Four of a Kind, also called quads, is four cards of one rank plus a fifth card known as the kicker. It is the third strongest hand in the poker hand rankings: only a Straight Flush and a Royal Flush beat it.
How it works
All four suits of one rank have to be in the hand, so a deal can only produce one Four of a Kind per rank. The fifth card is whatever is left over, and players call it the kicker.
Quads are one of the few hands where the board can carry the whole thing. If all four Kings sit on the board, every player still in the hand has quads. The pot goes to whoever holds the highest fifth card.
What beats four of a kind
Two hands beat it:
- Straight Flush - five consecutive cards of one suit, 36 combinations.
- Royal Flush - the top straight flush 10♠J♠Q♠K♠A♠, 4 combinations.
Everything else loses to quads: a Full House, a Flush, a Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair, One Pair and High Card.
Does a straight flush beat four of a kind?
Yes. The two hands are close in how they feel and far apart in how often they appear. A five-card deal holds 624 Four of a Kinds against 36 Straight Flushes. Rarity sets the order, so the Straight Flush wins, even at its weakest. A♠2♠3♠4♠5♠ beats four Aces.
Comparing two four of a kinds
Compare the rank of the quads first. Four Kings beat four Queens. When the board carries all four cards of a rank, both players hold the same quads and the kicker decides. With K-K-K-K-5 against K-K-K-K-4, the Five wins.
There are exactly 156 distinguishable Four of a Kinds: thirteen ranks for the quads times the twelve ranks left for the kicker. Because the kicker only matters on a paired board, quads are usually decided by rank alone. Four Aces with any kicker is the strongest Four of a Kind possible.
Probability
There are two ways to count it, and the numbers are far apart.
- In a five-card deal: 624 combinations out of 2,598,960 - that is 0.024%, or about 1 in 4,165.
- In seven-card Hold’em: 224,848 out of 133,784,560 - that is 0.168%, or about 1 in 595 hands to the river.
The five-card number comes out in one line: 13 ranks x 48 remaining cards for the kicker = 624.
That makes quads exactly six times rarer than a Full House, which appears 3,744 times, and about 17 times more common than a Straight Flush. Out of seven cards they land seven times more often than out of five.