For players learning how to play online poker, the card rankings and rules are the most important aspects. While it can be confusing and time-consuming, beginners need to know the best poker hands from the worst and what hand beats another during the game.

One of the most common questions from people learning to play poker games online is in this category: “Does a full house beat a flush?” If it’s the short answer you’re after, then yes, a full house does outrank a flush. However, it pays to have more knowledge about the two hands and how to play them differently to add more nuance to your poker game, especially as you begin to weigh the odds of landing a full house against other potential draws.

How Are Hands Ranked in Poker?

One of the most critical things to keep in mind when learning about poker rankings is that they are based on the number of possible combinations to form the hand. Therefore, the lower the number of combinations a hand has, the higher it is ranked. The top starting poker hands will also have the lowest possible number of combinations. For example, the odds of making one pair in a hold ’em hand are approximately 1.4:1, while the odds of completing a royal flush are 649,739:1; thus, the royal flush is much more valuable as the highest-ranked hand in poker.

What Is a Flush in Poker?

A flush is easy to recognize in poker. It’s simply a combination of five same-suit cards, with at least one of them being non-sequential. 

Examples of flush combinations in poker:

• King-high flush: K-J-7-5-4 of a single suit
• Ace-high flush: A-K-9-7-6 of a single suit

What Is A Flush Draw in Poker?

A flush draw is a situation where a player has four cards of the same suit and needs one more to complete the flush. Recognizing what a flush draw in poker is can help players understand how often a flush can develop and why it’s considered one of the more common drawing hands in Texas Hold’em.

Straight Flush

Of course, there is more than one type of flush in poker. A straight flush also consists of five same-suit, sequential cards.  The straight flush is a stronger hand than a flush.  It’s not to be confused with a standard straight in poker, which is simply five cards in sequence regardless of suit.

Examples of straight flush combinations:

• Ten-high straight flush: T-9-8-7-6 of a single suit
• Queen-high straight flush: Q-J-T-9-8 of a single suit

Royal Flush

This is the strongest five-card combination in a poker game. It’s a five-card hand with five sequential same-suit cards, starting with a ten and ending with an ace.

There are only four possible combinations of a royal flush:

• Royal flush of spades: A-K-Q-J-T of spades
• Royal flush of clubs: A-K-Q-J-T of clubs
• Royal flush of hearts: A-K-Q-J-T of hearts
• Royal flush of diamonds: A-K-Q-J-T of diamonds

What Is a Full House in Poker?

Knowing the rankings of card combinations helps when you want to review your own poker hand during poker games or online poker tournaments. Because a full house is a made hand that often outperforms drawing hands, including common situations like flush draws, understanding how it’s constructed is essential.

A full house is a five-card combination with three cards of one value (trips or a set) and two cards of another value (pair). 

Examples of a full house:

• Sevens full of queens: Q-Q-7-7-7
• Kings full of sixes: K-K-K-6-6

When you rank full house combinations, you’ll first use the ranking of the trips. That means the second combination above (kings full of sixes) is the strongest of the two hands.

The pair of the full house hand is only used in a game for ranking if multiple players have the same trips in their hand when making a combination from the same cards on the table.

For example:

• Player A has a jack of spades and a nine of diamonds.
• Player B has a jack of clubs and a ten of spades.
• The board shows a jack of hearts, a jack of diamonds, a nine of spades, a ten of hearts, and an ace of clubs.
• Player A’s strongest combination will be jacks full of nines: J-J-J-9-9.
• Player B’s strongest combination will be jacks full of tens: J-J-J-T-T.

The rank of the trips in both player A’s and player B’s hands is the same. Therefore, the rank of the pair is used to determine the winning hand. This means that player B’s hand is stronger in this situation.

Full House vs. Flush: Who Wins?

According to standard poker hand rankings used around the world, a full house beats a flush. While the simplicity of this rule is easy enough to grasp, we can look at several aspects of the full house versus flush discussion.

Why a Full House Beats a Flush

As in any game, players who develop and popularize a game develop standard rules by which play happens, and a winner is determined. Most gambling historians point to the 1800s as the time when players standardized the rules for games like five-card draw and five-card stud. And they did so based on the difficulty level of achieving a hand. That led to this lineup of poker hand rankings, from best hand to worst:

• Royal flush (A-K-Q-J-T of one suit)
• Straight flush (five cards of the same suit in sequential order)
• Four of a kind (9-9-9-9)
• Full house (three of a kind plus a pair)
• Flush (five cards of the same suit)
• Straight (five cards in sequential order)
• Three of a kind (9-9-9)
• Two pair (9-9-3-3)
• One pair (3-3)
• High card

In every scenario and by all standard poker rules and regulations, a full house beats a flush.

Odds of Making a Full House in Poker vs. a Flush

As rankings dictate, the full house has more power and value than a simple flush. Therefore, it is more difficult to make a full house than a flush, as shown by the statistics associated with these hands. To illustrate, here is the top half of the hand rankings by the odds:

In a 52-card deck of poker:

• A royal flush has four possible combinations, with odds of +64,973,900.
• A straight flush has 36 possible combinations, with odds of +7,219,200.
• A four-of-a-kind poker hand has 624 possible combinations, with odds of +416,400.
• A full house has 3,744 possible combinations, with odds of +69,300.
• A flush has 5,108 possible combinations. The odds of making a flush in poker are +50,900.

Example of Flush vs Full House Hands in Texas Hold’em

It is not uncommon to see hands in which a full house and a flush compete against each other for a pot. As one player focuses on finding the last card to complete the flush draw, his or her opponent might be finishing up a full house.

In this hand example, Jane’s hole cards are pocket queens (Q-Q). John’s hole cards are J-T of hearts. The flop of Q-3-3 shows two more hearts, giving John the flush draw but Jane the full house – queens full of threes. The turn delivers another heart for John to complete his flush, but it cannot beat Jane’s full house (or full boat).

Technically, Jane has the winning hand. She can bet strong and win the pot early, or she can portray a hand other than the full house and extract more money on the turn and river by disguising the strength of her hand. She can also convince John to bet more if he doesn’t know that his flush is dominated by a full house.

However, John could still apply pressure with a very strong bet. If John had been playing very tight prior to this hand, only getting involved when he held premium cards, he might credibly represent a stronger made hand once the board developed. Even so, while a flush can look powerful (especially when betting aggressively on a paired board), it would still be beaten by Jane’s full house in this scenario. This example highlights how deceptive flushes can appear in live action, despite being outranked by a full house within the strongest poker hands hierarchy. 

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It’s critical for beginners to know how hands are ranked in poker and to learn the different card combinations so they can decide when to play aggressively or conservatively based on their hand, especially if they plan to play poker with real money. You can gain further advantage with BetMGM’s ultimate online poker cheat sheet.

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