One of the first things you’ll need to know when learning to play poker is which hands to play and which hands to fold. In order to work out the possibilities of getting a good hand it’s important that you know some basic information first.

In this article for poker beginners we’re going to run through all the possible hands that you could play in a game of poker so you can understand how good your hand might be in relation to all the possible hands there are.

So, let’s begin with a rundown of the poker hands ranked from the best you can have to the worst winning hand.

A Royal Straight Flush
The nirvana of poker hands is the royal straight flush. This is a run of cards of the same suit with the 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace.

A Straight Flush
Similar to the Royal version, the straight flush is a run of five cards of the same suit, for example, 4,5,6,7 and 8 of clubs. When matched against another straight flush, the highest run would win (e.g. a run ending in 8 beats a run ending in 7)

Four of a Kind
Pretty self explanatory, this is four cards of the same type, 4 aces being the best, and 4 twos the lowest four of a kind.

A Full House
This hand comprises of a three of a kind and a pair, for example 3 kings and 2 nines. Drawn against another full house the highest three of a kind wins.

A Flush
This is five cards all in the same suit (but not in a run), for example 2,4,5,7 and king of diamonds. The highest card is the flush is how the hand is decided against another flush. Therefore an A high flush would always beat a Queen high flush.

A Straight
A straight is a run of five cards in a row that don’t follow suit, for example, 4H, 5D, 6S, 7C and 8S. As with the flush version, the highest run will always win against another straight.

Three of a Kind
Self explanatory again, this is simply three cards of the same type, 3 aces being the best, and 3 twos the lowest four of a kind.

Two Pair
This is where you have 2 separate pairs in a hand, for example 5, 5, 10, 10 and a Jack. Going against another two pair hand the highest pair wins. If that’s drawn the highest or the second pair wins. If that’s drawn too, the highest spare card wins.

One Pair
This is having any 2 cards of the same type, the highest being 2 aces, the lowest 2 twos.

High Card
And finally the worst hand is simply the high card. So if no-one else has any of the above hands, whoever has the highest card wins.

So there are the ten different types of poker hand that you could possibly draw when playing a game. When you start to play the game though, either in real life or online, you’ll notice that many of the winning hands come from what you might think are pretty poor hands looking at what’s possible.

This is where probability starts to enter the equation. For instance, you’re much more likely to hit on a pair of aces if you’re already holding one, than you are a royal straight flush if you’re holding a suit matched Jack & Queen.

So, know learn these hands, know where they rank and how strong your hand is, but don’t stop there. This is only the beginning of a very long journey to become a skilled poker player.