Does Two Pair Beat Three Of A Kind In Poker

Posted By admin On 22/03/22

Making two pair in a game of poker often gives you a strong enough hand to win the pot. To make two pair, you must draw two distinct pairs in the same five-card hand.

Two pair beats one pair and also beats high card hands. Three-of-a-kind (along with everything above it in the poker hand rankings) beats two pair. A two pair hand in poker might look like this:

The hand above represents two pair, tens and threes. Other examples of two pair could include hands like A♠ A♦ 8♣ 8♦ 2♣ or Q♦ Q♠ 9♥ 9♦ 7♠.

3 pair does not constitute a legal hand in poker. Therefore, 3 of a kind is better. You play your two highest pairs if you so happen to have 3 pairs in play! A Two Pair is the seventh best possible hand in the poker hand ranking system. Three-of-a-Kind ranks directly above it, with the best 3-of-a-Kind being a Set of Aces or Trip Aces. There are only two hands that rank below a Two Pair. The hand that ranks directly under it is called One Pair. Triple (or better-known trips) beats 2 pairs in poker. This is because you are statistically less likely to hit it than 2 pairs. This is true if you hold a pair in your hand and hit the third card on the board or if the board is paired, and you have the third card in your hand to give you trips. As other answers have pointed out, 3-of-a-kind is ranked higher than 2-pair in almost all forms of poker - so, in a showdown, 3-of-a-kind wins. However, 2-pairs can beat 3-of-a-kind if: 1) The player with 3-of-a-kind folds - perhaps in response to a bluff. If two or more players have the same two pair then the fifth card kicker determines the winner. Three of a Kind: Three of a kind (three cards of the same rank) beats two pair. Three aces is the best of these. If two or more players share the same three of a kind hand, the two remaining kickers determine the winner.

If multiple two pair hands go against each other at showdown, the hand with the better high pair wins. For example, A♠ A♦ 8♣ 8♦ 2♣ (aces and eights) beats Q♦ Q♠ 9♥ 9♦ 7♠ (queens and nines), as the pair of aces in the first hand outranks the pair of queens in the latter hand.

A two pair hand that includes a pair of aces (like A♠ A♦ 8♣ 8♦ 2♣) is sometimes called “aces up.” The Q♦ Q♠ 9♥ 9♦ 7♠ example above could be referred to as “queens up,” and so on.

How Does a Two Pair Hand Rank?

Two pair hands beat one pair and high card hands but lose to everything else in the poker hand rankings.

If you randomly draw five cards out of a 52-card deck, you’ll have a 4.7539% chance of making two pair. That percentage can also be expressed as 20-to-1 odds against making two pair.

A standard poker deck yields 858 distinct ways to make two pair. Factoring in the different possible suit combinations, you have 123,552 total possible ways to make two pair out of a 52-card deck.

Texas Hold’em requires players to make the best possible five-card hand out of seven total cards, giving you a better chance of making two pair.

With all five community cards on the board in a game of Texas Hold’em, you have a 23.5% chance of making two pair (3.26-to-1 odds against).

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A common confusion for new players is to determine a winning hand at showdown. Things can get complicated very fast if 2 players have two pairs at showdown or some other same ranking hand. Luckily for you, I will show you many different scenarios, so next time you can be sure who wins.

Who wins if both players have 2 pairs? A person with a higher 2 pairs wins. In the case that both players have the same 2 pairs, then the one with the highest kicker wins. If 2 pairs and the kicker are the same, then the pot gets split.

Playing high cards will help you be on the winning side more often when both you and your opponent have two pairs.

Yes, you will still win with bottom two pair, since you are beating all the top pairs and overpairs, that are value betting multiple streets. But to be the winner of the truly huge pots, you will need to have higher two pairs than the opponent more often.

Some players start folding top pairs and overpairs when faced with multiple streets of value. But to start folding even bottom two pairs, it takes some self-discipline. And discipline is what many players on lower stakes lack.

When you have the top two pair, you can value bet huge and will get paid off by the smaller two pairs. Your opponents will try the same, so stick to playing bigger cards – playing more broadway cars than low suited connectors is the right approach – to have higher two pairs more often.

Nonetheless, there are several different possible scenarios when it comes to both players having two pairs at showdown. Let’s check them below.

Both 2 pairs but of different value

This is probably the most common scenario when you see both players having two pairs. It is easier to have 2 pairs of a different value than having exactly the same two pairs. This is due card removal effect – if we hold AQ, then AQ is less likely to be in the opponent’s hand.

