Poker Hands Order Suits

 

The Order of Hands in Poker

  • Royal flush is a specific example of a straight flush, which consists of 5 consecutive cards in one suit. There are 10 such hands in one suit. So there are 40 hands for straight flush in total. A flush is a hand with 5 cards in the same suit but not in consecutive order (or not in sequence).
  • To choose suits for the singles, for a grand total of 13 1 4 2 12 3 4 1 3 = 13622043 = 1,098,240. Putting all of this together, we obtain the following ranking of poker hands: Poker Hand Number of Ways to Get This Probability of This Hand Royal Flush 4 0.000154% Straight Flush 36 0.00139% Four of a Kind 624 0.0240% Full House 3,744 0.144%.
  • This is how the suits ranking is. Suits have no value or meaning in poker. There are four suits: Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs to a standard deck of cards. There are 13 cards in a suit.

A flush in poker is hand which consists of 5 cards of the same suit. The same color (red or black) is not enough. It has to 5 spades, hearts, diamonds, or clubs.


Poker hands basics

There are a total of 10 different hands in standard five-card games of poker like Texas Holdem. Each hand’s strength is determined by how difficult it is for players to come across it. The rarer a hand is, the harder it is to beat.

Why knowing your hands matter

Even though you can, in some cases, bluff your way to victory in poker, getting a strong hand is still the surest, most straightforward way to win a game. Besides, bluffing and pretty much any other strategy you could think of – including knowing when to fold – relies heavily on your understanding of poker hands.

Please note the following card references:

(h) Hearts (d) Diamonds (c) Clubs (s) Spades

Poker hand rankings

Below are all the five-card poker hands at your disposal (arranged from strongest to weakest):

#1 Royal Flush

649,739 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

Made up of five suited cards in sequence with an ace as its highest card, a royal flush is the strongest hand in poker.
Ex: Ac Kc Qc Jc 10c

Royal Flush Tiebreaker Tip: In standard games of poker, the suits cannot be used to break ties so if two or more active players end up with a royal flush, the pot is simply split evenly among them.

#2 Straight Flush

Poker Hands Order Suits Spider Solitaire

72,192 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

Poker Hands Ranking Suits

Practically the same as a royal flush, the only thing that sets it apart is that it uses a king or lower as its highest card.
Ex: 6s 5s 4s 3s 2s

Straight Flush Tiebreaker Tip: The highest cards of all tied players are compared first. If they’re the same, then we move on to the second highest. The process continues until a winner is determined. If all the cards are the same, however, the pot is split evenly among all tied players.

#3 Four of a Kind

4,164 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

As the name suggests, this hand consists of four cards of the same value (plus a random fifth card).
Ex: Qd Qh Qs Qc 6s

Four of a Kind Tiebreaker Tip: The only way there can be a tie in this case is when the hand appears on the table. When this happens, the pot is split evenly among all tied players.

#4 Full House

693 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

Poker Hands Order Suits For Men

This hand is made up of a trip (i.e., three cards of the same value) and a pair (i.e., two cards of the same value).
Ex: Jd Jh Js 2s 2c

Full House Tiebreaker Tip: The trips are compared first. If they’re tied, we move on to the pairs. If they’re still tied, then the pot is split evenly among all tied players.

#5 Flush

508 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

This hand consists of five suited cards. The values do not matter.
Ex: Ac 8c 6c 3c 2c

Flush Tiebreaker Tip: Ties are broken in the exact same way as with straight flushes.

#6 Straight

254 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

In contrast to a flush, this hand consists of five non-suited cards of consecutive values.
Ex: 10d 9c 8s 7c 6h

Straight Tiebreaker Tip: This hand also uses the same process to break ties as straight flushes.

#7 Three of a Kind

46.3 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

It’s just a trip plus two random cards.
Ex: 7h 7s 7c Qd 4s

Three of a Kind Tiebreaker Tip: The trip gets compared first. If they’re tied, then the fourth (and, if needed, fifth) kicker cards are compared. If they’re still the same, then the pot is split evenly among all tied players.

#8 Two Pair

Poker

20 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

As you may have probably guessed, this hand consists of two pairs (plus a fifth kicker card).
Ex: Jd Jh 8d 8c 3s

Two Pair Tiebreaker Tip: The high pairs are checked first. If they are tied, then the low pairs get compared. If they’re still the same, then the kicker cards are used to determine a winner.

