Royal straight flush (only A-K-Q-J-10 of a single suit; not technically a separate hand, but sans wild cards the highest possible in poker [also called simply a royal flush])
A royal flush is a poker hand containing an ace, king, queen, jack, and ten of the same suit (for example A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠). Because it is both a straight (having five cards in sequential rank) and a flush (having five cards of the same suit), it is also known as an ace-high straight flush.
A royal flush is not actually a separate type of hand in poker. It is ranked as a straight flush, but since it has an ace as the highest card, it is the highest ranking straight flush, and therefore the highest ranking hand in modern poker (sans wild cards). Like the straight flush (and even the straight and the flush), it was not a recognized hand in the original rules of poker.
The probability that a random five card hand is a royal flush is 1 in 649,740.
Five of a kind (for example, 6-6-6-6-(Wild), only possible in Wild card games)
These hands are called the traditional hands or high hands.
Five of a kind is a poker hand such as A♠ A♣ A♥ A♦ (Wild), which contains five cards of the same rank (only possible in wild card games). It ranks above all other poker hands.
Higher ranking sets of five defeat lower ranking sets. (If this ever comes up in your game, you are playing with way too many wild cards). The probability distribution of the various hands for a 5-card game without wild cards and playing.
Some games called lowball or low poker are played where players strive not for the highest ranking of the above combinations but for the lowest ranking hand. There are three methods of ranking low hands, called Ace-to-five low, Deuce-to-seven low, and Ace-to-six low. The ace-to-five method is most common.
Certain variants use hands of only three cards, either high or low. Three-card low hands can be ranked by any of the three methods above, although with three cards they become ace-to-three (rather than ace-to-five), deuce-to-five, and ace-to-four. The ace-to-three method is the most common, just as the ace-to-five method is most common method for five cards. Three-card high hands are ranked in one of two ways: either with or without straights and flushes. Without (which is the most common, and used such games as Chinese poker), the hands are simply no pair, one pair, and three of a kind. If you add straights and flushes, the order of hands should be changed to reflect the correct probabilities: no pair, one pair, flush, straight, three of a kind, straight flush. This order is used, for example, in Mambo stud.
Some games add one or more unconventional hands, or have special exceptions to the rules above. For example, in the game of Pai gow poker as played in Nevada, a Wheel (poker) (5-4-3-2-A) ranks above a king-high straight, but below an ace-high straight. This is not the case in California, where the nearly identical game is played under the name Double-hand poker using traditional hand values.
General rules
The following general rules apply to evaluating poker hands, whatever set of hand values are used:
• Individual cards are ranked A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (low).
Individual card ranks are often used to evaluate hands that contain no pairs or other special combinations, or to rank the kickers of otherwise equal hands. The Ace is ranked low in ace-to-five and ace-to-six lowball games.
• Suits have no value.
The suits of the cards are mainly used in determining whether a hand fits a certain category (specifically the Flush and Straight flush hands). In most variants, if two players have hands that are identical except for suit, then they are tied and split the pot. Sometimes a ranking called high card by suit is used for randomly selecting a player to deal.
• A hand always consists of five cards.
In games where more than five cards are available to each player, hands are ranked by choosing some five-card subset according to the rules of the game, and comparing that
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