Poker cheat sheet
The whole game on one page: hand rankings from royal flush to high card, the strongest starting hands, and the two numbers behind every call — a flush draw is 35.0% to hit from the flop, and a half-pot bet needs 25.0% equity to call. Print it, or keep it open while you play.
Hand rankings
Strongest first, with the odds of holding each by the river.
| # | Hand | Example | By the river |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal flush | A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ T♠ | 0.0032% |
| 2 | Straight flush | 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ | 0.028% |
| 3 | Four of a kind | Q♣ Q♦ Q♥ Q♠ 7♦ | 0.168% |
| 4 | Full house | J♦ J♥ J♠ 4♣ 4♠ | 2.60% |
| 5 | Flush | A♦ J♦ 9♦ 6♦ 3♦ | 3.03% |
| 6 | Straight | T♥ 9♣ 8♦ 7♠ 6♥ | 4.62% |
| 7 | Three of a kind | 8♣ 8♦ 8♥ K♠ 2♣ | 4.83% |
| 8 | Two pair | A♣ A♥ 9♦ 9♠ Q♣ | 23.5% |
| 9 | One pair | K♦ K♠ A♣ 8♥ 4♦ | 43.8% |
| 10 | High card | A♥ Q♦ 9♣ 6♠ 3♥ | 17.4% |
The two everyone forgets: a flush beats a straight, and a full house beats a flush.
Strongest starting hands
Equity against one random hand, from the same data as the full 169-hand table.
| Hand | Name | Vs random |
|---|---|---|
| AA | Pocket aces | 85.2% |
| KK | Pocket kings | 82.4% |
| Pocket queens | 79.9% | |
| JJ | Pocket jacks | 77.5% |
| TT | Pocket tens | 75.0% |
| 99 | Pocket nines | 72.0% |
| 88 | Pocket eights | 69.2% |
| AKs | Ace-King suited | 67.1% |
| AQs | Ace-Queen suited | 66.2% |
| 77 | Pocket sevens | 66.1% |
Pot odds
The equity a call needs to break even: bet ÷ (pot after your call).
| Bet size | Equity to call | Pot odds |
|---|---|---|
| Quarter pot | 16.7% | 5.0 : 1 |
| Third pot | 20.0% | 4.0 : 1 |
| Half pot | 25.0% | 3.0 : 1 |
| Two-thirds pot | 28.6% | 2.5 : 1 |
| Full pot | 33.3% | 2.0 : 1 |
| Double pot | 40.0% | 1.5 : 1 |
Outs to equity
Exact chance of improving, plus the rule-of-2-and-4 shortcut.
| Outs | Typical draw | From flop | From turn |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Pocket pair to a set | 8.4% | 4.3% |
| 4 | Gutshot straight draw | 16.5% | 8.7% |
| 6 | Two overcards | 24.1% | 13.0% |
| 8 | Open-ended straight draw | 31.5% | 17.4% |
| 9 | Flush draw | 35.0% | 19.6% |
| 12 | Flush draw + gutshot | 45.0% | 26.1% |
| 15 | Flush draw + open-ender | 54.1% | 32.6% |
Shortcut: outs × 4 with two cards to come, outs × 2 with one.
How to use the sheet
Read it right to left, the way a hand plays out. Before the flop, the starting-hands table tells you whether your two cards are in premium territory; the position charts turn that into an exact open, call or fold for every seat. After the flop, count your outs, convert them to equity with the outs table, and compare that number against what the pot odds table says the bet demands. If your equity clears the bar, the call profits.
The example that decides most real hands: you hold a flush draw on the flop, nine outs, 35.0% to hit by the river. An opponent bets half pot, which needs 25.0% to call. Your draw clears the price with room to spare — and the same draw facing a double-pot shove at 40.0% does not. Two table lookups replace the guess.
The sheet is training wheels, and that is its whole point. After enough repetitions the lookups become recall, which is exactly what the trainer drills: real spots, graded the moment you answer, until the numbers on this page are simply how you see the table.
Cheat sheet questions
What should a poker cheat sheet include?
Four things cover almost every decision a beginner faces: the hand rankings in order, the starting hands worth playing, the equity each bet size needs to call, and the outs-to-equity conversions. That is exactly what this page holds, and each figure links to the full reference that explains it.
Can I use a cheat sheet while playing online?
Yes. Static reference charts are permitted on essentially every poker site; what the sites ban is real-time assistance software that computes decisions for the specific hand in front of you. A printed sheet or a chart open in another window is standard practice while learning.
Can I use a cheat sheet in a live casino?
House rules vary. Cash games are usually relaxed about a card consulted between hands, while most tournament rules prohibit consulting charts during a hand. Either way the goal of the sheet is to stop needing it, which happens faster than most people expect.
What is the fastest way to memorise hand rankings?
Only two comparisons are ever misremembered: a flush beats a straight, and a full house beats a flush. Everything else follows intuition. The order is rarity — a flush is made 3.0% of the time by the river against 4.6% for a straight, and the rarer hand wins.
Does this cheat sheet work for Omaha?
The hand rankings do, they are identical in every high-hand game. The starting hands and outs tables are Texas hold’em specific: Omaha equities run much closer together and draws routinely carry more outs.
How do I print this page?
Use the print button below the summary, or your browser’s print command. The page strips its navigation and menus in print and lays the four tables out in black and white on a single sheet.
The full references
- Next stepPreflop charts by positionThe one table this page cannot compress: which of the 169 hands to open from each seat, on solver output rather than folklore.
- Hand rankingsWith the why
- All 169 starting handsRanked
- Pot oddsCalculator
- Outs, one to twenty-oneEvery count
- Odds calculatorAny hand
- How to play pokerThe rules
Hear when the course opens
The sheet stays free and printable. The course that retires it — from reading charts to playing without them — opens without a card while Learn GTO is in early access.
Held in this browser only, nothing is sent anywhere yet.