One of the most memorable full houses in poker history is the final hand of the 2003 WSOP Main Event. You can beat it with a four-of-a-kind and all the straight flushes, including a royal flush. Considered one of the best hands in poker, a full house is still not the best hand on the felt. If you don’t understand the different potential hands and their rankings, you could misplay your own hand and lose a critical pot.Ī full house in poker is a solid, yet unique card hand that combines three-of-a-kind and a pair. To be successful at poker, you must learn the poker hierarchy of hands. Ultimately, however, there's no reason 5 of a kind should not beat any straight flush royal or not natural or not.As part of ’s cards chart and poker hands series, we bring you a full rundown of the full house, including its definition, ranking, hands that beat it, hands that it beats, probability, and some examples. Like the old timers did to preserve their AAAA, play it the way you find the most fun and satisfying. So they make rules about naturals playing higher and so forth, but it doesn't really make sense when it comes down to it now does it? Naturals don't play higher in any other hands. Just seems wrong to have it beat by some wild card aided 5 of a kind. After all, you only get a very very small number of natural royal flushes in your life. People don't want the Royal Flush to be beatable. I think that is what we have a case of here. I guess it just preserved the feel of the game for some people. Therefore, as a compromise, there was a brief period in poker history during which a straight flush beat 4 of a kind unless that 4 of a kind was AAAA in which case quad As wins. However, the old time players weren't too keen on the new-fangled way the kids were playing the game and it just didn't seem right if AAAA was not the best hand.

The game evolved and straights, flushes, and straight flushes became widely accepted. This was because the straight and the flush (hence the straight flush) had not yet been invented. A long time ago, the best hand possible in poker was AAAAx or KKKKA.

What beats a royal flush in poker