Poker Hands Ranking Explained: Actually Useful Guide

Poker hands ranking is an integral part of the game, you bet! That’s because, in poker, your objective is to make the strongest hand possible out of the cards you’re dealt. Of course, it’s possible to win with weak cards if you’re good enough at bluffing, but it’s a big advantage to be able to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

Whether you’re new to playing poker or you’re a veteran of the game, it’s important to have a strong grasp of what each hand is, how it’s made, and where it sits in the ranking of poker hands.

Of course, the most experienced players have all of this information committed to memory but if you’re just starting out, it helps to have a poker hands ranking chart or guide to hand so you can quickly refer to it while making your decisions.

That’s why your Syndicate Casino familia created this comprehensive comparison of the poker ranking hands for our Australian players. Keep it close by while you play so you can look up the information you need in a jiffy.

What is a Poker Hand?

Let’s get right down to basics. Before we can compare how each poker hand ranks in the hierarchy, it’s important to understand the terminology.

Put simply, a poker hand refers to the combination of cards that you use in each round. Depending on the variant, you may be dealt more cards than you can play, giving you the option to choose the ones that work best together.

In casino and video versions of poker, things are kept simple. So if you have the strongest hand, you win. However, if you’re playing in a tournament or with your buddies, you can win with a weaker hand if you can convince the other players that your hand is strong. This is called bluffing.

What Are the Poker Hands?

Technically, any combination of cards is a poker hand, but we give names to the main ones to help distinguish them more easily. They are, for the most part, universal, so you’ll find the same poker hand names here in Australia and the rest of the world.

Some poker hands can only be made up of a single combination, while others may be created in a few different ways. Here are the main poker hands in their order of value.

Royal Flush

The royal flush is the best possible poker hand. It’s made with a single suit and contains the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten. It is unbeatable.

Straight Flush

A straight flush is very similar to the royal flush but it doesn’t have to use those specific cards. Instead, it can contain any five cards from the same suit, provided they are sequential. For example, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.

In the event of two players having this hand, the one with the highest numbers in their sequence wins.

Four of a Kind

The four of a kind is made up of four cards of the same value. This means you should have the same number or picture from each suit, with a final card as a “kicker”.

Should two players have the same hand, the one with the highest-valued card in their four wins. If it’s a community game and both players have the same four of a kind, then the player with the highest kicker wins.

Full House

The full house is made up of three cards of the same rank plus a pair of cards with the same rank. It is, essentially, a three of a kind and a one pair combined (more on those shortly).

Where there are ties, the player with the highest-ranked three cards wins. If they’re the community cards, then the highest-ranked pair wins.

Straight

The straight is similar to the straight flush but the cards can be from any suit. This means you can have any five cards in sequence, using all four suits if you want.

As with the straight flush, ties are decided by the player with the highest ranking combination.

Three of a Kind

The three of a kind is like the four of a kind but with three cards instead of four. You must have three cards of the same rank from three of the four suits, plus an additional two cards of any rank and suit.

When there are two players with this hand, the one with the highest-ranked three wins.

Two Pair

Two pair is, as its name suggests, two pairs of matching cards plus a kicker. The pairs can be sequential, though they don’t have to be.

As with other hands, ties are decided by comparing the ranking of the pairs. However, if they are identical, then the player with the highest kicker wins.

One Pair

One pair is half of two pair. It is simply two cards of the same rank but from different suits with an additional three cards of any value.

High Card

When none of the other poker hands appear in a game, the winner is decided by simply looking at which player has the highest card. It doesn’t matter what the other four cards are, only the highest one matters.

Whenever two players have the same highest card, ties are broken by looking at the next highest card. This can repeat down to the fifth card if necessary.

Poker Hand Ranking in Lowball Games

Most versions of the game use the same hands and the same hierarchy, though low-ball variants require players to make the weakest possible combination instead. There are two different hierarchies used in lowball games: Deuce-to-Seven Lowball and Ace-to-Five Lowball, here’s the difference between them.

Deuce-to-Seven Lowball

Sometimes called Kansas City Lowball, Deuce-to-Seven Lowball essentially reverses the standard poker hand rankings. This means that a royal flush would be a really bad combination to make. Instead, here are the best hands in this version:

Seven Low – Five cards from different suits, unpaired and unconnected with seven as the highest.

Eight Low – The same as seven low, but with eight as the highest card.

Nine Low – The same as seven low, but with nine as the highest card.

Ten Low – You guessed it! The same as seven low but with ten as the highest card.

It’s still possible to win a hand with picture cards or other higher-valued hands if the other players could only manage combinations with even higher rankings.

Ace-to-Five Lowball

Also known as California Lowball, Ace-to-Five Lowball uses some slightly different rankings, however, the concept is mostly the same. Here are the top three best hands:

Five Low – Also called “the wheel” it contains five unpaired, unconnected cards with five being the highest.
Six Low – Similar to a five low, but with the highest card being six. This can be made in several ways, though the best is 6-4-3-2-A.

Seven Low – Like six low but where seven is the highest card.

Hi/Lo Poker Hands

Hi/lo poker games are those that award half of the pot to the player with the highest-ranked hand and the other half to the player with the lowest. In these games, both the standard poker hands ranking and one of the two lowball rankings (usually Ace-to-Five are used to decide winners.

Yes, that’s it. Now you’re the poker guru

Poker hands are an important part of the game as they are used to decide the winners. They are the different possible combinations of cards that players can make and have a hierarchy that dictates which ones are best.

The standard rankings for hands are used in most variants of poker, though lowball and hi/lo games mix things up a little with their own orders of value.