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Yes. A full house beats a flush. A full house is the fourth-strongest hand in poker and a flush is the fifth, so three-of-a-kind-plus-a-pair takes the pot from any five cards of the same suit — including an ace-high flush. This is the matchup that costs the most money at home games, because a flush feels like the harder hand to make and, in Texas Hold'em, it is not.
The answer in one line, with both hands shown side by side
Real Hold'em frequencies: 2.60% versus 3.03%
What decides it when two players both flop a full house
Qué mano gana
Puesto 4 de 10
Trío + pareja
Puesto 5 de 10
Cinco cualesquiera del mismo palo
Full gana a Color. La categoría de mano más alta siempre gana, sean cuales sean las cartas que la formen.
Percentages are the share of seven-card hands where that is the best five cards available. This is the Hold'em figure, not the five-card draw one.
Rank
Full house
4th
Flush
5th
How often
Full house
2.60%
Flush
3.03%
Odds
Full house
1 in 38.5
Flush
1 in 33.0
What it is
Full house
Three of a kind plus a pair
Flush
Five cards of one suit
Beats
Full house
Flush and everything below
Flush
Straight and everything below
Loses to
Full house
Quads, straight flush, royal
Flush
Full house and above
The flush was the best hand on the flop. The board paired on the turn and handed the pot to a player who had been behind the whole way. Read the two hands left to right — the board first, then what each player is really holding once you take the best five cards from the seven available.
Board
Cards
J♦ 8♦ 4♠ 4♦ 2♣
Best five cards
—
Result
Paired, and three diamonds showing
Player A
Cards
A♦ 6♦
Best five cards
A♦ J♦ 8♦ 6♦ 4♦
Result
Ace-high flush — the nuts on the flop
Player B
Cards
J♠ J♣
Best five cards
J♠ J♣ J♦ 4♠ 4♦
Result
Jacks full of fours — wins the pot
Hand rankings are ordered by how hard each hand is to make. The rule was set for five-card hands, where a full house comes up once in every 694 hands and a flush once in every 508 — the full house is rarer, so it wins. That ordering has never changed, and it applies in every standard poker game you will play.
In Hold'em you make your hand from seven cards, and the arithmetic flips: a full house turns up 2.60% of the time and a flush 3.03%. So in the game you are actually playing, the full house is the rarer hand — the ranking and the frequency agree here even though most people assume they do not. What confuses players is that a flush *looks* harder: five cards of one suit is visually dramatic, while a full house is two ordinary-looking pairs with an extra card. The picture misleads; the ranking does not.
This matchup does not happen at random. It needs a board that is both paired and three-suited, or a paired board where somebody holds a pocket pair. If you flop a flush and the board then pairs on the turn or river, the hand that was best a moment ago is now second best against anyone holding trips. Experienced players slow down when the board pairs for exactly this reason, and it is the single most useful habit to copy.
When two players both have a full house, compare the three of a kind before you look at the pair. Sevens full of twos beats fives full of aces, every time — the sevens are higher than the fives and the pair never gets consulted. Getting this backwards is the second most common ranking mistake after this page's main question, and it is worth saying out loud at the table before it costs somebody a pot.
Flushes are compared card by card from the top. An ace-high flush beats a king-high flush, and if both are ace-high you compare the second card, then the third. Suits do not break ties in Hold'em — if all five cards are the same rank, the pot is split. This is why a small suited card is a dangerous hand to chase a flush with: you make the hand you were drawing to and lose to someone with the ace.
Only three hands: four of a kind, a straight flush and a royal flush. Together those come up in less than 0.2% of seven-card hands, which is why a full house is usually worth playing for your stack in a home game. The exception is an obviously dangerous board — if the board is paired *and* has four to a straight flush, someone slowing down in front of you is worth listening to.
If your game has newer players, settle this before the first deal rather than in the middle of a big pot. A printable hand-ranking sheet on the table does the job silently and stops the conversation from becoming about who is more confident rather than what the rules say. It takes thirty seconds and saves the evening more than once.
Big pots are the ones people remember wrong. When the full-house-over-flush hand happens, the chips have usually already moved by the time anyone questions it. Running the game on PokerChip.live means the bets, the pot and the final stacks are recorded as they happen, so the only thing left to settle is which five cards were best.
An ace-high flush is close to the top of most players' mental list of strong hands, and it is hard to fold once you have made it. The full house arrives quietly: the board pairs, nothing about the texture screams danger, and the player who was drawing dead from the turn keeps betting because their hand did not get worse. Nothing did get worse — something else simply got better, and the only clue was a card on the board that looked irrelevant.
FAQ
01
Yes. A full house ranks fourth and a flush fifth, so a full house wins — including against an ace-high flush.
02
No. There is no version of a flush that beats any version of a full house. A straight flush is a different hand and does beat it.
03
A full house, in both five-card and seven-card poker. In Hold'em it is made 2.60% of the time against a flush's 3.03%.
04
By the three of a kind first. Sevens full of twos beats fives full of aces. Only if the trips match do you compare the pairs.
05
Four of a kind, a straight flush and a royal flush. Nothing else does.
06
It changes a lot. A paired board is what makes a full house possible, so a flush that was clearly best on the flop can be second best by the river.
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