5-Card Rule

5-Card Rule
November 15, 2006

Texas Hold’Em is by far the most popular form of poker in the world today. Over the years I’ve answered a lot of questions about casino games in general and Hold’Em in particular and almost all of them relate in one way or another to one simple but powerful rule: the 5-Card Rule.

Simply stated the 5-Card Rule is this:

every player’s final hand is made from the best five cards available to them.
the final five cards can be any combination of pocket and community cards.
it doesn’t matter where a player’s best cards are selected from (pocket vs table).
no additional cards may be used to determine the winner, break ties, etc.

Basically, that’s it! If you remember that then you’re well on your way to knowing who wins a given Hold’Em hand and why.

Of course there are few other rules to remember at the showdown but they’re simple enough:

all suits have the same value (spades, for example, do not out-rank hearts).
the final hands are first compared first by the ranking of the hands.
hands of equivalent high rank are then compared card-by-card.
if after comparing the five cards there are two or more players with tied hands the pot is split between them.

Let’s run through a few examples to see the 5-Card Rule in action. Assume we’ve got Chuck, Doug, Steve and myself at the table:

Example 1:
We’re at the showdown and the table looks like this:
K♥ 9♣ 10♠ 7♣ 4♣
Chuck(Q♠J♦) Doug(K♦7♥) Steve(8♣3♣) Max(K♠K♣)

Now it’s time for everyone to pick the best 5 cards:

Chuck: K♥Q♠J♦10♠9♣, a K-high Straight
Doug : K♦K♥7♣7♥10♠, Two Pair, Kings and Sevens with a 10 kicker.
Steve: 9♣8♣7♣4♣3♣, a 9-high Flush.
Max: K♠K♣K♥10♠9♣, Trip Kings with 10-9 kickers.

The winner here is simply determined by the hand ranks: Steve’s Flush is the highest ranking hand and he takes the pot.

Example 2: Again, we’re at the showdown and here’s what we’ve got:
6♣K♠K♦10♦10♥
Chuck(Q♦9♥) Doug(8♥6♠)

And again, each picks the best five cards so it’s:

Chuck: K♠K♦10♦10♥Q♠, Two Pair, Kings and 10s, Q kicker.
Doug: K♠K♦10♦10♥8♠, Two Pair, Kings and 10s, 8 kicker.

Since the hand ranks are equal, they’ve both got Two Pair, it’s down to the fifth and last card because hands of equivalent high rank are compared card-by-card. Chuck’s Q beats Doug’s 8 so Chuck takes it again.

Example 3: Showdown time and here’s the table:
K♦6♦10♦J♦3♦
Steve(A♥K♣) Max(K♠Q♥)

So the best hands are:

Steve: K♦J♦10♦6♦3♦, the K-high diamond flush on the board
Max: K♦J♦10♦6♦3♦, same.

And the winner is … a tie because using their best five cards they have the same hand, card-by-card. It’s tempting to want to go to a 6th card so Steve can use his A but there are no 6th cards in Hold’Em, only five cards per the 5-Card Rule, so that’s not allowed and they remain tied.

Example 4: OK, same board cards as above but Steve’s pocket cards are slightly different:
K♦6♦10♦J♦3♦
Steve(A♦K♣) Max(K♠Q♥)

The best hands:

Steve: A♦K♦J♦10♦6♦, A-high Flush.
Max: K♦J♦10♦6♦3♦, K_high Flush.

Obviously there is no tie here. Even though they’ve both got a Flush when we start comparing the hands card-by-card we see that Steve wins right off: an A beats a K and we’re done.

Example 5: Last one, we’re at the showdown, here’s the table:
J♠7♥10♦9♣8♣
Doug(10♥3♦) Max(4♦2♥)

The final hands:

Doug: J♥10♥9♣8♣7♠, J-high Straight.
Max : J♥10♦9♣8♣7♠, J-high Straight.

Beginning players often think that Doug is the winner because his 10♥ is a pocket card while Max’s 10♦ is a board card. They mistakenly think that a pocket card somehow out-ranks a board card but this is not true. Once the best hands have been selected it doesn’t matter where a player’s best cards where selected from, they’re all equal.