Best hand in Poker?

[PPT]

Everyone says typically that the "Royal Flush" is the best hand in Poker. But I'm not sure I agree.

The problem with the Royal Flush is that all opponents on the table will have no higher than a 9-high Flush in their cards so they'll know that there are five cards that can beat them, so they may get aggressive but not too aggressive or all-in.

I think the best hand in Poker is the nuts Straight Flush. I had it the other day when I was in a hand as a BB with 69s. Flop had 58 of the same suit, turn had the 7. Villain and I raised and re-raised each other on the Turn, eventually villain pushed all-in on the River. I snap-called.

He had hit the Ace-high flush, but lost all-in to my Straight Flush.

So for that reason, it seems to me that the nuts Straight Flush is surely a better flush to get than even the Royal Flush.

 

[Luvepoker]

A royal flush is the best possible made hand you can get. I do get what your saying though, Its hard to get paid when you have it.

I find a flush in general not the easiest hand to get paid off by but yes I would prefer the Royal flush.

 

[Phoenix Wright]

Of course Royal Flush is objectively the best hand, but yes it is so strong that it is tough to get paid in part because it is tough for others to have a strong hand too. In fact, this is also somewhat common with monster hands like a Full House - it is unlikely someone else has a hand close to as strong, so no strategy is going to do much if all the opponent has is something low like one pair on the community cards.

It is for this reason that monster hands like Full Houses or Straight Flushes will often times check it back when they smash the board. It is trying to allow the opponent(s) to catch up and hit something they perceive is good there.

The tightrope is that we don't want to check it down all the way and miss out on getting value either; this means that a lot of getting paid with big hands is the ability to narrow down what the opponent likely has (or tries to represent) and bet in such a way to get paid against those hands we are targeting.

Easier said than done, but no one said poker was simple