#9 One Pair

1.37 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

The only difference between a two pair hand and this one is that a pair only has, as the name implies, one pair (plus three kicker cards to complete the set).
Ex: 6d 6h Ks 7c 4s

One Pair Tiebreaker Tip: Ties are broken just as you would with two pair hands. The only difference is that there are three kicker cards to work with.

#10 High Card

0.995 to 1 odds (In a 52-card Deck)

The weakest one in the bunch, a high card hand is just a set of five random cards. It’s something you automatically end up with if you cannot build any of the other hands on this list.
Ex: Qd 7c 5s 3h 2h

High Card Tiebreaker Tip:High card ties are broken with the same method used for straight flushes.

Standard order of poker hands

Poker Hands Order Suits Online

Seems overwhelming? Don’t worry. Most five-card varieties of poker use this exact hand ranking system so you only really have to memorize everything once before you can play.

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This post works with 5-card Poker hands drawn from a standard deck of 52 cards. The discussion is mostly mathematical, using the Poker hands to illustrate counting techniques and calculation of probabilities

Working with poker hands is an excellent way to illustrate the counting techniques covered previously in this blog – multiplication principle, permutation and combination (also covered here). There are 2,598,960 many possible 5-card Poker hands. Thus the probability of obtaining any one specific hand is 1 in 2,598,960 (roughly 1 in 2.6 million). The probability of obtaining a given type of hands (e.g. three of a kind) is the number of possible hands for that type over 2,598,960. Thus this is primarily a counting exercise.

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Preliminary Calculation

Usually the order in which the cards are dealt is not important (except in the case of stud poker). Thus the following three examples point to the same poker hand. The only difference is the order in which the cards are dealt.

These are the same hand. Order is not important.

The number of possible 5-card poker hands would then be the same as the number of 5-element subsets of 52 objects. The following is the total number of 5-card poker hands drawn from a standard deck of 52 cards.

The notation is called the binomial coefficient and is pronounced “n choose r”, which is identical to the number of -element subsets of a set with objects. Other notations for are , and . Many calculators have a function for . Of course the calculation can also be done by definition by first calculating factorials.

Thus the probability of obtaining a specific hand (say, 2, 6, 10, K, A, all diamond) would be 1 in 2,598,960. If 5 cards are randomly drawn, what is the probability of getting a 5-card hand consisting of all diamond cards? It is

This is definitely a very rare event (less than 0.05% chance of happening). The numerator 1,287 is the number of hands consisting of all diamond cards, which is obtained by the following calculation.

The reasoning for the above calculation is that to draw a 5-card hand consisting of all diamond, we are drawing 5 cards from the 13 diamond cards and drawing zero cards from the other 39 cards. Since (there is only one way to draw nothing), is the number of hands with all diamonds.

If 5 cards are randomly drawn, what is the probability of getting a 5-card hand consisting of cards in one suit? The probability of getting all 5 cards in another suit (say heart) would also be 1287/2598960. So we have the following derivation.

Thus getting a hand with all cards in one suit is 4 times more likely than getting one with all diamond, but is still a rare event (with about a 0.2% chance of happening). Some of the higher ranked poker hands are in one suit but with additional strict requirements. They will be further discussed below.

Another example. What is the probability of obtaining a hand that has 3 diamonds and 2 hearts? The answer is 22308/2598960 = 0.008583433. The number of “3 diamond, 2 heart” hands is calculated as follows:

One theme that emerges is that the multiplication principle is behind the numerator of a poker hand probability. For example, we can think of the process to get a 5-card hand with 3 diamonds and 2 hearts in three steps. The first is to draw 3 cards from the 13 diamond cards, the second is to draw 2 cards from the 13 heart cards, and the third is to draw zero from the remaining 26 cards. The third step can be omitted since the number of ways of choosing zero is 1. In any case, the number of possible ways to carry out that 2-step (or 3-step) process is to multiply all the possibilities together.

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Poker Hand Rankings Suits

The Poker Hands

Here’s a ranking chart of the Poker hands.

The chart lists the rankings with an example for each ranking. The examples are a good reminder of the definitions. The highest ranking of them all is the royal flush, which consists of 5 consecutive cards in one suit with the highest card being Ace. There is only one such hand in each suit. Thus the chance for getting a royal flush is 4 in 2,598,960.

