Four of a kind
also called quads
Four of a kind is all four cards of one rank, a hand that beats everything except a straight flush.
It is the second rarest hand there is: 624 of the 2,598,960 five card hands, or 0.0240%. Most of the time you make it, the difficulty is not winning the pot but getting anybody to put money in it.
The exception is when the fourth card is on the board, because then everybody has the same four of a kind and the fifth card decides. That is the version that costs money rather than making it.
an example
your cards
board
Two eights in your hand and two on the board make all four. An opponent holding two kings has kings full of eights, and there is nothing on this board that beats four eights.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find four of a kind in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
Full house
A full house is three cards of one rank together with a pair of another, ranked first by the three and only then by the ...
Straight flush
A straight flush is five consecutive cards all of the same suit, the best hand class there is.
Set
A set is three of a kind made with a pocket pair in your hand and one matching card on the board.
next
Knowing the word is not the same as seeing it.
Real spots where you say which hand wins, and it keeps score.