The strength of a straight is determined by the rank of the card at the top of the run. The strongest straight is hence the ‘broadway’ straight (TJQKA) while the weakest straight is the ‘wheel’ (A2345). These are referred to as Ace-high and Five-high straights respectively. Question 3: Is a straight a strong hand in Hold’em?

• Is A2345 A Straight In Texas Holdem Tournaments
• Is A2345 A Straight In Texas Holdem Players
• Is A2345 A Straight In Texas Holdem Card Game

I ran into a friend of mine yesterday who was jealous because a bunch of our mutual friends were playing Texas holdem Saturday night. She was bummed because she never learned to play poker.

• A2345 is the 2nd highest straight. For example, A2345 will lose to AKQJT but it will win againt KQJT9. The dealer wins all tie hands. For example, if a player and the dealer have t Ace-King for the low-hand, dealer would win the low-hand. All hands are completely random. This app is for entertainment purposes only.
• If that is indeed a straight then I lost a tourney to a bug. Then again been a while since I played so not sure.
• A straight in Texas holdem is a hand made up of either: 5 community cards and 0 whole cards. Example: Board reads A K Q J 10 rainbow. Everyone is playing the board because nothing can beat broadway when the board comes out like this.
• An ace-high straight flush, such as A ♦ K ♦ Q ♦ J ♦ 10 ♦, is called a royal flush or royal straight flush and is the best possible hand in high games when not using wild cards. 6 17 18 A five-high straight flush, such as 5 ♥ 4 ♥ 3 ♥ 2 ♥ A ♥, is called a steel wheel and is both the best low hand and usually the best.

I told her it was easy to learn, and the first thing she needed to do was learn about poker hands and poker hand rankings.

And that gave me the subject for my latest blog post.

Poker Hands Are Almost Always Made Up of Five Cards

In fact, I’m not sure of an exception to this rule. Poker isn’t one game, of course, it’s multiple games that have a couple of things in common:

1. They have a betting structure where you can decide to continue to play or not
2. They use five-card hands that usually win based on the standard poker hand rankings

If you’re playing Seven-Card Stud, for example, you get seven cards, but you use the best five-card hand you can make to determine the winner.

Is A2345 A Straight In Texas Holdem Tournaments

If you’re playing Texas holdem, you have two cards in your hand and five face-up cards that you share with other players. You make the best five-card hand you can using any combination of those seven cards.

If you’re playing Omaha, you have four cards in your hand and five face-up cards that you share with the other players. But you still make the best five-card hand that you can, using two cards from your hand and three cards from the community cards.

Ranks and Suits

Is A2345 A Straight In Texas Holdem Players

Poker is almost always played with a standard 52-card deck of playing cards. Each card has two attributes:

1. A rank
2. A suit

You have four suits—clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades. In each of those suits, you have 13 ranks—2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king, and ace. The ace is unusual because it can be the highest OR the lowest card. It can rank above the king, but it can also count as a “1.”

Flushes, Straights, and Straight Flushes

The ranks and suits become important when you have a flush, a straight, or a straight flush.

A flush is just five cards of the same suit. They can all be clubs, diamonds, hearts, or spades, it doesn’t matter. If you face an opponent who also has a flush, the player whose flush has the highest ranked card wins. An ace would be the highest card in any flush.

A straight is just five cards where the ranks are in succession. It doesn’t matter what suit the cards are, it only matters that the cards are made up of consecutive ranks.

For example, an A2345 is a straight, but so is a 10JQKA.

In the prior example, the ace counts as 1, but in the second, the ace counts as the highest card in the hand, above the king.

If multiple opponents have a straight, the one with the highest card in the straight wins. But if the ace is used as a 1 to make an ace to 5 straight, it counts as a low card for this purpose.

A straight flush is a hand where the cards are all consecutive, AND they’re all of the same suit.

Pairs, Trips, Quads, and Full Houses

All the other possible poker hands you can make have nothing to do with consecutive ranks or suited cards. They have to do with how many cards of a specific rank you have.

A pair, for example, is a hand where you have two cards of the same rank and three other cards. If you and your opponent both have a pair, the higher-ranked pair wins. A pair of aces beats a pair of kings, for example.

Two pair is a hand made up of two cards of one rank and two cards of another rank, plus a third card of still another rank. Three of a kind is a hand made up of three cards of the same rank and two other cards.

