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A full house is three cards of one rank and two of another — J♠ J♥ J♦ 4♠ 4♣ is jacks full of fours. It is the fourth-strongest hand in poker: it beats a flush, a straight and everything below them, and loses only to four of a kind, a straight flush and a royal. When two players both have one, the trips decide it and the pair almost never gets a say. Put it against a flush in the tool below and the verdict is instant, which is more than can be said for most kitchen tables.
What a full house beats, and the three hands that beat it
How two full houses are compared — trips first, pair second
Real Hold'em frequency: about one hand in 39
What beats what
Rank 4 of 10
Three of a kind + a pair
Rank 5 of 10
Any five, same suit
Full House beats Flush. The stronger hand class always wins, whatever the cards inside it are.
The three of a kind is always said first. "Kings full of twos" means three kings and two twos, and it beats "queens full of aces" without the aces mattering at all.
The hand
K♠ K♥ K♦ 2♠ 2♣
Said as
Kings full of twos
Beats
Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ A♠ A♣
Because
Kings beat queens; the pair is never reached.
The hand
Board 8♠ 8♥ 8♦ K♠ 4♣, holding K♥ 4♦
Said as
Eights full of kings
Beats
Eights full of anything lower
Because
The trips are on the board, so for once the pair is what decides it.
The hand
7♠ 7♥ 7♦ J♠ J♣
Said as
Sevens full of jacks
Beats
7♠ 7♥ 7♦ 8♠ 8♣
Because
Same trips, so the pair decides: jacks beat eights.
The hand
A♠ A♥ A♦ 2♠ 2♣
Said as
Aces full of twos
Beats
K♠ K♥ K♦ Q♠ Q♣
Because
Aces are the best possible trips in a full house.
Fourth of ten. The percentage is how often that is the best five-card hand available from seven cards — your two plus the board.
#
1
Hand
Royal flush
How often
0.0032%
Against a full house
Beats it
#
2
Hand
Straight flush
How often
0.0279%
Against a full house
Beats it
#
3
Hand
Four of a kind
How often
0.168%
Against a full house
Beats it
#
4
Hand
Full house
How often
2.60%
Against a full house
—
#
5
Hand
Flush
How often
3.03%
Against a full house
Loses
#
6
Hand
Straight
How often
4.62%
Against a full house
Loses
#
7
Hand
Three of a kind
How often
4.83%
Against a full house
Loses
Three cards of one rank and two of another, making five. Nothing else qualifies: three of a kind with two unrelated cards is just three of a kind, and two pair with an unpaired card is two pair. Both of those are common hands and both lose to this one. The nickname is a boat, or a full boat, and it is used far more often than the formal name at a table.
When two players both hold a full house, compare the three of a kind first. Kings full of twos beats queens full of aces, and the aces never enter into it. Only when the trips are identical — which in Hold'em means the three of a kind is on the board — does the pair break the tie. This is the single most misremembered rule in the rankings, and it is worth saying out loud at a home game before it costs somebody a pot.
Because it is rarer. A full house is the best available hand about 2.60% of the time in Hold'em against 3.03% for a flush, and the whole ranking is ordered by frequency. The reason it feels close is that five suited cards look more dramatic than a pair sitting next to some trips. With five cards the gap is wider; in seven-card Hold'em the two are nearly neighbours, which is exactly why this particular argument comes up so often.
Either you hold a pocket pair and hit a set, then pair the board — the profitable way — or you hold two cards that both pair the board, which is the way that gets you into trouble. The first version usually has the best hand. The second version is where somebody with A-K on a K-K-7-7 board discovers that everyone else at the table also has sevens full, and the kicker they were counting on plays no part in the hand at all.
A paired board is what makes a full house possible, and it makes one possible for everyone. If the board is 9-9-4-4-2 you have a full house holding almost anything, and so does the player raising you. The strength of the hand is entirely in which pair on the board you have filled: nines full is a monster and fours full is a trap. The same logic applies to a board with trips on it, where the only thing separating the players is the pair they can add.
Quads are about fifteen times rarer than a full house, so folding a boat because someone might have four of a kind is usually paying too much respect to a hand nobody has. The exception is specific and readable: when the board is paired and the player raising you has been calling from a position where a pocket pair makes sense, the trips you are counting on may be their fourth card. Bet for value, call a raise, and be suspicious only when the third raise arrives.
Boats produce more disputes than any other hand, because two players hold one at once far more often than they hold two flushes. The rule that settles it is always the same — higher trips wins, and only identical trips give the pair a vote. Write it down, or keep the ranking chart where people can see it, and the argument takes ten seconds instead of ten minutes.
The pot a full house wins is usually a large one, which makes it the hand most likely to leave the chip counts in dispute at the end of the night. Running the game in a room on PokerChip.live records each pot as it is pushed, so the settlement at the end is arithmetic rather than recollection — and the boat that won it is in the history for the next time somebody tells the story.
FAQ
01
Three cards of one rank plus two of another, such as J♠ J♥ J♦ 4♠ 4♣. It is the fourth-strongest hand in poker.
02
Yes. A full house is the fourth-strongest hand and a flush is fifth, so a full house wins every time, however high the flush is.
03
Four of a kind, a straight flush and a royal flush. Nothing else does.
04
The one with the higher three of a kind. The pair only matters when both players have the same trips, which in Hold'em means the trips are on the board.
05
No — three of a kind and one pair. Five cards in total: three of one rank, two of another.
06
About 2.6% of the time in Texas Hold'em, or roughly one hand in 39, counting the best five cards out of seven.
07
It is table slang, short for full boat, and it is used more than the formal name. Both mean the same hand.
08
Yes, comfortably. A straight is the sixth-strongest hand, two classes below a full house.
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