It is essential to memorize the poker hand rankings for Holdem and Omaha games before you do battle at the tables. The quick guide below will get you up to speed on those rankings, and I have included some interesting statistics to help you think in probabilistic terms right from the start of your poker journey.
In the ‘community card’ poker variants of Texas Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha, the interaction between each player’s hole cards and the board (flop, turn and river) determines who wins the pot at showdown. In Holdem game variants each player may choose between using {zero hole cards, 5 board cards}, {1 hole card, 4 board cards}, and {2 hole cards, 3 board cards} to complete his five vard hand. In Omaha game variants each player must use two of his hole cards with three board cards- there is no such thing as ‘playing the board’ in an Omaha game.
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Learn the Poker Hand Rankings
The ranking of a poker hand is related to the probability of making that hand- as the chances of making a particular hand goes down, the ranking of the hand goes up. Some hands are so rare that you will only expect to see them a few times even in a lifetime of playing cards. This is why that rarest of hands- the Royal Flush -is so often associated with a special jackpot in casinos.
The table below shows the poker hand rankings, alongside the frequency with which a random starting hand will make that hand for three popular game variants.
| Rank | Hand | Example | Description | No Limit Frequency | PLO Frequency | 5 Card PLO Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal Flush |  | A royal flush is exactly A, K, Q, J, T of the same suit. | 0.003% | 0.009% | 0.015% |
| 2 | Straight Flush |  | A straight flush is 5 cards of consecutive rank and the same suit. | 0.03% | 0.09% | 0.15% |
| 3 | Quads |  | Quads is recognizable as 4 cards of the same rank. | 0.17% | 0.48% | 0.72% |
| 4 | Full House |  | A full house contains 3cards of one rank and 2 cards of another rank. | 2.60% | 6.35% | 9.57% |
| 5 | Flush |  | A flush is 5 cards of the same suit. | 3.03% | 6.72% | 9.61% |
| 6 | Straight |  | A straight is a sequence of 5 cards with consecutive rank. | 4.62% | 11.28% | 15.25% |
| 7 | Trips |  | Trips is 3 cards of the same rank and unpaired side cards | 4.83% | 8.79% | 9.66% |
| 8 | Two Pair |  | Two pair is 2 sets of 2 cards of the same rank. | 23.48% | 36.86% | 37.61% |
| 9 | One Pair |  | One pair is exactly 2 cards of the same rank. | 43.85% | 26.45% | 16.67% |
| 10 | High Card |  | A hand is ‘High card’ if it does not match any of the criteria above. | 17.40% | 2.99% | 0.78% |
At first glance this table is quite confusing: I claimed that hand strength is inversely related to the probability of making that hand and yet the table suggests that making ‘High Card’ is consistently less likely than making ‘One Pair’.
Tie Breakers and Kickers
When two or more players have the same poker hand, the side cards determine which player wins the pot. Only if the side cards cannot distinguish between the hands does the pot get split between them.
The side cards are called ‘kickers’, and you should pay special attention to them when your hand is one pair or if there is a pair on the board. The player with the more highly ranked kicker will win the pot when the hands are otherwise equal:
An example from Texas Holdem :
- Hero has A♦ J♦
- Villain has J♥ T♦
- The board by the river reads J♣3♣3♦8♦Q♠
The two players’ full poker hands are:
- Hero: J♦J♣3♣3♦A♦ for Two Pair, Jacks and Threes with an Ace kicker
- Villain: J♥J♣3♣3♦Q♠ for Two Pair, Jacks and Threes with a Queen kicker
Hero wins the pot because his kicker is of a higher rank than Villain’s kicker. Notice that, in Texas Holdem, the Villain plays the board Q♠ rather than his own T♦ as a kicker.
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