A full house is a three of a kind with a pair, three cards of one rank and two cards of another. And, of course, four of a kind is four cards of the same rank.

In all these examples, the highest-ranked card determines the winner.

The Standard List of Poker Hand Rankings

So far, I’ve discussed the various poker hands you can have in relation to the attributes of the cards. I haven’t given them a ranking. Almost all poker games use the same ranking system.

Is A2345 A Straight In Texas Holdem Card Game

From best to worst, here are the poker hand rankings:

1. Straight flush
2. Four of a kind
3. Full house
4. Flush
5. Straight
6. Three of a kind
7. Two pair
8. A pair

A straight flush always beats four of a kind or anything lower. A four of a kind always beats a full house or anything lower. And so on, through the end of the poker hand rankings list.

The first element of poker strategy any new poker player should master is the poker hand rankings. If you don’t know what beats what in poker, you can’t possibly make the correct decisions.

How These Hand Rankings Are Determined

The poker hand rankings are sorted this way based on the probability you’ll be dealt such a hand. The less likely it is to get a hand, the more it’s worth.

Also, most poker hand ranking lists include a separate listing for a royal flush, which is just the highest possible straight flush you can have. The only thing that makes it different from any other straight flush is how high your highest card ranks, but we don’t break four aces into a separate listing.

So, I don’t break a royal flush out into its own listing either.

Starting Hand Rankings in Texas Holdem

I could write about poker hand rankings all day, but for now, let me just address starting hands in Texas holdem.

Your starting hand in a game of Texas holdem consists of the two cards you get face down at the beginning of the game. These are the two cards you get to look at before deciding whether to play the hand at all.

The best possible starting hand in Texas holdem is a pair of aces. Often, a pair of aces can win a hand even if it doesn’t improve with the other cards. The rankings continue from there like this:

1. Pocket aces
2. Pocket kings
3. Pocket queens
4. Ace king suited
5. Pocket jacks
6. Pocket 10s
7. Ace queen suited
8. Ace king (not suited)
9. Ace jack suited
10. King queen suited

This might seem like a hard chart to memorize, but think about it like this… These are the best possible starting hands in the game. You should raise with any of them unless you have reason to believe that someone else has a better starting hand.

For example, if you have a pair of queens, you should raise with it, unless a couple of stingy players in front of you have already bet and raised. Even then, it often makes sense to raise with the queens.

Then, you have the suited aces. An ace and a king, an ace and a queen, or an ace and a jack are great hands if they’re of the same suit. You have the potential to make the best possible flush, the best possible straight flush, and the best possible straight.

And if you miss those, you still might catch another ace or pair one of the other big cards, in which case, you’ll have a big pair with the best possible kicker.

Ace king offsuit is prized mostly for its high pair potential, but also for its high straight potential. And king queen suited has lots of potential to make big flushes and straights.

Conclusion

Poker hands aren’t that hard to understand, but if you’re a beginner, it’s probably the first thing you should learn.

Of course, the second thing you should learn is your betting options at various points in the game.

Did you already know everything about poker hand rankings? Did I leave something out? Let me know in the comments.

Razz is a lowball variation of seven-card stud poker; in fact it is often simply called ‘seven-card stud low’. If you already know how to play stud poker, razz should be easy to learn because it has exactly the same betting/dealing structure as seven-card stud. The thing that really sets razz apart from stud poker is the ‘lowball’ system of hand rankings. Under lowball rules, the best razz hands are those that would traditionally be the worst. Since straights and flushes are not used in razz, the best hand is A2345 (any suits) which is known as the wheel. Whether you are looking for a totally new game, or just a change from your traditional stud routine, razz might be the perfect game for you. Today, razz can be found in many online poker rooms, and even some casinos have razz tables.

Rules for Playing Razz Poker

Razz can accommodate up to six players, but as few as two can play at a time. As we go through these basic rules, we’ll be assuming that we are playing $2/$4 fixed limit, aces to five razz. Before play can begin, all players must pay an ante. This is a small fee, $1 in this case, that is contributed to the pot. Players who do not post an ante are not dealt cards and must sit out for the hand. After all antes have been paid, the dealer can go on. Starting to the dealers left, each player is dealt three cards. One of these cards is face-up, and the other two are face-down ‘hole cards’. Each player is free to examine their own hole cards, as well the face up cards of their opponents.

