The hand ranking (and the mistakes every beginner makes)

Before any strategy, you need to read a board without thinking. These are the 9 categories, best to worst:

1. Straight flush — five in a row, all the same suit. The best possible one, A-K-Q-J-T, is the “royal flush”.

2. Four of a kind — all four of the same rank.

3. Full house — three of a kind plus a pair.

4. Flush — five of the same suit, not in a row.

5. Straight — five in a row, mixed suits.

6. Three of a kind — three of the same rank.

7. Two pair

8. Pair

9. High card — when nothing connects, the highest card decides.

How ties really break

Exactly 5 cards always play. If two players have the same category, you compare the ranks in order: the main element first (the highest pair, the trips, the top card of the flush…), then the kickers — the side cards.

Classic example. The board:

You hold and your opponent . Both of you have a pair of aces, but your K kicker beats their 8. That “AK beats A8” is the seed of a concept that comes back all course long: domination.

The three expensive misunderstandings

1. “I have two pair” when there’s a pair on the board. Board Q-Q-7-4-2 and you hold 9-9: your hand is QQ+99, two pair… same as anyone holding a pocket pair better than the 7. Always count the best 5 among your 2 cards and the 5 community cards.
2. The ace plays at both ends of a straight, but not through the middle. A-2-3-4-5 (the “wheel”) is the lowest straight; T-J-Q-K-A the highest. Q-K-A-2-3 is nothing.
3. Suits don’t break ties. There’s no “higher” suit: two flushes are compared card by card. If the board brings a complete flush and nobody improves on it, the pot is split.

What matters strategically

Memorizing the ranking is 1% of it. The other 99% is understanding how rare the big hands are: on the flop, a flush draw completes only 35% of the time from there to the river, and a plain pair ends up being the best hand far more often than intuition suggests. That’s why the course spends whole lessons on pot odds and equity: they’re how you put numbers to that intuition.

Check it yourself: our equity calculator runs any hand against any other and gives you the real percentages, computed right in your browser.