Four of a kind in poker: how quads rank, win and split

Four of a kind turns up about once in every 595 seven-card Hold’em hands. That makes it rare enough to remember and common enough that you’ll hold it many times over a playing life.

Four of a kind is four cards of the same rank plus one more card, the kicker. Only a straight flush, a royal flush or a higher four of a kind beats it. Poker players usually call it “quads”.

What four of a kind is

A four of a kind hand holds all four cards of one rank: 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ 9♣ with A♠ as the fifth card is “quad nines, ace kicker”. There are 13 possible quads, from four deuces up to four aces, and each can come with any of 48 other cards as the kicker. That gives 624 different four-of-a-kind hands out of 2,598,960 possible five-card hands.

In the standard poker hand rankings quads sit third. To see where that leaves you, look at the hands just above and below.

Two hands beat it: the straight flush and its top version, the royal flush. Everything else loses to it, including the full house, which is the hand quads most often get paid by.

“Quads only lose to a straight flush” is a common half-truth. A higher four of a kind also wins, and when four of a kind is on the board, a player with a better kicker beats you with the very same quads.

How quads are compared: rank first, then the kicker

When two players both show four of a kind, the rank of the four cards decides first. Four kings beat four queens, whatever the kickers. Suits never matter.

Quads over quads

Two different quads in one Hold’em hand need a board with two pairs. On 8♦ 8♣ K♠ K♦ 3♣, a player holding 8♠ 8♥ has four eights and loses to K♣ K♥, which makes four kings. It’s the kind of hand people tell stories about for years: each player holds a monster, and one of them goes broke with it.

Board quads and the kicker

When all four cards of a rank land on the board, every player still in the hand has the same four of a kind. Now the fifth card decides, and it can come from your hand or from the board. Here’s how that plays out when the river brings a low card.

Your A♣ is the best kicker available, so you win. Your 7♦ plays no part. Had you held K♣ Q♣ instead, you would have split with the K♥ Q♥, because both of you would play J-J-J-J-K.

The fifth board card can also be higher than every card in the players’ hands. Then everybody plays the board and the pot is split.

If the board shows four of a kind and an ace, no hole card can improve on it. The pot is always split between everyone who reaches the showdown, so don’t fold to a bet on the river: calling can only get you your share back.

Three ways to make quads in Texas Hold’em

In Texas Hold’em you build your hand from any five of seven cards, so four of a kind can come together in three ways.

1. A pocket pair plus a pair on the board. You hold 8♠ 8♥, the board brings 8♦ 8♣. This is the classic way: nobody else can hold quads of your rank, and your hand is hidden.
2. One hole card plus three on the board. You hold 7♣ 2♦ and the board runs 7♠ 7♥ 7♦. Everyone can see trips on the board, so anyone holding the last seven has the same hand you do. Here only you can have it, because you hold that last seven.
3. All four on the board. Every player shares the quads and the kicker decides, as in the examples above.

The first route gets you paid the most. Your opponents see a pair on the board and rarely put you on the last two cards of that rank.

Four of a kind odds

Five-card and seven-card figures are easy to confuse, so every number below is labelled with what it measures. All of them were worked out by counting combinations.

The 1-in-595 figure counts every seven-card hand dealt to the river. In real games you fold most hands long before that, so you’ll see quads at your own showdowns less often than the table suggests. A set that becomes quads is the most realistic route: with one card left of your rank, you have one out on the turn and one on the river, which is 2 chances in 47. For more on turning outs into percentages, see the poker odds guide.

How to play four of a kind

Holding quads, you rarely worry about losing. The problem is getting paid, because your hand blocks most of the hands that could call you.

• Count what your opponent can have. With 8♠ 8♥ on 8♦ 8♣ K♠, nobody else has an eight. Your opponent’s strongest likely hands are a king (two pair, kings and eights) or a pocket pair that makes a full house later.
• Give them room to bet or catch up. On a dry flop a check or a small bet keeps worse hands in. A turn or river card that pairs your opponent’s hand or gives them a straight or flush is your best friend.
• Stop slowplaying once they have something. When the opponent starts betting, raise. Full houses and flushes pay big; a hand that has missed won’t pay you whatever you do.
• With one card in hand and trips on board, bet. Everyone can see the trips, so players with big kickers often call to see whether their kicker plays.

Here is the turn after the flopped quads above. The queen gives an opponent with K-Q two pair, kings and queens, and makes a full house for pocket queens. This is where the money comes from.

Slowplaying is fine for one street, but not as a plan. Most of your profit with quads comes from the opponents who improve and start putting chips in themselves. The value betting guide covers how to size those bets.

What happens when your quads lose: bad beat jackpots

Losing with four of a kind is so rare that many card rooms pay a prize for it. A bad beat jackpot is a pool, built from a small amount taken from qualifying pots, that is paid out when a very strong hand loses at showdown. Quads losing to a straight flush or to higher quads is the textbook trigger.

Here’s what that looks like at the table, using the qualifying rules in the next paragraph.

The rules decide everything, and they differ from room to room. As one real example, the bad beat rules posted by Caesars casinos in 2019 required:

• four deuces or better losing to a higher hand;
• four of a kind made with a pocket pair;
• both hole cards used in the losing hand and in the winning hand;
• at least four players dealt in, and at least two at the end of the hand.

The jackpot was then split 50% to the losing hand, 25% to the winner and 25% shared by the other players at the table. The hand above meets the card conditions: the nines come from a pocket pair and both J♥ T♥ play in the straight flush.

Never discuss your cards or soft-play to arrange a qualifying hand. Collusion voids the jackpot, and rooms check hands before paying. Read the posted rules before you play: a quads hand made with one hole card often doesn’t qualify at all.

Four of a kind in other poker games

Quads keep their place near the top in most high-hand games, but how often you make them changes a lot with the number of cards you see.

The Omaha figures come from a two-million-hand simulation; the others are exact counts.

Omaha

In Omaha you must use exactly two of your four hole cards and three board cards. That changes quads in two ways. You need a pair in your hand with a pair on the board, or one card in your hand with three on the board. And four of a kind on the board plays for nobody: on J♠ J♥ J♦ J♣ 4♦ you can use only three jacks, so the best you can make is a full house with a pocket pair.

Four cards of the same rank in your hand is the worst Omaha starting hand: you can use only two of them, and no card of that rank is left to come.

Short Deck

Short Deck removes the deuces through fives. Quads remain the third-best hand, but they come about three times as often as in standard Hold’em, and a flush ranks above a full house because flushes become harder to make.

Lowball and draw games

In lowball games such as 2-7 and A-5 the lowest hand wins, so four of a kind is close to the worst hand you can hold. In five-card draw quads work as in Hold’em, but you see only five cards plus the draw, so they are much rarer.

Four of a kind FAQ