Once these first cards have been dealt, all of the face-up cards on the table are compared. The player with the highest face-up card must post the ‘bring in’. If two or more players are tied for the highest card, then you must inspect their cards’ suits. Here are the suits ranked from highest to lowest.

• – Spades
• – Hearts
• – Diamonds
• – Clubs
• K is the highest card possible when assigning bring in’s.

The ‘bring in’ is usually worth 1/3 to ½ of the size of the low limit. In our $2/$4 game, the ‘bring in’ would cost $1. Once the ‘bring in’ has been paid, the first round of betting opens up and players bet, one at a time, clockwise around the table starting with the player to the left of the ‘bring in’. The first bettor can choose to either call the ‘bring in’ by wagering the same low ($1) bet, or they can complete it by raising it to the low limit ($2).

All of the players can simply call the ‘bring in’ until it is completed. If one player completes the ‘bring in’ by betting $2, then the following players can either call, or raise in $2 increments. Since we are playing with fixed limits, there is a maximum of three total raises in any given round of betting. Players can choose to fold their cards and withdraw at any point in the game, and if only one player is left in the game, then they are awarded the pot.

When each player has either folded, or bet as much as every other player, then the round comes to a close, and the dealer gives each player another face-up card and the cycle continues. There are a total of five betting rounds, each taking place directly after each card has been dealt. The first two rounds use the low limit ($2) while the final three rounds use the high ($4) limit to designate the minimum bet and required raise. When the dealer finally deals the seventh card, it is dealt face-down, and in the end, each player should have three face-down hole cards, and four face-up cards. There is one final round of betting after each player receives his or her seventh card. If more than one player is still in the game after this round, then the players must show their best five-card razz hand, and the winner takes the pot. Keep reading to learn what makes a ‘good razz hand’ as we explain the hand rankings.

Understanding Razz Hand Rankings

The goal in razz poker is to get the lowest possible hand. Basically you want to take what you know about traditional poker hand rankings, and reverse them. In normal ‘Aces to Five razz’, straights and flushes do not count against you, but combinations like pairs, three of a kind, and four of a kind do give you a high hand which is not good. Ideally, you want to be able to put together a five-card hand of unique, low cards. As mentioned before, the best razz hand (aka “The Wheel”) is A2345.

If you find that two or more players are playing hand without any repeating ranks, there is a very simple process you can use to determine who’s hand is lowest. The first step is to look at every player’s highest card. The lowest high card automatically wins. If two players have the same high cards, then you move on to see who has the lowest the second-highest cards. You can keep going down the line until there is a clear winner, but if two or more players share the same hand, then they must split the pot. Here’s and example hand to show you how this is done.

In the example above, the first thing we see is that Thomas has a pair (3 3). Since no other players have a pair (or higher) he automatically has the highest hand and is eliminated. When we look at the remaining three players’ highest cards it becomes obvious that Jill’s K is the highest so she is also eliminated. Jack and Mike both have 8’s, so we need to go to their second highest cards. Mike’s 6 is lower than Jack’s 7, so Mike wins and takes the whole pot.

London Lowball

One popular version of razz, particularly in Europe, is London Lowball. This game closely resembles the traditional version of razz that we discussed above, but there are a couple of differences. First of all, in London Lowball straights and flushes do count against you! This means the wheel (A2345) would register as a straight: a relatively high hand that would normally lose. The best hand in London Lowball is the A2346 (non-suited).

Also the betting limits in London Lowball are rarely fixed. Normally London Lowball utilizes pot limits. This means the maximum size of your bet is equal to the size of the current pot. To calculate the pot, take the sum of all previous bets, and add on the amount you would need to bet to call the current bet. This total is the maximum bet you may place, and as the pot increases so does the betting maximum. After five rounds of betting, a London Lowball game can have a very large pot.

Deuces To Seven Razz

While explaining razz above, we were assuming that you would be playing under ‘aces to five’ rules. The only other popular option to this is ‘deuces to seven’. In deuces to seven razz, straights and flushes count against you (as in London Lowball), and Aces are high. Because of these two small changes, the best hand in deuces to seven, as the name suggests, is 23457 (non suited). Use the same technique to determine the winning hand (looking at the high cards), but keep an eye out for straights, flushes, and remember that aces are high!