Straight Flush: Rules, Rarity and Ranking
A straight flush is five cards of the same suit in unbroken numerical sequence, such as 6-7-8-9-10 of clubs. It combines two hand types a player can already recognize on their own — a flush and a straight — into a single five-card sequence that must satisfy both conditions at once. Because every card has to share a suit and sit in consecutive rank order, the hand sits near the very top of the standard poker hand ranking chart.
This entry focuses on the procedural side of the hand: how a suited sequence is actually built, how two straight flushes are compared when both appear in the same hand, and where the low and high edges of the sequence run. For the specific ace-high case, see the dedicated entry on the royal flush. For how this hand fares against four of a kind and a full house, see what beats what.
Forming a Straight Flush
Two conditions must hold together. First, all five cards share one suit — hearts, diamonds, clubs, or spades, with no mixing. Second, the ranks run in unbroken sequence, so 4-5-6-7-8 qualifies but 4-5-6-7-9 does not, even if every card is the same suit. Dropping either condition changes the hand entirely: five suited cards out of sequence is a plain flush, and five sequential cards of mixed suits is a plain straight.
In community-card formats such as Texas Hold'em, the five cards can come from any mix of hole cards and board cards, as long as the final five satisfy both rules. A player holding 8-9 of spades on a board showing 10-J-Q of spades completes the sequence entirely from shared suited cards on the table, using none of their own hole cards for rank purposes beyond suit.
Comparing Two Straight Flushes
When two players each hold a straight flush, the hand with the higher-ranking top card wins. A sequence of 9-10-J-Q-K outranks 5-6-7-8-9, because the comparison looks only at the highest card in each five-card run. Suit carries no weight in this comparison — spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs are equal in value, so two straight flushes topping out at the same card split the pot.
| Sequence | Top Card | Result vs 5-6-7-8-9 |
|---|---|---|
| 5-6-7-8-9 | 9 | Baseline |
| 8-9-10-J-Q | Q | Higher, wins |
| 9-10-J-Q-K | K | Higher, wins |
| 4-5-6-7-8 | 8 | Lower, loses |
The Wheel and Broadway Edges
Two sequences mark the low and high boundaries of the straight flush family. At the bottom sits the wheel: A-2-3-4-5 of one suit, where the ace plays low and the sequence tops out at the 5. At the top sits broadway: 10-J-Q-K-A, where the ace plays high. Both are valid straight flushes and both follow the same top-card comparison rule described above.
The wheel ranks as the lowest possible straight flush, since its effective top card is a 5. Broadway ranks as the highest, since an ace-high suited sequence is, by definition, a royal flush rather than a separate category — the two terms describe the same five cards. The ace cannot appear in the middle of a sequence; a run such as Q-K-A-2-3 is not valid because it wraps around the top of the rank order.
See Also
Straight Flush Odds and Probability
In a standard 52-card deck, there are exactly 40 possible straight flush combinations: 10 distinct sequences (A-2-3-4-5 through 10-J-Q-K-A) across 4 suits. Out of the 2,598,960 possible five-card poker hands, straight flush probability works out to roughly 0.0015%, or about 1 in 64,974 hands dealt. That places straight flush odds well below a full house or a flush, and only above the royal flush, which is the single highest-ranking sequence within this same family.
- 10 possible sequences per suit, from the wheel through broadway
- 4 suits, giving 40 total straight flush combinations in a full deck
- Roughly 1 in 64,974 for any given five-card hand
- 4 of those 40 combinations are royal flushes specifically
Straight Flush Examples in Play
A concrete example helps fix the rules in place. Consider a board reading 7-8-9 of diamonds alongside two unrelated cards, with a player holding 6-10 of diamonds in hand. Combining hand and board produces 6-7-8-9-10 of diamonds, a complete straight flush with 10 as the top card. Swap either hole card for an off-suit equivalent and the hand collapses to a straight at best, since the suit requirement breaks first. The same ground is covered in reference form by Wikipedia's list of poker hands.