The standard ranking of poker hands are:

• Royal flush: Five cards in sequence and of the same suit, starting from the Ace down to the 10. Example: A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠ (Note: A Royal Flush is not a category of hand in and of itself, it is simply the highest-valued straight flush, and thus also the highest-valued hand. Since it is mentioned often in the context of hand rankings, it is worth noting in this list.)
• Straight flush: Any five cards in sequence and of the same suit. Example: Q♦ J♦ 10♦ 9♦ 8♦
• Four of a kind: A hand with four cards of the same rank. Example: 4♣ 4♦ 4♥ 4♠ 9♥
• Full house: A hand with three cards of one rank and two of another. Example: 8♣ 8♦ 8♠ K♥ K♠ (Often described as the three-of-a-kind rank full of the pair rank. The example is eights full of kings)
• Flush: Five cards of the same suit. Example: K♠ J♠ 8♠ 4♠ 3♠
• Straight: Five cards in sequence. (The ace can be considered higher than the king or lower than the two.) Example: 5♦ 4♥ 3♠ 2♦ A♦
• Three of a kind: Three cards of the same rank. Example: 7♣ 7♥ 7♠ K♦ 2♠
• Two pair: Two cards of one rank, two of another. Example: A♣ A♦ 8♥ 8♠ Q♠
• One pair: Two cards of the same rank. Example: 9♥ 9♠ A♣ J♠ 4♥
• High card: Also known as a "no pair" hand. The following example is considered "Ace high." Example: A♦ 10♦ 9♠ 5♣ 4♣

The hands are ranked in this order because of their relative probabilities, with rarer hands ranking above more common hands. In addition, all 5 card poker hands can be collapsed down to 7,462 distinct equivalence classes. For example, there are 24 different ways to create an Aces over Kings Full House hand, but since they all hold the same poker ranking value, they can be collapsed into the same equivalence class. In this way, all 2,598,960 unique five card poker hands can be shrunk down to just 7,462 distinct classes of hands.

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