Hand Ranks
The hand rankings, from best to worst, are: three of a kind ("prial"), straight flush ("running flush"), straight ("run"), flush, pair, high card. The best prial is 3-3-3, followed by the usual order of A-A-A, K-K-K, etc. In variations allowing four-of-a-kind, 4-4-4-4 is the best 'box', followed by A-A-A-A, K-K-K-K, etc. The best running flush or run is A-2-3, A-K-Q, followed by the usual order of K-Q-J,etc. The flushes, pairs, and high cards have rankings identical to poker (aces high).
A pair will beat three-quarters of hands, but must watch out for unexpected runs and flushes. Prials and running flushes are extremely rare (the odds of a dealt prial are 425-to-1 and the odds of a dealt running flush are approx. 461-to-1) but can happen (especially in variations of the game in which a hand is chosen from more than three cards). Unlike in poker, a run beats a flush. Because of the mathematics involved, three card flushes are more likely than three card straights, while the reverse is true of five-card (poker) hands.
Read more about this topic: Three Card Brag
Famous quotes containing the words hand and/or ranks:
“It is fair to assume that when women in the past have achieved even a second or third place in the ranks of genius they have shown far more native ability than men have needed to reach the same eminence. Not excused from the more general duties that constitute the cement of society, most women of talent have had but one hand free with which to work out their ideal conceptions.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“Among the best traitors Ireland has ever had, Mother Church ranks at the very top, a massive obstacle in the path to equality and freedom. She has been a force for conservatism, not on the basis of preserving Catholic doctrine or preventing the corruption of her children, but simply to ward off threats to her own security and influence.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)