Flush vs straight
What wins when suit and sequence meet, and why the order is the way it is.
Flush vs straight: which wins? The answer is short and has no exceptions: the flush always beats the straight. Five cards of the same suit beat five consecutive cards, however high that straight runs. Anyone who understands why that is never has to look the order up again, because the same logic sets the entire ranking of poker hands.
The short answer
A flush is any hand of five cards in the same suit, five hearts for instance. A straight is any hand of five consecutive values, such as 7-8-9-10-J, in any suits. When they meet, the flush takes the pot. Even the smallest imaginable flush, with a seven as its highest card, beats the finest broadway straight up to the ace. The height of the hands only matters once both players are in the same category. The misunderstanding often comes from the fact that a straight feels harder to make: five different values that link up exactly seems rarer than five of the same suit. Feeling and probability do not pull together here, and the rules follow the probability.
Why: rarity sets the order
The whole order of poker hands follows from probability: the smaller the chance of getting a hand, the higher it stands. From a deck of 52 cards you can draw nearly 2.6 million different five card hands. Of those, 10,200 are a straight and only 5,108 a flush. A straight therefore comes up about twice as often, and that is why the flush sits above it. Not an agreement out of tradition, simply counting. The same logic explains the rest of the ladder: a full house is rarer again than a flush and so sits above it, four of a kind is rarer than a full house, and so the list climbs on up to the straight flush.
Flush against flush, straight against straight
Within the same category the height decides. With two flushes you compare the highest card first, then the second, up to the fifth: an ace high flush beats a king high one. With two straights the highest top card simply wins, as explained in what is a straight in poker. Watch out on a board with four cards of one suit: then it often comes down to who holds the highest fifth card of that suit, and a low card of that suit in your hand is suddenly worth almost nothing.
The exception that is not an exception
Sometimes you hear at the table that a straight can beat a flush after all, with the straight flush as proof. That is not quite right: a straight flush, five consecutive cards of the same suit, is its own category that sits above both the flush and the straight, and even above the full house and four of a kind. So it is not a straight beating a flush, it is a third hand that beats them both. The very highest version, 10-J-Q-K-A in one suit, everybody knows as the royal flush.
What this means for your game
The practical lesson is in the draws, the hands that still need one card. If you are chasing a straight while two cards of the same suit lie on the table, realise that the card completing your straight can give somebody else a flush draw at the same time, and that your completed straight then finishes second anyway. The other way round, you may play a completed flush with confidence on a board where straights are possible too. Anyone who not only knows the order but acts on it avoids exactly the expensive turning-over moments this duel is famous for. If you are unsure at a showdown, calmly lay your best five cards next to your opponent's and work down the categories from the top. That costs two seconds and stops you pushing away a pot you had won.
frequently asked questions
Flush vs straight questions.
Does a flush always beat a straight? +
Yes, without exception. A flush sits one step above the straight in the fixed hand order, so even the lowest possible flush beats the highest possible ordinary straight (10-J-Q-K-A in mixed suits).
Why is the flush worth more than the straight? +
Because it is rarer. Of the nearly 2.6 million possible five card hands, a good 10,000 are a straight and only a good 5,000 are a flush. A flush therefore comes up about half as often, and in poker rarer means higher in the order.
What if two players both have a flush? +
Then the flush with the highest card wins. If that is equal, you look at the second card, then the third, up to the fifth. Only if all five cards are equally high is the pot split.
And a straight flush, where does that fall? +
A straight flush is five consecutive cards of the same suit and counts as its own category, far above the plain flush and the plain straight. The highest version, 10-J-Q-K-A in one suit, is called a royal flush and is the best hand possible.
never hesitate at a showdown again
Know the order blind.
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