How Many Poker Hand Rankings Are There?

There are 10 poker hand rankings, from the royal flush at the top down to high card at the bottom. That’s the standard count used on almost every chart. You’ll occasionally see 9 listed instead — that happens when the royal flush is folded into the straight-flush category, since a royal flush is really just the highest possible straight flush. Either way, the order of the categories is identical and universally agreed upon.

The 10 rankings, in order

From strongest to weakest, with an example of each:

How many of each hand exist

The 10 categories divide up all 2,598,960 possible five-card hands. Here’s exactly how many combinations fall into each:

Hand	Combinations
Royal flush	4
Straight flush (non-royal)	36
Four of a kind	624
Full house	3,744
Flush (non-straight-flush)	5,108
Straight (non-straight-flush)	10,200
Three of a kind	54,912
Two pair	123,552
One pair	1,098,240
High card	1,302,540
Total	2,598,960

Add the ten counts and they sum exactly to 2,598,960 — every possible hand lands in one and only one category. This is the arithmetic behind the ranking order: the rarer the category, the higher it ranks.

Why the order is fixed by rarity

Poker ranks hands by how hard they are to make. Royal flush (4 ways) is rarest, so it’s #1; high card (1,302,540 ways) is by far the most common, so it’s last. Every category in between follows the same rule — fewer combinations means a higher rank. That single principle explains the entire ladder, from the highest hand in poker to the lowest hand in poker.

Does the count change by game?

The standard 10-hand ranking applies to Texas Hold’em, Omaha, seven-card stud, and most common variants — they all use the same five-card hand values. Some variants add or reorder hands: short-deck (six-plus) poker, for instance, ranks a flush above a full house because removing the low cards changes the math. In games with wild cards, a “five of a kind” becomes possible and sits above the royal flush. But for classic 52-card poker with no wild cards, the answer is a clean 10.

Bottom line

There are 10 poker hand rankings — royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high card — or 9 if you group the royal flush with the straight flush. All 2,598,960 possible hands sort into these categories, ordered strictly by rarity. Keep the cheat sheet handy, study the full order at the hand rankings hub, then put it to work at the Texas Hold’em tables.