Showdown Rules

Below is an explanation of the showdown, which occurs when two or more players reach the end of a hand and compare their holdings. The ranking of poker hands determines who wins. Understanding the showdown is an important building block for poker strategy.

The Showdown

It is possible that a player’s bet before the flop or on one of the streets after the flop might cause all the others to fold, in which case that player wins the hand. In No-Limit Hold’em there is no limit to how much a player can bet other than the amount of chips he or she has remaining. Thus a player might go “all in,” cause everyone else to fold, and win the hand without having to show any cards at all.

However, sometimes the hand does reach the “showdown.” For example, let’s say after the river card has been dealt there are two players left in the hand. The first to act makes a bet, and the other decides just to call the bet (rather than fold or raise). Now it is time to see which of the two has the better hand and thus wins the pot.

As mentioned, players combine their two hole cards with the five community cards, choosing from those seven cards the five which create the best poker hand. Players can use both hole cards with three community cards, just one hole card and four community cards, or even just “play the board” and use the five community cards and neither of their hole cards. Hands are ranked the same as in other “high” forms of poker in which aces are always ranked highest.

Here’s a recap of the hand rankings:

Showdown Example

At the showdown, whoever has the highest-ranked hand wins the pot. Let’s say there are two players left in the hand and the five community cards are as follows: 9h Ks 8h Jh 4d. One player shows Qc 10c, using both hole cards and three of the community cards to make a king-high straight. But the other player shows Ah 6h, which matched with the three hearts on the board makes a flush. Since a flush beats a straight, the player holding Ah 6h wins the pot.

Occasionally players will hold hands of the same rank at showdown. For instance, let’s say the two players in the previous example held Ah 6h and Qh 5h. Both would have made heart flushes, but the player with Ah 6h would still win with the higher flush, since an ace-high flush (Ah-Jh-9h-8h-6h) beats a queen-high flush (Qh-Jh-9h-8h-5h).

The same goes for other hands of similar rank, such as straights. Let’s say the two players above held Qc 10c and 10h 7d. One would have made a king-high straight (K-Q-J-10-9) while the other would hold only a jack-high straight (J-10-9-8-7).

Sometimes, though, ties cannot be broken, in which case players split the pot evenly. Taking that same 9h Ks 8h Jh 4d board, let’s say the two players hold Ac Kc and Ad Ks. Both make a pair of kings (with the same ace “kicker”), and thus both have hands of equal rank. The pot is then divided evenly between the two.