Poker games are usually played with a card deck of fifty two cards. Since poker is a game which is based on hand rankings, one needs to understand how hands are ranked in a poker game. For this, the understanding of hands and how they are defined and ranked are very important.

Cards, as we know, are ranked from the Ace being the highest and going lower till we reach two which is also known as Deuce. Sometimes the Ace can also be valued below a Deuce as in straights games. In games of poker, even in the variant called Seven Card Stud, only the best of five cards are used. In any poker game, after all betting round are complete, the remaining players show their hands to reveal and compare which hand is most superior.

The poker hand ranks follow the general rules:

When a joker card (also known as the wild card) is used in a poker game, Five of a Kind is known as one of the best hands to have in which, if all cards are of aces, then that would be the strongest possible hand.

If no joker is being used, then in such games the best hand that would be known as the most possible would be a Straight Flush – a set of five cards that are the same suit (where a suit refers to diamonds, spades, hearts or clubs). In this case, the highest straight flush you can get is a Royal Flush which is a set of Ten, Jack, Queen, King and Ace that is suited the same. Then again, a hand can be Four of a Kind where four cards are of the same rank while the fifth card can be any card. As always, the higher the rank the better – a hand that consists of four tens would undoubtedly beat a set of four sixes.

Full House is a hand in which three cards are of one rank and two a pair of a different rank. In this case, the hand which has a higher rank of three would beat the other. For example, a hand consisting of 77766 would beat a hand of 222AA.

Straight is a hand in which the five cards are of different suits. In this case, the cards in one hand which are numerically superior to another, will win. For example, 98765 would beat 23456.

Three of a Kind is a hand in which three cards are of same rank while the other two are unrelated. In this case, two comparable hands, even if they have the three ranks identical, the winner is decided based upon the ranks of the cards that are unrelated. An example of this is if one hand consists of QQQ12 and another is QQQ23, the latter would be the winner. If all cards are identical, the pot is split.

In this way, one pair, two pair, no pair hands are ranked as per the rules listed above. In low hand rankings, the Ace is considered below the Deuce, flushes and straights are ignored.