Poker Hands

Here’s a quick list of the basic poker hands. Remember that “wilds” can be whatever they need to be to win the hand, making new combinations possible. Also, if you’re playing Lowball poker, this list is turned upside-down (literally).

  • Garbage: yep, just what it sounds like. You have five cards that don’t like each other in any way. Even so, it may be worth your while to select the best of the five — just in case nobody else has anything, either. That’s what gives this hand the official name of “high card“.
  • When you have two cards with the same value (i.e., two twos, two sevens, two kings, two giraffes), you have what licensed practitioners diagnose as a “one pair“. It’s a decent hand, but if you’re playing video poker at an online casino USA, you’ll probably need a pair of Jacks (or Better).
  • What’s better than one pair? Two pair, obviously. Now in case someone else has two pair, that useless fifth card will suddenly be called upon. It’s called a kicker, and the highest kicker wins. As long as there is a tie, kickers work for any hand, not just two pair.
  • What’s better than one pair or two pair? Three of a kind. At this point, if I need to explain to you what three of a kind means, you’ll probably need more help than I could ever provide.
  • If all of your cards make a nice little perfect sequence, you have a straight. The best kind of straight is 10, J, Q, K, A…but a straight with 2 to 6 still beats three of a kind or anything else we’ve mentioned.
  • if all of your cards are the same suit (all hearts, all clubs, all diamonds, etc.), you have a flush. It doesn’t matter which specific cards they are…unless they also make a straight, which is an even better hand that we’ll talk about in a moment. Online slots!
  • Put a pair with a three of a kind, and you have a Full House. It’s a nice hand, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t like the hand because it reminds me of a dream I once had in which the Olsen Twins beat me up and took my lunch money to buy intoxicating moon juice.
  • Four of a kind is so tough that it can beat like three full houses put together. The best is four Aces, and when they get together the only thing in the world that they fear is the unholy alliance of a straight and a flush, which is also called:
  • a Straight Flush (man, you’d think they could come up with something more creative, huh? I mean, it’s just the best possible hand in poker. Why not call it an “Armored Flying Spiked Tank of Death on Fire” or something like that?). The best kind of straight flush is when you have 10, J, Q, K, A which is called the “Mega Ultimate Armored Flying Spiked Tank of Death on Fire”, or sometimes a “Royal Flush“.