Knowing your poker hands is crucial to playing a solid game at the table, and regardless of whether you're playing Texas Hold'em, or Omaha, you'll always want to know the value of your hand. When you have this knowledge at your disposal, you'll be able to make an informed decision on whether to raise, check, call, or fold your hand when it matters most.
Poker Winning Graphic
In this post, we're going to look at the winning poker hands structure of two different games; Texas Hold'em, and Omaha – and we'll begin by taking a look at a poker hands chart, followed by the best and worst starting hands. We'll also show you a list of poker hands to help you make the right decisions in your game.
Texas Hold'em Winning Poker Hands Ranking
Poker Hand Rankings (Highest to Lowest) Win More Games With This Guide - Recommended by Professional Poker Players. Download and print out our poker hands ranking chart, or save it to. Well, live poker win rates are not measured the same as online poker win rates. Live poker win rates are measured by how many big blinds you make per hour. The consensus has long been that in the two lowest stakes games that most casinos spread ($1/$2 and $2/$5), the very best players can expect to make around 10bb per hour. Winrate distribution graph. A graph to show the winrate distribution of online poker players that have played 1,000+ hands in 2010. The graph of the distribution of player winrates above highlights a few important facts: The vast majority of poker players are losing poker players. Most winning players have a winrate of less than 4bb/100.
In this guide, you'll see that there are a total of 10 hands in Texas Hold'em poker (or 9 if you don't count ‘no pair' as a hand), and we'll detail these below. (The winning poker hands chart below shows a list of poker hands, ranked best, to worst).
Royal Flush: Ten, Jack, Queen, King, Ace, all of the same suit.
Straight Flush: Any 5 cards of the same suit, in consecutive order. (I.e. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of spades).
4-of-a-kind: 4 cards of the same value (i.e. the 5 of spades, the 5 of hearts, the 5 of clubs, and the 5 of diamonds).
Full House: A full house consists of one 3-of-a-kind hand, and one pair, so for instance, a full house could be the 2 of spades, the 2 of diamonds, the 2 of clubs, and a pair of Aces.
Flush: Five cards of the same suit (i.e. 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9 of hearts).
Straight: Five cards in consecutive order (i.e. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, off-suit).
3-of-a-kind: Three cards of the same value (I.e. 3 of clubs, 3 or spades, and the 3 of hearts).
Two Pair: Two pairs in one hand – i.e. a pair of 2's, and a pair of 3's.
One Pair: One singular pair – i.e. a pair of Aces.
No Pair: A no pair hand is when you don't have any of the above. In this instance, you have what is known as a ‘high card hard'.
Use the poker hands chart above to ensure you're always in full control of your game!
Omaha Poker Hands Ranking
Omaha uses the exact same hand-ranking process as Texas Hold'em does, and while it may seem as though that's a little ‘odd' at first, remember that Omaha is almost identical, aside from the fact that players have four cards, and that betting is usually pot-limit.
This means that a Royal Flush is the best possible hand in a game of Omaha, and high-card (while incredibly unusual due to the 4 cards each player holds) is the lowest possible hand.
For a full guide on playing Omaha, be sure to check out our How to Play Omaha guide.
Best Starting Poker Hands
Mail slot cover winter. Knowing your winning poker hands is crucial if you want to play a solid game of poker – and below, we share how to determine whether or not you have a winner on your hand!
Texas Hold'em: The best starting hand is a pair of Aces. A pair of aces (also known as pocket rockets) are a favourite pre-flop over any other starting hand and is almost always one of the best winning poker hands. The second, and third best starting hands are a pair of Kings and Queens respectively, followed by Ace-King suited, pocket Jacks, pocket Tens, and then Ace-Queen suited. The 10th best starting hand is Ace-King Offsuit – which is actually still a very strong hand.
Omaha: Working out winning poker hands in Omaha is a little more complex than Texas Hold'em, when looking at the best starting hands, although mathematically, the best starting hands can be determined.
For example, the strongest hand is AAKK, followed by AAJT, AAQQ, and AAJJ. It's worth noting however, that the best possible hand in Omaha holds little value against a full-ring of players, hence the need to play aggressively, pre-flop and post-flop; see our poker hands chart for more details.
Worst Poker Starting Hands
Determining the worst starting hands in poker is a little more challenging – largely due to the fact that most players simply have knowledge of the better starting hands – yet knowing what the worst starting hands are is just as important, as it allows you to know when to throw away your hands pre-flop. Below, we look at the worst starting hands for both Texas Hold'em and Omaha.
Texas Hold'em: 2-7 offsuit (this is well-known as the worst starting hand in poker, due to the fact that it's often used as side-bets in games.) 7-2 offsuit is followed by 8-2 offsuit, 8-3 offsuit, 7-3 offsuit, 6-2 offsuit, 9-2, 9-3, and 9-4 offsuit.
