Points To Note:

In poker, the cards are ranked in a similar manner to most other card games. I.e. In decending order: King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2.

Aces are normally ranked “High.” The only exception is during the sequence: 5,4,3,2 and Ace when it is considered to be “Low”.

Poker hands are made from five cards.

Each suit has the same ranking i.e. "Hearts"; are no more nor less dominant than "Spades".

In some games e.g. Texas Holdem and Seven Card Stud, where there are seven cards in play, it is still the best five cards that count. The remaining two cards are ignored. Sometimes, this means that players will have equal cards that are at a lower value than the Community Cards. In this case, the pot is then split between them. An example of this would be: One player holds a Pair of Two Fives, the other player holds a Pair of Two Sixes. The Community Cards are Two Kings, Two Sevens and an Eight. The best hand is the Two Pair Kings and Sevens. The next highest card is an Eight which is also higher than either of the cards each player holds. Therefore, even though one player has a greater Pair than the other, as these are still worse than the best five cards, they don't count and the pot is tied.

It is possible that more than one player will have the same ranked hand. For example, two players might make a Four Of A Kind using a combination of the cards held in their hand and the Community Cards. In this case, the next card of each player (known as the kicker) is looked at to determine who is the winner.

The ranking of the cards is shown in the list below with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst. This ranking only applies when no wild cards are used.

To find out the probability of making each hand please have a look at our 'poker odds' table.