What is a Flush in Poker

The main aim of poker is to beat your opponents by having a higher-ranked hand. Playing your cards right means you get to take the pot at the end of the round, and over time you’ll be able to increase the number of chips as you outplay your opponents. While you can win by bluffing and forcing your opponents to fold, having a higher-ranked hand is the only way to win at the showdown.

Knowledge of poker hand rankings is essential if you want to be successful at the game. A flush is one of the top-rated hands in poker, and in this article, we’ll be explaining what it is, how to play it and the probability of hitting one.

What is a Flush?

A flush is a five-card hand that contains any cards from the same suit. In poker, suits are the four different-colored symbols on each card. These are clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds. So a flush would be five cards that are all either clubs, spades, hearts, or diamonds. It doesn’t matter what the card values are for a regular flush. However, there are also straight flushes and royal flushes, which are affected by the card values.

A straight flush not only has all five cards from the same suit, but the cards are also in numerical order. Meanwhile, the royal flush only contains “royal” cards that are all part of the same suit. The flush is a strong hand, but a straight flush is even stronger, and a royal flush is the strongest hand in the game.

The flush is the only type of hand in poker where the suit of the card matters. The regular flush is also the only poker hand where the card rankings themselves don’t matter. However, the card rankings will come into play if two or more players have a flush.

Flush Examples

There are up to 5,108 possible combinations for a flush in poker when playing with a standard 52-card deck. Here are a few of them:

Straight Flush Examples

Straight flushes are far less common, with just 40 possible combinations. Here are a few of them:

Royal Flush Examples

There are just four possible royal flush combinations. Here are a few of them:

Flush Poker Rankings

The flush is the fifth-strongest hand in poker, ranked only behind full house, four-of-a-kind, straight flush and royal flush. This makes it stronger than a straight, three-of-a-kind, two-pair, pair and high card. Although it can be beaten by a few hands, it’s still very strong and will rarely be beaten on the river.

What If Two Players Have a Flush?

Because there are more than 5,000 possible combinations of a flush when playing poker, it’s possible for two players to both have a flush in the same round. If two players each have a flush at showdown, the winner is determined by the highest card in the flush.

For example, if one player has a flush of K-10-7-5-3 they’ll beat another player who has a flush of 9-8-6-4-2. Note that suits don’t matter when ranking flushes. The only thing that matters is the value of the highest card in the hand. If both hands have the same value high card, the next highest card will be used. For example, a K-J-10-5-2 flush would beat a K-J-8-6-3 flush because although the first two cards are the same value, the third highest is higher in the first flush.

How to Play a Flush in Poker

A flush is a strong hand, but you have to be able to play it correctly to get the best value out of it. Your flush strategy will depend mostly on whether you’re in position or out of position. This refers to your position on the table, with the later positions, further away from the blind giving the biggest advantage. Your poker strategy should always consider your position, as it affects how likely you are to win with certain hands.

If you have a flush on the flop, and you’re out of position, you should be looking to check any pre-flop raiser. This is better than leading, as it weakens your checking range and opens you up to be exploited by opponents. If you’re facing a continuation bet, however, you can check-raise instead. It’s still important to play cautiously when you’re out of position, and you should never act in an easy-to-predict way. Change your strategy often to keep your ranges hidden.

Similarly, if you’re in position, and you raised pre-flop, you’ll want to check on the next betting round to hide your hand range. Even if you want to build the pot, you should avoid a continuation bet here and instead check back from time to time. However, if you’re playing a passive opponent, you can risk betting on all of your flushes on the flop.

Playing a Flush Draw

A flush draw, sometimes known as a four-flush, is a hand of four cards of the same suit that just needs one more card in the right suit for a flush. For example, you might hold a hand of two spades while there are another two spades on the board. Alternatively, you may only have one in your pocket and three on the board.

When deciding how to play your flush draw, you need to consider the highest hand in your flush and whether or not an opponent could beat you with a higher card. For example, if you hold an Ace in the pocket that makes up part of the flush, you have a lot less to worry about than if your highest card is a 2. In addition, you should think about whether or not a higher hand will be possible if your draw comes in.

A flush can be a strong hand, but it’s not a guaranteed winner by any means. For this reason, it’s important to not chase the flush draw. Always be sure to consider the playing style of your opponent as well as their hand ranges when choosing how you proceed. You can play aggressively if your opponents are more likely to fold, but you should know that even with a flush, you won’t always be the favorite to win, especially if there’s a high chance of a full house.

If you’re up against opponents that fold less often, it can be better to take a passive approach when faced with a flush draw. Checking and calling is often the best way to proceed when playing against more aggressive players, especially if you suspect that a stronger hand could be in play.

Flush Probability

There’s a 0.1965% chance of a flush hitting from five cards being dealt randomly from a 52-card deck. This means you can expect to see a flush roughly once in every 507 hands that go to the flop. Note that this is only for regular flushes, not for straight or royal flushes.

If you hold two suited cards in the pocket, your chance of seeing a flush is much higher, at 0.84%. This means you’ll see a flush on the flop once every 118 hands on average if you start out with a suited pocket.

When starting the turn with two suited cards, the probability of a flush increases significantly to 19.15%. This means you’ll see a flush on the turn once every 4 hands on average if you have two suited cards already.

When reaching the river with two suited cards, the probability is similar at 19.56%. This means you’ll see a flush on the river around once every 4 hands on average if there are two suited cards on the board.