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Boosted Poker

Q: Does a full house beat a flush?

Yes. A full house beats a flush in every standard form of poker, including Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Stud, and Five-Card Draw. Even the smallest full house (2-2-2-3-3) beats the best possible plain flush (ace-high). Only four of a kind, a straight flush, a royal flush, or a bigger full house beats a full house.

Q: Is a full house better than a flush?

Yes — one rank better. The order runs: flush, then full house, then four of a kind. A full house is rarer than a flush in five-card poker (about 0.14% vs 0.20% of hands), and poker ranks hands strictly by rarity.

Q: Full house vs flush — who wins?

The full house wins, no matter how high the flush is. An ace-high flush still loses to threes full of twos. The only flush that beats a full house is a straight flush — five consecutive cards in one suit — which is a separate, stronger hand category.

Q: Does a flush ever beat a full house?

Only in Short Deck (6+) Hold'em, played with the 2s through 5s removed. With a 36-card deck, flushes become rarer than full houses, so most Short Deck rooms rank the flush above the full house. In standard 52-card poker, the full house always wins.

Q: How are two full houses compared?

By the three-of-a-kind part first, then the pair. Kings full of twos (K-K-K-2-2) beats queens full of aces (Q-Q-Q-A-A), because kings beat queens on the trips. Only if the trips tie — possible in Hold'em when the trips are on the board — does the pair decide it.

Does a Full House Beat a Flush?

By Boosted Poker · Published September 2, 2026 · Last updated September 2, 2026

Yes — a full house beats a flush, in every standard form of poker. This is the matchup players get backwards most often, because a flush looks cleaner than "three of one thing plus two of another." But the rankings run on rarity, and the full house is the rarer hand. Here's the quick answer, the math, and the one variant where it genuinely flips.

Full House vs Flush: The Quick Answer

Hand	Example	Result
Full house — three of a kind + a pair	3♠ 3♥ 3♦ 2♣ 2♦	Wins
Flush — five cards, one suit	A♠ K♠ J♠ 8♠ 4♠	Loses — even at its strongest

Note the example on purpose: threes full of twos — the smallest full house in the deck — beats an ace-high flush, the best plain flush there is. Hand categories are compared first; the cards inside only break ties within the same category.

Why the Full House Ranks Higher: The Math

Out of the 2,598,960 possible five-card hands:

Hand	Ways to make it	Odds of being dealt it
Flush	5,108	≈ 0.20% (1 in 509)
Full house	3,744	≈ 0.14% (1 in 694)

Locking five cards into one suit is hard; needing an exact pattern of ranks — a trio plus a pair — is harder still. In seven-card Texas Hold'em the gap holds too: flushes arrive in about 3.0% of hands, full houses about 2.6%.

The Showdown That Stings

This matchup decides huge pots in Hold'em, because the same board that completes a flush often pairs up. Board: K♥ 9♥ 9♦ 4♥ 2♣:

Player A holds A♥ J♥ → the nut flush: A♥ K♥ J♥ 9♥ 4♥.
Player B holds 9♣ 4♦ → a full house: 9♣ 9♥ 9♦ 4♦ 4♥.
Player B wins. The paired board turned the best flush in the game into the second-best hand.

This is why experienced players tap the brakes with a flush on a paired board — the pair is exactly the ingredient a full house needs. (Flush still comfortably beats a straight and three of a kind, though — see flush vs straight and flush vs 3 of a kind.)

Comparing Two Full Houses (Texas Hold'em Full House Rules)

Full house vs full house is decided by the three-of-a-kind first, then the pair:

K♦ K♠ K♥ 2♣ 2♦ ("kings full of twos") beats Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ A♣ A♦ ("queens full of aces") — the trips decide it before the pairs are ever looked at.
If the trips tie (both players play trip nines from the board), the higher pair wins; identical hands split the pot. Full tiebreakers for every hand are in the Texas Hold'em tie breaker rules.

Where the Ladder Puts Them

Rank	Hand	Example
1	Royal flush	A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠
2	Straight flush	9♦ 8♦ 7♦ 6♦ 5♦
3	Four of a kind	Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ Q♣ 7♦
4	Full house	J♠ J♥ J♦ 8♣ 8♦
5	Flush	K♠ J♠ 9♠ 6♠ 2♠
6	Straight	9♥ 8♣ 7♦ 6♠ 5♥
7	Three of a kind	7♦ 7♥ 7♠ K♣ 4♦
8	Two pair	A♠ A♦ 6♣ 6♥ Q♦
9	One pair	10♠ 10♣ K♦ 8♥ 3♠
10	High card	A♦ J♠ 8♣ 6♥ 2♦

The full ladder with tiebreakers lives in our poker hand rankings cheat sheet.

The One Real Exception: Short Deck

In Short Deck (6+) Hold'em — 36 cards, with the 2s through 5s removed — flushes become rarer than full houses, and most rooms flip the order: flush beats full house. It's the only widely played variant where this page's answer reverses. In everything played with a 52-card deck, the full house wins.

In Boosted Poker the ladder stays standard, but per-hand table modifiers make this exact collision more common — Four-Card Flush completes flushes with just four suited cards, and boards still pair as usual, so flush-into-full-house showdowns come up constantly. The full house wins every time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a full house beat a flush?

Yes — in every standard variant. The smallest full house beats the biggest plain flush.

Is a full house better than a flush?

Yes, by one rank: flush is #5 on the ladder, full house is #4. It's rarer (≈1 in 694 five-card deals vs ≈1 in 509), and rarity sets the rankings.

Full house vs flush — who wins?

The full house, regardless of the flush's high card. Only a straight flush — a different, stronger category — beats a full house while being "all one suit."

Does a flush ever beat a full house?

Only in Short Deck (6+) Hold'em, where the stripped deck makes flushes rarer and most rooms rank them above full houses.

How are two full houses compared?

Trips first, then the pair: kings full of twos beats queens full of aces. Identical hands split the pot.