Short Deck Poker Hand Rankings Explained

Short deck poker uses a 36-card deck — the twos through fives are removed — and that change flips two spots in the hand rankings: a flush beats a full house, and a set beats a straight. Everything else stays the same as regular poker, but those two swaps trip up players who bring full-deck instincts to the game. Here’s the corrected order and the math that drives it.

The short deck ranking order

From strongest to weakest, the standard short deck ladder is:

#	Hand	Change from full deck
1	Royal flush	—
2	Straight flush	—
3	Four of a kind	—
4	Flush	moves up
5	Full house	moves down
6	Three of a kind (set)	moves up
7	Straight	moves down
8	Two pair	—
9	One pair	—
10	High card	—

The flush-over-full-house swap is used in essentially every short deck game. The set-over-straight swap is standard in most rooms, though a few home games skip it — always confirm the house rules before you sit.

Why a flush beats a full house here

Poker ranks by rarity, and a shorter deck changes what’s rare. In short deck each suit has only nine cards, so making five of the same suit is much harder. Meanwhile, full houses are barely affected. Count the combinations in the 36-card deck:

Hand	Combinations (36-card deck)
Full house	1,728
Flush (non-straight)	480

A flush is now over three times rarer than a full house, so it correctly ranks higher. In a full deck it’s the reverse — a full house beats a flush — because there a flush is the more common of the two.

Why a set beats a straight here

With four ranks removed, the deck is more tightly connected, so straights come easier. Sets (three of a kind), by contrast, get slightly harder because there are fewer cards overall to pair up. That crossover pushes a set above a straight in the standard short deck order. On a practical level, it means flopping a set is a bigger favorite in short deck than in regular hold’em.

The ace-low straight

The ace keeps its dual role. It plays high in the top straight 10-J-Q-K-A and low in the bottom straight A-6-7-8-9. That ace-to-nine run is the short deck equivalent of the full-deck “wheel,” and it’s the lowest straight you can make. There is no A-2-3-4-5 because the low cards don’t exist in the deck.

A quick showdown example

Board: K♠ 9♠ 7♠ 9♦ 6♥.

• Player A holds 9♣ 6♦ → 9♠ 9♦ 9♣ 6♥ 6♦ = full house, nines full of sixes.
• Player B holds A♠ 8♠ → A♠ K♠ 9♠ 8♠ 7♠ = flush.

In regular poker Player A’s full house would win easily. In short deck the flush is promoted above the full house, so Player B wins. That single swap — invisible on the board — is exactly the kind of spot where a full-deck player misreads the pot.

How the odds shift the whole game

The reordered rankings aren’t a gimmick — they reflect how much the shortened deck changes the odds, and that ripples into strategy. Because straights come so easily, connected hands and suited runners gain value, while low flush draws lose value (a nine-card suit makes flushes scarce, so you’re chasing a hand that rarely arrives). Sets are a bigger favorite too: with fewer cards in the deck, flopping a set is more likely and, thanks to the promotion above straights, more powerful. Many short deck games also change the blind structure to an “ante and button blind” format, but the ranking swaps are the part that touches every single showdown, so learn those first.

What stays the same

Everything outside those two swaps is identical to standard poker. Straight flushes and quads still sit at the top, two pair and pairs at the bottom, and all tie-breakers — kickers, higher trips, higher top card — work exactly as they do in a full deck. Only the flush and set get promoted. For the standard full-deck order and other variants, start at the hand rankings hub and browse other poker variants.

Bottom line

Short deck poker keeps most of the ranking ladder but promotes the flush above the full house and the set above the straight, because a nine-card suit makes flushes rare and the tight deck makes straights easy. Remember the ace-low A-6-7-8-9 straight, confirm whether your room uses the set-over-straight rule, and cross-check the standard order at the hand rankings hub before you take these swaps to the Texas Hold’em felt.