Mastering the Flush: A Poker Player's Guide

In all of its many variants, Poker is a game which has not dimmed in popularity across the years. Particularly since the option of online poker became available, countless people enjoy playing a few hands of poker in the comfort of their homes. There is, however, a learning curve to be negotiated with this popular card game, and in large part it is to do with knowing how you win. More specifically, what is a good hand? That’s what we’re going to cover here. One thing we would ask you to keep in mind: if you’re still learning, it’s best to play free poker to get a feel for the flow of the game and your chances of winning.

What is a Flush in Poker?

A lot of people are familiar with the terms in poker but not necessarily what they mean, and so first let’s get a definition in place: the Flush is a hand where all of your cards are of the same suit, but not in any particular order. If your hand is all Hearts, for example, and the cards are 2, 3, 6, 8 and K, that would constitute a Flush. This is a hand that can win quite a few games of Poker; it is stronger than a Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair and One Pair.

Since there are other hands that can comfortably beat the Flush, it is not necessarily something that a player will aim for when changing their cards, but it might be worth considering if your initial hand doesn’t throw up anything particularly inspiring. If your initial hand is - for example - four Diamonds and a Spade, it may be worth swapping out the Spade in the hopes of gaining another Diamond. This would not be the case, though, if you have a chance at a stronger hand such as a Full House, which we’ll look into later on.

Many people don’t realize how strong a Flush is, comparatively. After all, barring the suit, the cards do not immediately look like a strong hand - but it can beat all but five of the possible hands, and it should not be forgotten that there are only 13 cards in a suit, so to get five of those yourself is no small thing. That fact is also worth bearing in mind if you have a relatively weak hand and only three of the same suit. Statistically, your chances of swapping in another two of that suit are very low, and you are better off targeting another way of winning.

Understanding a Straight Flush

A Straight Flush is a lot harder to achieve than a standard Flush. In this hand, you not only need to have all of your cards in the same suit, but they need to be sequential. If all of your cards are of the same suit and you have, for example, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, then that would be a Straight Flush, as would 8, 9, 10, J, and Q. It is hard enough to get all of your cards of the same suit, but to get them to run in sequence is extremely rare.

This is reflected in the fact that a Straight Flush is the second strongest hand in the game of poker, only defeated by a Royal Flush. Whatever form of the game you are playing, a Straight Flush happens very rarely indeed, but if you see the opportunity for it, it is worth trying to achieve it. If, for example, you have the 4, 5, 6 and 8 of Diamonds, as well as the 3 of Clubs, you should hand back the latter card in the hope of getting the 7 of Diamonds in return. The odds on that are long, but you could still end up with a pair even if you miss the card you wanted, and that can often be enough to win a hand.

A Straight Flush can, theoretically, be beaten by a higher Straight Flush as well as by the Royal Flush. If, for example, you have the 4 to the 8 of Diamonds as explained above, another player who has, for example, the 6 through 10 of Clubs. This shouldn’t affect your thinking too much at the table, though, as one Straight Flush is rare enough, so to see two in the same deal would be incredible. That’s not to say it cannot happen, but you simply can’t factor the possibility into how you play.

Beating a Flush in Poker

It is, as we have said, by no means impossible to beat a Flush in Poker, so you should bear this in mind when betting. Ordinarily, it is a hand worth taking to the reveal, because it stands an excellent chance of winning, but there are five hands which can defeat it in a Poker game. That means that you have to be aware of the possibility that even if you have managed to complete a Flush, someone else around the table has done better. This is where the softer skills of a player come into their own.

What that means is that you need to be conscious of how the other players around the table are behaving. Some people have tells that make it easier to surmise how their hand is looking. People with better hands will tend to bet more aggressively; they might not take any new cards at the Discard point; in person, it may be easier to tell because their body language will include some giveaways.

What can beat a Flush, then? Well, as we already noted, a Straight Flush is a better hand, as is any higher Flush including the best hand in the game, a Royal Flush. It can also be beaten by Four of a Kind, or a Full House. These are difficult hands to achieve and to beat, so if someone doesn’t discard any cards, there is a decent chance they have one of these hands already. Winning with a Flush is dependent on your ability to read other players, but if the signs are good then it is worth being bold with your betting.

