Poker is played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards, ranked from high to low in the following order: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3, and 2. In the game of poker, Aces are always the highest card, followed by King, Queen, Jack and so on. The cards are also divided into four separate suits, namely Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds. These suits are all of equal value.
When playing a standard poker game, each player is dealt five cards, with the object of the game being to end up with the highest valued hand. The hands are ranked in the following way, from best to worst:
- Royal Flush
- Straight Flush
- Four of a Kind
- Full House
- Flush
- Straight
- Three of a Kind
- Two Pair
- One Pair
- High Card
Royal Flush
This is the most valuable hand in poker, and the most difficult to get, with good reason. A Royal Flush comprises of a 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace, all of the same suit.
Straight Flush
A Straight Flush is similar to a Royal Flush, except it comprises of any five cards in numerical order, all of the same suit. The hand, however, is not allowed to ‘wrap around’, for instance, a Queen, King, Ace, 2 and 3. This is also a very rare hand to achieve, and it is considered cheating if you get two of these in a row. If there are two Straight Flushes as a table, the winning hand is the hand which reaches the highest value.
Four of a Kind
This hand is four cards of the same numerical rank and in numerical order. The fifth card is usually a random card not significant to the hand. If there