A Straight is five cards of consecutive rank in any suits. It is the sixth strongest hand in the poker hand rankings. Five hands beat it: a Flush, a Full House, Four of a Kind, a Straight Flush and a Royal Flush.
How it works
Five cards run in order, such as 5-6-7-8-9, and the suits do not matter. There are ten sequences in all, from A-2-3-4-5 up to 10-J-Q-K-A.
The Ace can sit at the top of the sequence or at the bottom, but it cannot wrap around: Q-K-A-2-3 is not a Straight.
A Straight is easy to miss in Texas Hold’em. The cards are off-suit and the board can supply three or four of the five, so the hand hides well. Any Flush beats it, which is worth remembering on a two-suited board.
What beats a straight
Five hands beat a Straight:
- Flush - five cards of one suit, 5,108 combinations.
- Full House - three of a kind plus a pair, 3,744 combinations.
- Four of a Kind - four cards of one rank, 624 combinations.
- Straight Flush - five consecutive cards of one suit, 36 combinations.
- Royal Flush - the top straight flush, 4 combinations.
Three of a Kind, Two Pair, One Pair and High Card all lose to a Straight.
Does a straight beat three of a kind?
Yes, and in a five-card deal the gap is wide: 54,912 Three of a Kinds against 10,200 Straights. A Straight is about five times rarer.
In Hold’em that gap all but disappears. Out of seven cards there are 6,461,620 Three of a Kinds and 6,180,020 Straights, a difference of only 5%. A five-card board completes sequences far more readily than it pairs a third card to a pocket pair. At the table the two hands show up at almost the same rate. The ranking does not change: a Straight is still rarer and still higher.
The ace and the steel wheel
The lowest Straight is A-2-3-4-5, where the Ace plays low. It is called the wheel. If those five cards also share a suit it becomes the steel wheel, the lowest Straight Flush possible.
Quads are no help against it: even the steel wheel beats four Aces, the strongest Four of a Kind. The highest Straight is 10-J-Q-K-A, known as Broadway.
Comparing two straights
Compare the top card. 9-8-7-6-5 beats 8-7-6-5-4, and Broadway beats every other Straight.
There are exactly ten distinguishable Straights, one for each top card from the Five to the Ace. A Straight has no kicker, so when the whole sequence comes from the board both players hold the same hand and split the pot.
Probability
There are two ways to count it, and the numbers are far apart.
- In a five-card deal: 10,200 combinations out of 2,598,960 - that is 0.3925%, or about 1 in 255.
- In seven-card Hold’em: 6,180,020 out of 133,784,560 - that is 4.62%, or about 1 in 22 hands to the river.
The five-card number comes out by subtraction: 10 sequences x 1,024 suit arrangements = 10,240, minus the 40 straight flushes = 10,200.
Out of seven cards a Straight lands about 12 times more often than out of five. That is one of the widest gaps between the two counts: a board is unusually good at finishing sequences.