Poker
5 card poker hands
A 5 card poker hand is any combination of exactly five playing cards, evaluated against other five-card combinations using the standard poker hand rankings.
Key points
- A 5 card poker hand consists of exactly five cards, ranked against other five-card hands under the game’s ranking system.1
- In games with more than five available cards, only the best five-card combination counts.2
- In Texas hold’em, the best hand is made from 7 cards total, but only the best 5-card hand is used.3
- The term refers to the hand structure itself, not the rules of a specific game or the ranking table.
How it works
Players form a five-card hand, and that hand is compared with others using the game’s ranking system. The higher category wins, and ties within a category are broken by card ranks. In variants with more than five cards available, only the best five-card combination is evaluated.2
Common questions
How many 5 card poker hands are there?
There are 2,598,960 possible 5 card poker hands from a standard 52-card deck. This number is derived from the combination formula C(52,5).
Where this term is used
Not the same as
- 5 card poker rules — the rules of a specific five-card poker game, not the hand structure itself
Related terms
Sources
- Ranking of Poker Hands pagat.com Defines 5 card poker hands and their ranking in standard poker contexts.
- Poker en.wikipedia.org Confirms that a poker hand consists of five cards and only the best five-card combination counts.
- Texas hold 'em en.wikipedia.org Explains that in Texas hold'em the best hand is made from 7 cards but only the best 5-card hand is used.
Sources are drawn from regulators, universities and published research, and each one is labelled with what it actually is — a preprint is not called a paper. Bookmaker and affiliate pages are never cited here, because a page that sells betting is not a neutral authority on it.