How a Flush Works

In any form of Poker, the chance to build a Flush is based on the drawing of a suited starting hand (ie. you have multiple cards of the same suit in your initial hand). If it looks like you will find it hard to build a higher-ranking hand (you have no pairs or most of your cards are of a lower number), then deciding to build a Flush can be a solid strategy. It is easier to build a Flush than to put together a lot of other hands, because you are simply looking for cards from a suit, not specific numbered cards.

Working towards building a Flush will be easier if you already have what are referred to as “suited connectors”. This means having the 7 and 8 of Hearts, or the 9 and 10 of Spades, or any two cards that are both matched by hand and sequential in number. Adding the correct cards in this case can mean that you not only build a Flush, but it can become a Straight Flush depending on the cards you receive. If you are playing Texas Hold ‘Em, with a Flop and a River, then your chances to get the cards you want increase; but if it doesn’t look like developing, then this is always a good time to consider folding.

Recognizing a Pair in Poker

A pair is one of the most easily-recognizable hands in Poker. It is, quite simply, two cards of the same value in different hands. For example if your hand is 4, 5, 8, 8 and Q, that means you have a pair of eights. While it is a positive to see a pair in your hand, the reality is that this is a very beatable hand. The only hands that lose to a Pair are those without any combinations at all, where there is no sequence to the cards and they are of varied hands. Those hands are ranked by the highest card, but even those hands with an Ace in them will lose to a pair.

If your hand has nothing playable in it, as described above, then changing your cards makes for the possibility to at least form a Pair. In these cases, it is worth discarding your lower-ranked cards, because in a game where another player has a Pair and nobody else has anything, the hand that wins will be the one with the highest-scoring Pair. If you have a Pair of 10s and your closest opponent has a pair of 6s, you will win the hand. Be aware, though, that it is not advisable to bet too aggressively, as any hand other than the very worst will beat a Pair.

What Beats a Straight Flush

A Straight Flush is an amazing hand to have - all cards of the same suit, and in sequence. The chances of this happening are 0.0014%, or to put it another way, about one in 72,000. So you can be pretty confident that if you manage to pull a Straight Flush, it won’t be beaten. That is unless one of your opponents has managed a Royal Flush. You’d be tremendously unlucky to find yourself in that situation, as a Royal Flush has a probability of 0.00015, or one in nearly 650,000. Either one of these hands is rare enough on its own, but to see both in the same deal would be hugely improbable.

The only other way a Straight Flush can be beaten is if another player also has a Straight Flush, and the cards are higher-value. If you post a 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Straight Flush and your opponent has managed a 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, then you would lose out on the hand. But this should not enter your calculations when betting, because the possibility of this happening is so distant.

Mastering Three of a Kind

If you pull Three of a Kind then you could reasonably consider that you have a decent chance of winning, but in the rankings of Poker hands it’s surprisingly low - only the seventh-best hand you can get. Of course, the higher-ranking ones are generally quite difficult to achieve, so you still do stand a good chance of winning. Three of a Kind is, as the name implies, when you pull three cards of the same value across different suits.

It can, however, be beaten by a Straight (cards running in sequence but in different hands), a Flush, a Full House, Four of a Kind, a Straight Flush and a Royal Flush. So this is another case in which it is smart to monitor how other players are conducting themselves at the moment where bets are placed. If others are looking confident, adjust your bets accordingly. There are enough potential scenarios where this hand can be beaten, but Three of a Kind, particularly with a high value card, is a very strong hand to have.

Four of a Kind Explained

If Three of a Kind is three cards of the same value, then you can probably guess what Four of a Kind is. This is an extremely rare hand, given that it means you have all of the cards of a specific value from one pack of cards. Approximately, there is a one in 40 chance of pulling Four of a Kind, so if you manage to do it, you should feel relatively confident of winning the hand. In truth, only a Straight Flush or a Royal Flush can beat it, and we all know how rare both of those hands are.

If you have drawn three of a kind, chasing the fourth is certainly a move worth making. Getting four cards of the same value is rare and, if you can achieve it, almost sure to win a hand of poker. If you don’t manage to assemble it, you still have the strong fallback of a Three of a Kind, which should win more hands than not. Your betting should be adjusted accordingly - more if you get the fourth card, less if you don’t - but either way, you’ll be in a position where folding should not be necessary.

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