Flush (poker)

From ArticleWorld

A flush is a poker hand consisting of five cards of the same suit, not in sequence. When two, or more, players have a flush, the flush with the highest ranked card wins. This hand ranks above a straight, but below a full house.

Ranking

A poker hand consists of five cards. Although in many poker games each player has seven cards to play, the two extra cards are not used to determine the winner. If two, or more, players have identical five-card hands, they will divide the pot equally between them.

The cards are ranked Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. An Ace may also be used as a low card, below the 2 in making a straight, or a straight flush. The suits have no rank in poker, and are not used to determine the winner of a hand.

Some poker games are played with a deck that has had certain cards removed, usually low-ranking ones. The Australian game of Manila uses a 32-card deck in which all cards below the rank of seven are removed, and Mexican stud removes the eights, nines, and tens. In these games, a flush ranks above a full house, because having fewer cards of each suit makes flushes rarer.

Probability

In poker, the probability of each type of five-card hand can be computed by calculating the proportion of hands of that type among all possible hands. A flush can be formed 5,108 different ways. The odds of getting this hand are 508 : 1.