
Step 2: Determine whether you should follow coloured or number schematic.
Either:
- If first to raise (no other player has raised before you), follow the coloured schematic.
- If facing a raise or reraise, follow the numbered schematic.
Note: If playing on a 6max table (6 players as opposed to 9), the yellow coloured hands will also be able to be played from any position.
See the image below for the numbered and colour schematic.
Step 3: Take into account information give under headings preflop and post flop.
How to play poker preflop is a tough subject to cover in detail. There are many factors you need to take into account such as:
- Your position and your opponents position.
- Your opponents likely holdings
- Board texture
- Previous history
A brief explanation of why position is powerful and why we play fewer hands when there are more players left to act (still with a hand):
When playing on a fullring table, you will have to contend with nine players, who each have a chance of picking up a big hand. Therefore, when playing a full ring game, you will play fewer hands. You can read more on this concept at fullring vs. 6max.
The difference in player numbers is also why we play a wide range of hands from the Button, but very few hands from UTG (first position). When opening the Button, we only have two players left to act (unlikely for them to have a strong hand), whereas when playing from UTG in a full ring game, eight other players could potentially pick up a big hand.
For more in-depth details on this see Texas Holdem Strategy and Position is King!
Step 4: Take home some cash
Hopefully, this poker cheat sheet will help you ‘bring home the bacon' as they say, but there is always something more to learn in poker. Keep reading for some more cheat sheets which might be of use to you.
Get Your Miniature (Credit Card Sized) Texas Holdem Starting Hands Cheat Sheet
This cheat sheet only contains the most vital information you need so it can handily fit in your pocket. The legends have also been squeezed onto the hand chart in front of hands we always fold.
To download printable PDF which is scaled to credit card size, use the Facebook unlock button:
Poker Odds Cheat Sheet (for Texas Hold'em)
Get your pot odds cheat sheet below. You can use this to determine the number of outs required to continue based on the pot odds you are being offered. You can also use it to convert between percentages, required outs and ratios for all kinds of situations in poker. The pot odds cheat sheet is explained in more detail below:
Click here to get a high-quality printable pdf version of the Poker Odds Cheat Sheet.
When your opponent bets you will be offered odds based on the size of his bet. For example, if your opponent bets half pot you will be offered odds of 3:1 on a call (call 1 to win 3). Essentially, it is your risk to reward ratio.
Pot odds will tell you whether is it correct for you to call or fold based on what size our opponent bet and how many cards that will improve our hand.
If you are interested in the learning poker math, check out our best poker books recommendation page here for some awesome books on poker math.
How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing River Bet Example
1. Work out pot odds
In this hand, our opponent bets $26 into a $41.5 pot making the total pot size $67.5. This gives us odds of 67.5: 26 (67.5 = 41.5+26). Or approximately 2.6:1. You can also see how to convert this into a percentage in our article pot odds.
2. Find 2.6:1 on the card (or as close to it as possible).
We locate 2.6:1 on the chart tells us that 2.6:1 translates to 30.11% pot equity. In other words:
- if we win 30% of the time, we will break even,
- if we win > 30% of the time we will make a profit on average in this situation
- if we win <30% of the time, we will make a loss on average in this situation
3. Determine our actual equity
This is the tough part, unfortunately.
You have to estimate how often you are beaten by your opponent in order to determine if you can profitably call or not. To do this you can use a program such as equilab to plug in hands that you think your opponent may have and the hand that you currently hold. To learn more about estimating what your opponent may be holding see the article poker hand range: the comprehensive beginner guide. From the example above, we plug in some hands we think our opponent may have and see that we have 34% equity:
4. Determine if we can profitably call.
Since our equity is greater than our pot odds, we can profitably call the river bet. If our equity were less than the pot odds being offered, we would have to fold as we cannot c call.
How To Use This Pot Odds Cheat Sheet – Facing Flop Bet Example
Let's take a similar situation (confronted with a bet), except this time we are on the flop with KQs, and we have a flush draw with nine outs. A King and Queen which could be considered outs, but they aren't clean outs. This means even if we hit our hand we still may not win (say for example our opponent has AA).
1. Work out equity percentage:
Since we have nine clean outs, we can simply go to the number 9 on the card and then determine our equity.
This means that we need a minimum pot odds of 1.9:1 or 38% when we have nine outs on the flop with two cards still to come.
3. Compare pot odds to odds given by bettor.
Our equity is 38%, so we need pot odds of less than 38%. The lower the pot odds, the more profitable the call.
Our pot odds are 12.5/33 which is 37%, and hence we just about have the pot odds to call. However, we are also in positon (and will act last with more information) and have two overcards to the board (both a King and Queen will make top pair good kicker). So this is an easy call.
4. Further reading
We need seven outs to continue, and we have nine outs with a flush draw. See calculating outs for more details.
For more information on how to use this poker cheat sheet see poker and pot odds.
This video will also be useful to you:
Poker Hands Cheat Sheet: Best Texas Hold em Hands
In case you aren't familiar with the hand strengths, and hand rankings of poker check out the printout Texas Holdem hands cheat sheet:
(You may also be interested in the rules of texas hold em)
There are a few important things to remember when memorising at the poker hand rankings:
Best Five Cards Win
In poker, it is always the best five cards wins. This means it is not only the pairs that matter if there is no clear winner (nobody has a pair), the decision will go down to high card wins.
Kickers
Kickers decide the winning hand when two opponents have the same pair or three of a kind. For example, if one opponent has AQ (ace-queen) and another has AJ, the opponent with AQ would win on an A7522 board as he has the five card hand of AAQ75 whereas the second opponent has AAJ75.
Split Pots
Split pots occur when opponents have the same hand. For example, imagine one opponent has A4 and the other A3 on AQ752 board. Both opponents would have five card hand of AAQ75. Neither the 4 or 3 would play.
You can get more information about hand rankings on our web page here.
If you are more visually inclined, check out this video on poker hand rankings:
For more on Texas Hold'em strategy, see poker 101.
Make sure you check out the fan favourite posts:
Common poker mistakes & Texas Holdem Poker Tips
Good luck at the poker tables with your new poker cheat sheet!