Royal flush is a specific example of a straight flush, which consists of 5 consecutive cards in one suit. There are 10 such hands in one suit. So there are 40 hands for straight flush in total. A flush is a hand with 5 cards in the same suit but not in consecutive order (or not in sequence). Thus the requirement for flush is considerably more relaxed than a straight flush. A straight is like a straight flush in that the 5 cards are in sequence but the 5 cards in a straight are not of the same suit. For a more in depth discussion on Poker hands, see the Wikipedia entry on Poker hands.

The counting for some of these hands is done in the next section. The definition of the hands can be inferred from the above chart. For the sake of completeness, the following table lists out the definition.


Definitions of Poker Hands

Poker HandDefinition
1Royal FlushA, K, Q, J, 10, all in the same suit
2Straight FlushFive consecutive cards,
all in the same suit
3Four of a KindFour cards of the same rank,
one card of another rank
4Full HouseThree of a kind with a pair
5FlushFive cards of the same suit,
not in consecutive order
6StraightFive consecutive cards,
not of the same suit
7Three of a KindThree cards of the same rank,
2 cards of two other ranks
8Two PairTwo cards of the same rank,
two cards of another rank,
one card of a third rank
9One PairThree cards of the same rank,
3 cards of three other ranks
10High CardIf no one has any of the above hands,
the player with the highest card wins

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Counting Poker Hands

Suits

Poker Hands Suit Order

Straight Flush
Counting from A-K-Q-J-10, K-Q-J-10-9, Q-J-10-9-8, …, 6-5-4-3-2 to 5-4-3-2-A, there are 10 hands that are in sequence in a given suit. So there are 40 straight flush hands all together.

Ranking

Four of a Kind
There is only one way to have a four of a kind for a given rank. The fifth card can be any one of the remaining 48 cards. Thus there are 48 possibilities of a four of a kind in one rank. Thus there are 13 x 48 = 624 many four of a kind in total.

Full House
Let’s fix two ranks, say 2 and 8. How many ways can we have three of 2 and two of 8? We are choosing 3 cards out of the four 2’s and choosing 2 cards out of the four 8’s. That would be = 4 x 6 = 24. But the two ranks can be other ranks too. How many ways can we pick two ranks out of 13? That would be 13 x 12 = 156. So the total number of possibilities for Full House is

Note that the multiplication principle is at work here. When we pick two ranks, the number of ways is 13 x 12 = 156. Why did we not use = 78?

Flush
There are = 1,287 possible hands with all cards in the same suit. Recall that there are only 10 straight flush on a given suit. Thus of all the 5-card hands with all cards in a given suit, there are 1,287-10 = 1,277 hands that are not straight flush. Thus the total number of flush hands is 4 x 1277 = 5,108.

Straight
There are 10 five-consecutive sequences in 13 cards (as shown in the explanation for straight flush in this section). In each such sequence, there are 4 choices for each card (one for each suit). Thus the number of 5-card hands with 5 cards in sequence is . Then we need to subtract the number of straight flushes (40) from this number. Thus the number of straight is 10240 – 10 = 10,200.

Three of a Kind
There are 13 ranks (from A, K, …, to 2). We choose one of them to have 3 cards in that rank and two other ranks to have one card in each of those ranks. The following derivation reflects all the choosing in this process.

Two Pair and One Pair
These two are left as exercises.

Poker Hands Suits

Poker hands suits

High Card
The count is the complement that makes up 2,598,960.

The following table gives the counts of all the poker hands. The probability is the fraction of the 2,598,960 hands that meet the requirement of the type of hands in question. Note that royal flush is not listed. This is because it is included in the count for straight flush. Royal flush is omitted so that he counts add up to 2,598,960.


Probabilities of Poker Hands

Poker HandCountProbability
2Straight Flush400.0000154
3Four of a Kind6240.0002401
4Full House3,7440.0014406
5Flush5,1080.0019654
6Straight10,2000.0039246
7Three of a Kind54,9120.0211285
8Two Pair123,5520.0475390
9One Pair1,098,2400.4225690
10High Card1,302,5400.5011774
Total2,598,9601.0000000

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2017 – Dan Ma