Card Game Hand Rankings

Wondering what's the card ranking in your favorite card game? Every game orders its cards differently — some rank the Ace highest, some make the humble 2 the strongest card, and some rank five-card poker hands or special cards instead. This card game hand rankings guide lays out the exact order, highest to lowest, for twelve popular games so you always know what beats what before you play.

How card game rankings work

"What's the card ranking in this game?" is the first question every card game raises, and the answer changes from game to game. Some games rank a single card highest (the Ace, or surprisingly the 2). Some rank five-card poker hands. Some add a suit order on top of the card order. This hub gives you the exact ranking rule for twelve popular card games, highest to lowest, so you always know what beats what before you sit down to play.

Poker / Texas Hold'em

In poker you rank five-card hands, not single cards. From strongest to weakest the poker hands are: Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair, One Pair, High Card. Within a hand the individual cards rank Ace high down to 2, and the Ace can also play low in the "wheel" straight 5-4-3-2-A.

• Highest hand: Royal Flush (A-K-Q-J-10 of one suit).
• Lowest hand: High Card.
• Suits are all equal in standard poker.

Teen Patti (3 Patti)

Teen Patti uses three-card hands. From highest to lowest: Trail (three of a kind), Pure Sequence (straight flush), Sequence (straight), Color (flush), Pair, and High Card. Note the twist versus poker: here a Trail is the top hand, and a plain Sequence beats a Color. Three Aces is the best Trail; A-2-3 is the lowest sequence and A-K-Q the highest.

Big Two

Big Two ranks single cards, and it is famous for the 2 being the strongest, not the weakest. Card order high to low is: 2, A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. Suits break ties, ranked high to low: spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds. So the 2 of spades is the single most powerful card and the 3 of diamonds the weakest. Five-card combinations follow poker order on top of this.

Tien Len

Tien Len (Vietnamese "Thirteen") also makes the 2 the highest card. Rank order high to low is: 2, A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. The suit order differs from Big Two, though: high to low it is hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. That makes the 2 of hearts the single strongest card and the 3 of spades the lowest, which is why the player holding the 3 of spades leads the first game.

Dou Dizhu

Dou Dizhu ignores suits entirely and ranks only by card value, with the jokers on top. From lowest to highest: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A, 2, then Black Joker, then Red Joker.

• The 2 outranks the Ace but sits below the jokers.
• Red Joker is the single highest card in the game.
• Suits never matter — only rank.

President

President (also called Scum or Asshole) is a shedding game where the 2 is usually the most powerful card. A common high-to-low order is: 2, A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. The goal is to shed your cards fastest by beating the previous play with a higher card or set. House rules vary — some tables treat the 2 as a wild "reset" card — but the 3 being lowest and the 2 being highest is the standard baseline.

Spades

Spades is a trick-taking game where the spade suit is always trump. Within any suit the cards rank Ace high down to 2 (A, K, Q, J, 10 … 2). The key ranking rule is that any spade beats any card of the other three suits, so the 2 of spades beats the Ace of hearts. Among spades themselves, the Ace of spades is the strongest card in the deck.

Callbreak

Callbreak plays almost exactly like Spades: spades are the permanent trump suit, and inside each suit the order is Ace high down to 2. A spade always beats a non-spade, and a higher spade beats a lower one. You must follow the led suit if you can, and only play a trump when you cannot — so knowing that the Ace of spades tops everything is central to your bidding.

Truco

Truco has a unique ranking with four special top cards, the cartas bravas. From strongest to weakest they are:

• 1 (Ace) of swords (espada)
• 1 (Ace) of batons (basto)
• 7 of swords (7 espada)
• 7 of coins (7 oro)

Below those four, suit no longer matters. The rest rank high to low: all 3s, all 2s, the other aces (cups and coins), then 12s, 11s, 10s, the remaining 7s (cups and batons), then 6s, 5s, and 4s. There is no trump suit — this fixed order decides every trick.

Briscola

Briscola ranks cards within a suit as A, 3, K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2 from highest to lowest. The surprise is the 3, which sits second, just under the Ace and above every face card. This ranking tracks the point values: Ace 11, Three 10, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2, and everything else zero. A card of the trump (briscola) suit beats any non-trump card regardless of rank.

Tarneeb

Tarneeb is a Middle Eastern trick-taking game with a bid-chosen trump suit (the "tarneeb"). Within each suit the cards rank Ace high down to 2 (A, K, Q, J, 10 … 2). Any trump card beats any non-trump card, and among trumps the higher card wins. You must follow the led suit when you can; the highest card of the led suit wins unless someone trumps.

Hokm

Hokm (Persian "Ruler," close cousin of Court Piece) also uses a trump suit, chosen by the ruler from their first cards. The card order inside a suit is the standard Ace high down to 2. The hokm (trump) suit beats the other three, so the lowest trump captures the highest non-trump. Follow suit if you can; otherwise you may trump or throw off.

Quick recap

Most games keep the familiar Ace-high, 2-low order inside a suit — Poker, Spades, Callbreak, Tarneeb, and Hokm all do. The big exceptions are the climbing games (Big Two, Tien Len, Dou Dizhu, President), where the 2 jumps to the top, and the Latin and Italian games (Truco, Briscola), which reshuffle the order entirely around special cards and point values.

Play free

You can play every one of these games free in your browser at lovecardgames.com — no download, no signup, against smart bots or real people. Browse them all on the games page and put these rankings to work.