Higher pair is different, and a lower pair is the same

If a higher pair is different, then no need to check the lower pair anymore. We already know that the person with the higher pair in their two pairs wins.

Example: we have AT, and the opponent has KT. Board is AKT23. First, we check, and we see that we both have 2 pairs. But we win because our highest pair is higher than the opponent’s highest pair. The fact that the lower pair is the same as an opponent’s it doesn’t matter. Also, the fact that our kicker is lower is, in this case, completely irrelevant.

Once the higher pair is different, we know we already have the winner. In our case, we have two pairs aces and tens with a king kicker, and the opponent has two pairs of kings and tens with an ace kicker.

Does Two Pair Beat Three Of A Kind In Poker

Higher pair is the same, and the lower pair is different

If both players have the highest pair the same, but the lower pair is different, then the person with higher 2nd pair wins. For example, AK vs. AT on AKT23 board. We will win with AK as we have two pairs aces and kings with a ten kicker, and the opponent has two pairs aces and tens with a king kicker.

We check the highest pair, and we see it is the same, then we move down to 2nd pair, and we see that our 2nd pair is higher than the opponent’s, so no need to check the kicker, we win.

Both pairs are different

The person with the highest pair wins when both pairs are different. If you hold AK and the opponent has T9 on the AT9K2 board, then you are the winner since you have two pair aces and kings with a T kicker. Opponent only has two pairs of tens and nines with an ace kicker. – you can see that it is enough just to check the highest of the two pairs in each player’s hand and we know who the winner is.

Both players have the same 2 pairs

Different kicker

If players have a different kicker and both pairs are the same, then the person with the highest kicker will win. Let’s check an example:

We have KT, and the opponent holds JT. Board is QQT23. We win the pot, we have the same two pair, but we have a better kicker than our opponent. Our hand is two pairs, queens and tens with a king kicker, the opponent has the same hand, but only jack kicker.

The kicker is the same

If the kicker is the same and both pairs are the same, then pot gets split.

There is not much more to explain, so let us move on to the next possible scenarios :).

Two pairs on the board

Sometimes it will happen that there are 2 pairs already on the board. If nobody else holds a higher pair in their hand, then the kicker will be a deciding factor in who wins the pot. If the kicker is of the same rank, then the pot gets split. Let’s check two examples:

Board is A3773: We have A2, and the opponent has K4. We win because we have a higher two pair than the opponent. Our hand is two pair, aces, and sevens with a 3 kicker (AA773), while the opponent has two pair, sevens and threes with an ace kicker (7733A).
This time board is T3773. We hold A2, and the opponent has AK. The pot gets split as we both have two pairs, sevens and threes, with an ace kicker (7733A). Remember, the best five-card combination wins.

How strong are two pairs

Do 2 Pairs Beat 3 Of A Kind In Poker

Two pairs are a decently strong hand. You can expect to have 2 pairs around every 21 hands (if you wouldn’t be folding and always went to showdown). Or if we transfer this into percentages, you have a 4.75% chance to have exactly two pairs at showdown. To check probabilities to hit certain hands, check this link to Wikipedia.

As you were able to see from all the examples above, some two pairs are much better than the other two pairs. Having the top two pairs is excellent. Even top and bottom pair are a lot better than having 2nd and 3rd pair. But

The value of our two pairs is different depending on the board, and our equities can change dramatically. Let’s check a few examples:

Dry boards

On very dry boards, our two pairs are a valuable hand. Of course, our bottom two pairs aren’t as strong as the top two pairs, but nonetheless, we still do beat plenty of hands. Check the equities on Q95 rainbow board:

Wet flops and mono boards (of one color)

Straight possible boards

We have 87, on three straight boards like 6h7h8s many opponents will be betting if they have a 9 and a pair, sets, lower two pairs, high flush draws, and made straights. Our equity of the top two pairs is a lot worse here than on a dry board above. Let’s see in the table below how we do against certain hands.

The most surprising is that 69 has almost 44% to win against the top two pairs there. The board is 6h7h8s:

Mono (flush hits on the flop) board

On 2h7h8h board, our 87isn’t such a good hand anymore. It is largely behind flushes (it has 17.3% to win), and we have only 63% against ace-high flush draw (AhTs in our example). Against T9 (including flushes) we now have 56.4% equity, which is around as much as QQ has against AK offsuit, and many categorize that as a flip already.