How to Remember Winning Poker Hands and Their Rank

Author: Neha Agrawal

Every newbie playing poker for the first time always suffers the same problem; what hand is worth more than what? Fortunately this is a problem that affects everyone at the beginning, and furthermore; once you remember the hands, it doesn’t matter how long you haven’t played for, you will never forget the rankings of poker hands.

There are many ways that you can finally transplant the order of the hands into your head. Some players like to use the old scrap of paper by the side of their hand technique. Whilst this is most common amongst first time players at home, it certainly won’t fly in any real casino so you’ll have to memorise them eventually.

Another popular method of retaining that all important information is to play and practice. This method of trial and error works especially well, particularly if you are playing video poker for instance. The main reason for this is that video poker games often have the ranking of the hands as a “paytable” to the side of the game. Players will often learn the ranking of the poker hands in no time at all.

Fortunately, most people also learn the order of poker hands by reading and memorising – just like you used to do in school with various other lists. Remembering the names of the hands will do you no good however, if you don’t remember what they contain. So, for all of you poker fans that still can’t get them all down, here is a quick reminder.

A royal flush is generally speaking the highest hand in poker and it consists of an Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten all in the same suit. A straight flush is the next highest hand, being a sequence of cards in numerical (ranking) order in the same suit. Failing that, a four of a kind is the next best hand, being four cards of the same value. A full house is the next hand down, and it involves having three cards of one value, and two cards of another. A flush falls below that, and involves having all of your cards (any value) in the same suit. A straight is worth less than a flush and involves having all of your cards in numerical order, although the suits do not have to match up. The final three lowest ranking hands are a three of a kind, which is three cards of the same value (irrespective of the other two cards); a two pair (two sets of pairs, for example two fours and two sixes), and lastly a pair – which often have to be at least a pair of Jacks of better to count.

Remembering the poker hand rankings is simple enough, and you will get it eventually. Like everything in gambling however, it just takes time and practice.