YG777 Full House Poker: Which Full House Wins and What Beats It
In full house poker the hand is three cards of one rank plus two of another, such as 9-9-9-4-4.
Key facts and contents
- YG777 Blackjack Split
- A blackjack split turns a starting pair into two hands with a second equal bet.
- YG777 Dice Games
- Casinos deal six main dice games: craps, Sic Bo, chuck-a-luck, under and over seven, hazard and the live Lightning Dice.
- YG777 Royal Flush
- A royal flush is the ace-high straight flush: A, K, Q, J and 10 of one suit.
- YG777 Stud Poker
- Stud poker deals each player a mix of face-down and face-up cards with no community cards.
- YG777 Three Card Poker Rules
- Three card poker rules: post an Ante, see three cards, then Play (equal to the Ante) or fold.
- YG777 Ultimate Texas Holdem
- Ultimate Texas Holdem is played against the dealer: you post equal Ante and Blind bets, then may raise once, 3x or 4x before the flop, 2x after it, or 1x after the turn and river.
Full house poker comes down to one pattern: three cards of the same rank and a pair of another rank. Hold 9-9-9-4-4 and you have nines full of fours, a strong hand that loses to only three others. This page shows how to read one, how two full houses are compared, and how often the hand arrives in a five-card deal, with the counting written out. Where the game sits among the tables, the card games online across the lobby overview explains.
What makes a full house
A full house needs two parts and nothing else: a set of three cards of one rank, and a pair of a different rank. The suits do not matter. Hands are named trips first, so K-K-K-7-7 is kings full of sevens, and 7-7-7-K-K is sevens full of kings, a different and lower hand.
| Five cards | Name | Full house? |
|---|---|---|
| K-K-K-7-7 | kings full of sevens | yes |
| 7-7-7-K-K | sevens full of kings | yes, lower |
| 9-9-9-9-4 | four nines | no, four of a kind |
| 9-9-9-4-2 | three nines | no, three of a kind |
Not every five cards with a repeat is a full house. Four of one rank plus one stray card is four of a kind, which ranks above it. Three of a kind with two unmatched cards is a weaker hand, since the second pair is missing.
Which full house beats another
Two full houses are compared in two steps, and the order is fixed:
- Compare the three-of-a-kind. The higher rank wins, with aces high.
- If those match, which can only happen when cards are shared on the board, compare the pairs.
| Hand A | Hand B | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9-9-9-4-4 | 8-8-8-A-A | Hand A | nines beat eights, aces never get consulted |
| Q-Q-Q-3-3 | Q-Q-Q-2-2 | Hand A | same trips on the board, so the pair of threes beats twos |
| 5-5-5-K-K | 6-6-6-2-2 | Hand B | sixes beat fives, even with a pair of twos |
Counting by rank alone there are 156 different full houses: 13 ranks for the trips times 12 remaining ranks for the pair. The best of them is aces full of kings and the weakest is twos full of threes.
What a full house loses to
Three hands sit above it, and only three. Starting at the top of the ladder, with the full house marked for reference:
- Royal flush: 4 combinations.
- Straight flush: 36 combinations. The royal flush odds and ranking page explains how those two differ.
- Four of a kind: 624 combinations.
- Full house (the hand itself): 3,744 combinations.
Below it come the flush (5,108), the straight (10,200), three of a kind (54,912), two pair (123,552), one pair (1,098,240) and high card (1,302,540). Add every row and you get 2,598,960, the total number of five-card hands.
Full house odds: the working
A full house is counted by choosing the ranks and the suits, as follows.
- Pick the rank for the three-of-a-kind: 13 ways.
- Pick which 3 of that rank’s 4 suits: 4 ways.
- Pick a different rank for the pair: 12 ways.
- Pick which 2 of that rank’s 4 suits: 6 ways.
- Multiply: 13 x 4 x 12 x 6 = 3,744.
Against the 2,598,960 total, that is 1 in 694, about 0.14% of five-card hands. Four of a kind is 624 combinations, so a full house turns up six times as often as quads. Seven cards, as in hold’em, give you more ways to make one but the same ranking.
Where full houses show up at the table
In a game such as Ultimate Texas Holdem with a dealer’s board, you build your best five cards from your two plus the shared board and a full house is one of the strong results that can come out of that mix. The game’s rules window states what each hand pays, so open the game and read it before you raise.
Pairs also matter in other games for different reasons. A matched pair is the question in the blackjack split pairs page, where the choice is whether to play two hands. To find a poker table:
- Log in with Mag-login.
- Open Poker or Live from the menu.
- Browse the studio tiles and look for the game by name.
- Read its rules window before you play.
You must be 21 or over to play.
FAQ
What is a full house in poker?
Three cards of one rank and two cards of another, for example K-K-K-7-7, called kings full of sevens. It sits above a flush and below four of a kind.
Which full house wins when two players have one?
Compare the three-of-a-kind first. Nines full of fours beats eights full of aces, because the nines are higher than the eights. Only if the trips match do you compare the pairs.
What beats a full house?
Three hands: four of a kind, a straight flush and a royal flush. A flush, a straight and everything lower lose to it.
How often does a full house come up?
3,744 times in 2,598,960 five-card hands, about 1 in 694 or 0.14%. The working is on this page.