A high card in poker is the absolute worst possible combination according to the official poker hand rankings. If you end up with a High Card combination at showdown, it means you do not have any pair in your hand, nor are you holding five consecutive cards (a Straight) or five cards of the same suit (a Flush).same suit.
However, you will rarely hear an experienced player simply say, “I have a high card”. Instead, this hand is referred to by the highest-ranking card in the five-card combination.
Here are a few examples of how these hands look and are named:
- A♠ Q♥ 9♦ 5♣ 4♠ – This is called an Ace-high poker hand.
- Q♣ J♦ 8♥ 7♠ 2♣ – This is called a Queen-high poker hand.
- 9♥ 5♠ 4♦ 3♣ 2♥ – This is called a Nine-high poker hand.
Because a High Card hand is evaluated based solely on the highest card in the combination, it is the weakest possible holding, standing exactly in 10th place out of 10 in the official poker hands list.
High Card Odds and Probabilities
While you surely do not want to make this hand when playing, knowing some basic odds will help you get the feel of how often you will be facing it in your Texas Holdem games:
- The odds of making a High Card is 50.11% when you draw five random cards from a standard deck.
- The odds of flopping just a High Card is 66.9% with any unpaired starting hand.
There are plenty of other probabilities that might be interesting for you, so if you want to learn more, just check the poker odds page, but these are the most important numbers. The biggest takeaway here is that you will miss the flop most of the time, and you should not be frustrated about that since your opponents will also miss most of the time.
What does a High Card beat?
A High Card combination is the weakest of all possible poker hands, so it does not beat anything apart from a weaker High Card combination.
It loses to all made hands, including:
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