Omaha: Unfortunately, with Omaha, there isn't an ‘official' list of worst poker hands – purely due to the fact that there would be too many to list. However, most professionals and poker experts agree that any starting hand that combines any of the worst starting hands in Texas Hold'em generally constitute a very poor starting hand in Omaha too – so it's worth throwing these away most of the time, pre-flop. If in doubt, consult the list of winning poker hands ranking above.
Everyone loves to see a sick graph and there are very few sicker than the five huge winners you are going to see today – ranging from single session $millions to beautifully consistent decade long grinds at the highest stakes.
By: Andrew Burnett
Isildur's $6.5million monthly paycheck
Viktor ‘Isildur1' Blom is the natural place to start when discussing the most amazing runs in highstakes online cash game poker.
The Swede blasted his way through the ranks as an anonymous teenager in the late noughties.
His first tilt at the nosebleed games on Full Tilt in October 2009 saw him quickly lose $1million, but within the month he had reversed that – topping out at $5.46million!
We'll see how that money disappeared when we get to Brian Hastings bio, but from the graph above you can see that Blom – by this time outed as the man behind the Isildur1 account – almost reproduced that amazing month in late 2012.
His 2009 battles featured this monster PLO pot against Phil Ivey, showing that $million swings could happen in seconds in the rail heaven days on Full Tilt.
Time slot informatica app. Isildur1 flops kings full against Ivey for $1,127,955 pot
Phil Ivey's pre-Black Friday FullTilt Feast
You can't mention Phil Ivey and leave it with one huge losing hand of course. After all, nobody won more than the now 43-year old Californian in the online nosebleed cash games.
That's four years and a total of $19,242,744 profit, working out at a massive $60 per hand for Ivey, and his own biggest single winning pot was a revenge of sorts against Isildur1…
Ivey flushes out Blom to scoop $832,940 pot
The year 2009 on Full Tilt was the when the stakes were highest, the play as loose and free as you'll ever see, and where fortunes were won and lost in single sessions.
Hastings takes Isildur to the cleaners
Tuesday December 8th 2009 is one of those dates that poker players don't know, but most certainly now about. It's the day that Isildur1 had his entire bankroll cleaned out by Brian Hastings.
Here's how we reported it the following day: ‘It seemed to be another massive day for Isildur1, winning $471K from Jungleman12 at $100/$200 NLHE and $722K from Brian Townsend at $500/$1000 PLO. He stayed well in the green all throughout the period, even peaking as high as $2M, but things were about to change.
In steps Brian Hastings, and from then on Isildur1 seemed to fall into a bottomless pit. Over the course of the next 2858 hands, he lost an astounding $4.2 million dollars, and it was clear from the comments he made in the chat, that he thought he was caught in a parallel universe or something.'
Flush: Five cards of the same suit (i.e. 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9 of hearts).
Straight: Five cards in consecutive order (i.e. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, off-suit).
3-of-a-kind: Three cards of the same value (I.e. 3 of clubs, 3 or spades, and the 3 of hearts).
Two Pair: Two pairs in one hand – i.e. a pair of 2's, and a pair of 3's.
One Pair: One singular pair – i.e. a pair of Aces.
No Pair: A no pair hand is when you don't have any of the above. In this instance, you have what is known as a ‘high card hard'.
Use the poker hands chart above to ensure you're always in full control of your game!
Omaha Poker Hands Ranking
Omaha uses the exact same hand-ranking process as Texas Hold'em does, and while it may seem as though that's a little ‘odd' at first, remember that Omaha is almost identical, aside from the fact that players have four cards, and that betting is usually pot-limit.
This means that a Royal Flush is the best possible hand in a game of Omaha, and high-card (while incredibly unusual due to the 4 cards each player holds) is the lowest possible hand.
For a full guide on playing Omaha, be sure to check out our How to Play Omaha guide.
Best Starting Poker Hands
Mail slot cover winter. Knowing your winning poker hands is crucial if you want to play a solid game of poker – and below, we share how to determine whether or not you have a winner on your hand!
Texas Hold'em: The best starting hand is a pair of Aces. A pair of aces (also known as pocket rockets) are a favourite pre-flop over any other starting hand and is almost always one of the best winning poker hands. The second, and third best starting hands are a pair of Kings and Queens respectively, followed by Ace-King suited, pocket Jacks, pocket Tens, and then Ace-Queen suited. The 10th best starting hand is Ace-King Offsuit – which is actually still a very strong hand.
Omaha: Working out winning poker hands in Omaha is a little more complex than Texas Hold'em, when looking at the best starting hands, although mathematically, the best starting hands can be determined.
