This is the second part of the “Rules of No Limit Texas Hold’em” article. The first section of the article looked at the mechanics of play and heree we will look at the order in which hands are ranked based on strength.
Hand Rankings
When two players go to showdown in No Limit Texas Hold’em, the player who holds the best hand (made from a combination of his own two hole-cards and the five community cards) wins the pot.
Here are the rankings from best hand to worst:
Royal Flush – The holy grail of poker, a royal flush is a straight flush ace-high, or a ten, jack, queen, king and ace all of the same suit. It is an unbeatable hand in Texas Hold’em.
Straight Flush – A run of five cards of the same suit, e.g. 9d Td Jd Qd Kd would be a king-high straight flush.Four of a Kind – Four cards of the same rank. The higher the rank, the better the hand, e.g. four queens would beat four threes.
Full House – A full house is a hand made up of three of a kind and two of a kind. In the event two players have a full house, the player with the higher-ranked three-of-a-kind has the superior hand.
Flush – A flush is five cards of the same suit. If two or more players have a flush, the highest ranked card decides the winner. If this is the same for one or more players, this moves to the next highest ranked card and so on.
Straight – A straight is a run of five sequentially-ranked cards, eg 2d,3s,4c,5h,6c. The higher the straight, the better.
Three of a kind – Three of a kind or “trips” is three cards of the same rank. Again if two players have trips, the winner is determined by rank. If both players share the same three of a kind, then the rank of the final two cards in their hand determine the winner.
Two Pair – Two pairs of cards of the same rank. If two players have two pairs, the winner is again determined by the rank of the highest pair, then the rank of the second pair if necessary. If the players are still tied, then the rank of the fifth card in their hand is used to separate them.
One Pair – Again straightforward, two cards of the same rank make one pair. If two players have one pair, the higher-ranked pair is the best hand.
High Card – In the event no players have any hands from the above list then the player with the highest-ranked card wins, followed by the second-ranked card and so on.