How to Remember Winning Poker Hands and Their Rank
The best way to remember poker hands and their ranking, is to break them into 2 halves.
The first half is the low rankings.
- High card
- 1 Pair
- 2 Pair
- 3 of a kind
- Straight
This part is pretty easy.
Basically it's 1, 2, 3, straight.
The straight is the straight line that divides the first half from the second half.
Visually it would look like this:
1 2 3 /
Representing 1 pair, 2 pair, 3 of a kind and Straight.
A straight is 5 cards in sequence.
How do you remember what a straight is?
A straight is a hand where all the cards are neighbors.
Next door neighbors to be exact.
Both straight and neighbors have an (IGH) in the middle.
Visually it would look like this.
straIGHt = neIGHbors
Back to the rankings
The cards in the second half are ranked as follows:
- FLUSH
- FULL HOUSE
- FOUR OF A KIND
- STRAIGHT FLUSH
- ROYAL FLUSH
So how do you remember the card ranks for the second half and highest ranking poker hands?
Just memorize this little saying.
"FLUSH, a FULL, FOUR, or Second FLUSH, Required"
The best way to remember this saying is to imagine flushing you eye or skin with water.
This may sound hard at first but is very easy.
"FLUSH, a FULL, FOUR, or Second FLUSH, Required"
Representing
- FLUSH
- FULL HOUSE
- FOUR OF A KIND
- STRAIGHT FLUSH
- ROYAL FLUSH
Pretty self explanatory except
Second FLUSH = Straight FLUSH and
Required =Royal flush
FLUSH, a FULL, FOUR, or Second FLUSH, Required
The easiest way to check that you have remembered the line correctly is to see that flush has 5 letters, full house has 9 letters, four of a kind has 11 letters and straight flush has 13 so they get progressively larger as you go up in ranking.
Tip. Count the letters in the word four not the #4 and a royal flush beats every other hand in poker.
"FLUSH, a FULL, FOUR, or Second FLUSH, Required"
Back to the Rankings.
FLUSH
A flush is a hand where all the cards are the same suit.
How do you remember what a flush is?
Both flush and suit have a U in them.
Visually it would look like this.
flUsh = sUit
Full House
A Full house is a pair and 3 of a kind. The hand is ranked by the highest 3 of a kind. In a tie, the rankings of the pair are compared.
Four of a Kind
Four of the same cards but different suits.
Straight Flush
A straight flush is five Consecutive cards and of the same suit.
So a straIGHt flUsh is 5 neIGHbors of the same sUit.
Royal Flush
A Royal flush is a straight Flush Ace high. A royal flush will always be a 10, jack, queen, king and ace of the same suit.
A couple of things to keep in mind.
Someone wins every hand of Texas Holdem Poker so if nobody has even 1 pair, the person with the highest card "high card" wins. This is the lowest winning hand rank.
If the flop cards are the highest rank, then everybody still in the game shares that pot. For example the flop cards may be 1 pair and if that is the highest hand then anyone who didn't fold shares the pot.
It is also possible to have 5 of a kind if you are playing with more than one deck of cards or if you are playing with wild cards. Although not commonly listed as a winning hand, it ranks between the straight flush and the royal flush. Nothing beats a royal flush, it is the highest poker hand with odds of getting one 30,939 to 1.
Remember this mnemonic device for poker hand ranks
1, 2, 3, Straight, FLUSH, a FULL, FOUR, or Second FLUSH, Required
Now you learned what all the poker hands are and you now have a handy mnemonic device to remember their ranking.
