Does Three of a Kind Beat a Straight?

The search volume for this keyword “does three of a kind beat a straight” caught our attention recently and to answer this question and clear doubts of the people, we decided to write this article.

Three of a kind is one of the most unique and intimidating hands but straight is also not bad, in fact, it is a potential game-breaker for your opponent, so who wins among these two titans?

The answer to this question is that yes three of a kind hand is a big titan in itself but it can’t defeat the monumental importance of the straight hand because the straight hand is superior in a head-to-head battle between both of them.

Let us explain our answer in detail you get a more thorough understanding of the question.

Why the Straight Is Better than Three of a Kind?

We need to get back to school for that and I expect you to have a great understanding of the basics of mathematics for this explanation of this.

Look the probability of the straights occurring are lesser than that of the three of a kind, that is why it is rare and we know rare things have more value. Thus when you will look at the poker hands char,  you will see it above the three of a kind.

The chances of making a straight from a normal card deck are only 10,200 in comparison to the 54,912 ways of making a three of a kind. When somebody asks you does “three of a kind beat a straight?” tell them the answer by seeking the help of probability.

The Straight Hand

First, you need to understand when a straight is made. Look at the sequence of cards below:

• Ace
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• Jack
• Queen
• King

So a straight is made when in sequential order you have 5 cards lined up. For example 2,3,4,5,6 or Ace,2,3,4,5. A combination of 2,7,8,9,10 will not be considered straight because it doesn’t follow the sequence of the cards.

2,3,4,5,6 hand is called a broadway straight, there is a hand which is in the tier above this.

Now you need to understand that the straight has a higher tier, and it is known as the royal flush and there is no hand in poker that can beat it. In the above example, the 2,3,4,5,6 hand will be a royal flush if the cards are from the same suit.

The 52-card deck has 10,200 different ways of drawing a five-card straight out. A straight flush and a royal flush are excluded from this calculation. If you play Texas Hold’em with seven total cards, the likelihood of making a straight out of five of them is 5%.

The Three of a Kind Hand

Three of a kind hand is formed when in a hand of five cards you have 3 cards that are identical in terms of rank (they don’t necessarily have to be from the same suit to be called a three of a kind).

You need to know it through an example, a hand of 2,2,2,5,6 is known as the three of a kind hand while on the other hand, a 2,2,3,3,4 is not a three of a kind hand.

There is a variation of it known as the full house, in this 3 cards are from the same rank and the remaining two cards are identical to each other and hail from the same rank, for example, a hand of 2,2,2,3,3.

The chances of drawing three-of-a-kind from a 52-card deck are 54,912 in comparison to the 10,200 ways of having a straight hand. Three of a kind has a higher probability than the straight hand, thus mathematically we can see that it is not so rare and thus its value is lesser than that of a straight hand.

Learn more about the three of a kind here —>> Click