For example, the strongest hand is AAKK, followed by AAJT, AAQQ, and AAJJ. It's worth noting however, that the best possible hand in Omaha holds little value against a full-ring of players, hence the need to play aggressively, pre-flop and post-flop; see our poker hands chart for more details.
Worst Poker Starting Hands
Determining the worst starting hands in poker is a little more challenging – largely due to the fact that most players simply have knowledge of the better starting hands – yet knowing what the worst starting hands are is just as important, as it allows you to know when to throw away your hands pre-flop. Below, we look at the worst starting hands for both Texas Hold'em and Omaha.
Texas Hold'em: 2-7 offsuit (this is well-known as the worst starting hand in poker, due to the fact that it's often used as side-bets in games.) 7-2 offsuit is followed by 8-2 offsuit, 8-3 offsuit, 7-3 offsuit, 6-2 offsuit, 9-2, 9-3, and 9-4 offsuit.
Omaha: Unfortunately, with Omaha, there isn't an ‘official' list of worst poker hands – purely due to the fact that there would be too many to list. However, most professionals and poker experts agree that any starting hand that combines any of the worst starting hands in Texas Hold'em generally constitute a very poor starting hand in Omaha too – so it's worth throwing these away most of the time, pre-flop. If in doubt, consult the list of winning poker hands ranking above.
Everyone loves to see a sick graph and there are very few sicker than the five huge winners you are going to see today – ranging from single session $millions to beautifully consistent decade long grinds at the highest stakes.
By: Andrew Burnett
Isildur's $6.5million monthly paycheck
Viktor ‘Isildur1' Blom is the natural place to start when discussing the most amazing runs in highstakes online cash game poker.
The Swede blasted his way through the ranks as an anonymous teenager in the late noughties.
His first tilt at the nosebleed games on Full Tilt in October 2009 saw him quickly lose $1million, but within the month he had reversed that – topping out at $5.46million!
We'll see how that money disappeared when we get to Brian Hastings bio, but from the graph above you can see that Blom – by this time outed as the man behind the Isildur1 account – almost reproduced that amazing month in late 2012.
His 2009 battles featured this monster PLO pot against Phil Ivey, showing that $million swings could happen in seconds in the rail heaven days on Full Tilt.
Time slot informatica app. Isildur1 flops kings full against Ivey for $1,127,955 pot
Phil Ivey's pre-Black Friday FullTilt Feast
You can't mention Phil Ivey and leave it with one huge losing hand of course. After all, nobody won more than the now 43-year old Californian in the online nosebleed cash games.
That's four years and a total of $19,242,744 profit, working out at a massive $60 per hand for Ivey, and his own biggest single winning pot was a revenge of sorts against Isildur1…
Ivey flushes out Blom to scoop $832,940 pot
The year 2009 on Full Tilt was the when the stakes were highest, the play as loose and free as you'll ever see, and where fortunes were won and lost in single sessions.
Hastings takes Isildur to the cleaners
Tuesday December 8th 2009 is one of those dates that poker players don't know, but most certainly now about. It's the day that Isildur1 had his entire bankroll cleaned out by Brian Hastings.
Here's how we reported it the following day: ‘It seemed to be another massive day for Isildur1, winning $471K from Jungleman12 at $100/$200 NLHE and $722K from Brian Townsend at $500/$1000 PLO. He stayed well in the green all throughout the period, even peaking as high as $2M, but things were about to change.
In steps Brian Hastings, and from then on Isildur1 seemed to fall into a bottomless pit. Over the course of the next 2858 hands, he lost an astounding $4.2 million dollars, and it was clear from the comments he made in the chat, that he thought he was caught in a parallel universe or something.'
That parallel universe was because Hastings had teamed up with Brian Townsend and Cole South to dissect Isildur's hand histories – which they should never have had in the first place.
And that explains Hastings' late 2009 graph…
The biggest pot he took being this one worth $682,995
Phil Galfond's $8million upswing
A year prior to all the other impressive graphs, Phil ‘OMGClayAiken' Galfond had already set a huge bar for anyone looking to impress the poker world.
That's a monster $7million profit for Galfond, although it helps when you pick up kings in the big blind and flop a full house when you have the likes of Sami ‘LarsLuzak' Kelopuro and Phil Ivey sniffing about for action at your table!
The Flying Finn builds a $12million wall
If you are sitting second on the all-time highstakes profit list, the chances are good that you have an impressive graph to show off. Patrik Antonius, however, has perhaps the sickest of all…
Winning Poker Hands
Three full years at $4million per annum puts the Flying Finn among the legends of the game, and he still boasts the record for the single biggest PLO pot of all time – a $1,356,947 monster against our old friend Viktor ‘Isildur1 Blom.…
