High card
also called no pair
A high card hand is one with no pair and no other combination, so it is ranked only by its highest card and then by the next four in order.
It is the weakest class of hand and by far the most common: 1,302,540 of the 2,598,960 five card hands, which is 50.1%. Half of everything is nothing at all.
That is why high card hands are not automatically worthless at a showdown. Against an opponent who bets a wide range, ace high beats every missed draw, and beating nothing is often exactly enough.
an example
your cards
board
Your best five cards are the ace, the king, the queen, the nine and the five, with no pair among them. Any pair beats you, and a hand that also missed does not.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find high card in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
Ace high
Ace high is a hand with no pair and nothing better, where the ace is simply the highest of your five cards.
One pair
One pair is two cards of the same rank with three unmatched cards alongside them, ranked first by the pair and then by t ...
Showdown
A showdown is the point after the final round of betting where the remaining players turn their cards face up and the be ...
next
Knowing the word is not the same as seeing it.
All ten hands in order, with how often each one turns up.