Short answer: a full house is five cards made of three cards of one rank plus two cards of another rank. It is one of the strongest hands in poker, and most full-house mistakes beginners make come from comparing two full houses in the wrong order.
What counts as a full house
A full house needs exactly two parts: three cards of one rank (the trips) and two cards of another rank (the pair). If you hold 9h 9d and the board brings 9s, 4d and 4c, you have three nines plus two fours. That hand is read as 9-9-9-4-4, called nines full of fours: the trips rank comes first, the pair rank comes second.
For comparison, 9-9-9-K-K would be nines full of kings. And 9-9-9-K-4 (three nines, one king, one four) is NOT a full house at all: it is three of a kind, because there is no pair to complete it. This distinction matters when you read hand examples online, so check that the second group really has two cards.
A full house beats a flush and a straight, and loses only to a higher full house, four of a kind, or a straight flush.
How two full houses are compared
The rule is a two-step check:
- Compare the trips rank first. Kings full beat nines full, no matter what the pairs are.
- Only if the trips are equal, compare the pair rank. K-K-K-9-9 beats K-K-K-4-4.
Suits never break a tie. Two full houses of identical ranks split the pot, even if one is hearts and the other is clubs.
A fully worked example
You hold 9h 9d. Your opponent holds Kc Qc. The board comes 9s Kh 4d 4c 2s. Both hands make their best five cards:
- Your best five: 9h, 9d, 9s, 4d, 4c. That is 9-9-9-4-4, nines full of fours.
- Your opponent’s best five: Kc, Kh, 4d, 4c, Qc. That is two pair, kings and fours (K-K-4-4-Q). Note the opponent cannot use your 9h or 9d, because those cards are in your hand, not on the board.
The comparison: your trips rank is nines, your pair rank is fours. Your opponent has no full house, just two pair. A full house beats any two pair, so you win the pot.
One more check that often gets skipped: no suit appears five times (hearts twice, diamonds twice, clubs three times, spades twice), so there is no flush hiding in this board, and the board cannot make a straight.
When the board itself makes the full house
If the five board cards already form a full house (for example 9-9-9-4-4 all on the board), every player still in the hand plays that board full house. The pot is split between them unless someone’s hole cards build a better five-card hand: for example, holding K-K on that board gives 9-9-9-K-K, nines full of kings, a higher full house than the board’s nines full of fours (the trips are equal, so the pair rank decides). Holding 9-K would even make four nines (9-9-9-9-K), since only one nine can still be in a hand when the board already carries three. Again, suits never decide anything here.
How rare is a full house
Here is a single model, named so it is not confused with another: in the 5-card model, where a hand is dealt as exactly five cards from a 52-card deck, there are 3,744 full houses out of 2,598,960 possible five-card hands. That is about 0.1441%, roughly 1 in 694. This is NOT the probability of ending up with a full house by the river in Texas Hold’em, where you choose the best five of seven cards; that number is different and larger.
FAQ
Does the suit of my full house matter?
No. Suits never break a tie between full houses. If two players both hold kings full of nines, the pot is split no matter which suits are involved.
Is 9-9-9-K-4 a full house?
No. That is three of a kind (nines) with a king and a four as kickers. A full house needs a pair: 9-9-9-4-4 or 9-9-9-K-K, for example.
What beats a full house?
Only a higher full house, four of a kind, or a straight flush. Against a lower full house, a higher full house wins by the trips rank first, then the pair rank.
How do two full houses with the same trips compare?
Compare the pair rank. K-K-K-9-9 beats K-K-K-4-4. If both the trips and the pair ranks are identical, the hands tie and split the pot.
This page covered the full house from definition to comparison to a worked showdown. If you want the full ranking list in one place, the hand rankings guide puts every hand side by side.
Sources used in this page: standard poker hand rules and comparison order (verified 2026-10-31); the worked example reversed both hands on board 9s Kh 4d 4c 2s (verified 2026-10-31); 5-card model counts 3,744 full houses / 2,598,960 hands (standard combinatorics, verified 2026-10-31).