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A flush is a strong five-card hand, but four hands rank above it: a full house, four of a kind, a straight flush and a royal flush.
By Anja Wiedenhöft · September 10, 2026 · 5 min read
In standard poker, a flush is beaten by a full house, four of a kind, a straight flush and a royal flush. A flush itself beats a straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card. When two flushes clash, the one with the highest card wins.
A flush is any five cards of the same suit that do not form a straight sequence. For example, the king, ten, seven, five and two of hearts make a flush. The individual card values do not need to connect; the only requirement is that all five share a suit. Because a flush uses the best five cards available to you, in games such as Texas Hold’em you combine your hole cards with the community cards to make it.
A flush is a powerful hand. It sits fifth from the top in the standard rankings and wins a clear majority of the pots it reaches at showdown. But “strong” is not the same as “unbeatable”, and understanding exactly what outranks a flush is the difference between a confident call and an expensive mistake.
Four hands rank above a flush. From weakest to strongest of those four, they are the full house, four of a kind, the straight flush and the royal flush. Everything else in the deck ranks below a flush. The table below shows the complete standard order from best to worst so you can see exactly where a flush fits.
The hand rankings follow a simple principle: the harder a hand is to make, the higher it ranks. A straight (five cards in sequence, any suits) can be assembled in more ways than a flush, so it is more common. Because a flush is rarer, it ranks above a straight. This surprises many people learning the game, because a straight can look more visually complete. The maths, not appearances, sets the order.
When two players both hold a flush, suits do not decide the winner. Instead you compare the cards in order of value. The player with the highest top card wins. If those match, you move to the second card, then the third, and so on until one hand is higher. For instance, an ace-high flush beats a king-high flush, and if both are ace-high you compare the next card down.
In community-card games this matters because the board is shared. If four hearts appear on the board and you hold the ace of hearts, you hold the “nut” flush — the best possible flush — and no opponent’s flush can beat you. Without a high heart, your flush may still lose to someone holding a bigger one, which is why the specific cards matter so much.
Using a standard five-card measure, a flush is dealt roughly once in every 509 hands, while a full house appears about once in 694, four of a kind about once in 4,165, and a straight flush is far rarer still. Those frequencies are exactly why each hand ranks where it does. In Hold’em and Omaha the effective odds shift because you see extra cards, but the ordering never changes.
Knowing what beats a flush is not about chasing certainty — poker never offers that — it is about making better-informed choices. When you hold a flush, scan the board before betting heavily. A paired board (two cards of the same rank showing) means a full house or four of a kind is possible, and three of a kind on board makes those hands more likely for an opponent who connects. Three or four suited cards on the board can also mean a rival holds a higher flush than yours.
The practical habit is to ask what hands could realistically beat you and how likely each is, then size your bets and calls around that read. A middling flush on a dangerous board may be worth a modest bet rather than your whole stack, while the nut flush on a safe board can be played more strongly. Thinking in terms of relative strength and probability, rather than assuming any single hand is safe, is what separates disciplined players from hopeful ones.
The most frequent error is treating every flush as the nuts. A flush is only unbeatable when it is the highest possible flush on a board that cannot make a full house or better. Overvaluing a low flush — a seven-high flush, say — against heavy betting is a classic way to lose a large pot to a bigger flush or a full house. A second mistake is ignoring the board texture: when the board pairs, the mathematics shift and stronger hands become available to your opponents. A third is forgetting that in Omaha you must use exactly two hole cards, so four suited cards on the board do not by themselves give you a flush the way they might feel they should in Hold’em.
The disciplined approach is to grade your flush before acting. Ask whether it is the nut flush, a medium flush or a weak one, and whether the board could support anything above a flush. That single habit prevents most of the costly errors newer players make with an otherwise winning-looking hand.
A flush ranks fifth overall. Above it sit the full house, four of a kind, straight flush and royal flush; below it sit the straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card. Ties between flushes are settled card by card from the top, and suits carry no ranking weight. Commit those relationships to memory and you will read the strength of your hand accurately in almost every situation you meet at the table.
Yes. A full house (three of a kind plus a pair) ranks above a flush in standard poker, so it wins whenever the two are compared at showdown.
No. A flush beats a straight because five cards of one suit are harder to make than five in sequence. This catches many newer players out.
An ace-high flush (A-K-Q-J-9 style, all one suit) is the strongest ordinary flush. Note that A-K-Q-J-10 of one suit is a royal flush, a separate and higher hand.
Compare the highest card of each flush. If they match, compare the next-highest, and so on down all five cards. Suits are not used to break the tie.
A flush is a strong made hand that wins often, but it is not unbeatable. Full houses and better are always possible, so read the board carefully before committing many chips.