A flush beats three-of-a-kind in poker games like Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, as the hand is ranked higher on the poker hand rankings chart.
Making a flush in Texas Hold’em is quite difficult, and since the hand is so rare, it makes complete sense that it would beat three-of-a-kind, a relatively common poker hand.
Whether you make your three-of-a-kind with a pocket pair (set) or with an unpaired starting hand (trips), you will always lose to any flush unless you improve to a full house or quads.
If you want to find out more about the probabilities of making a flush and three-of-a-kind, keep reading and learn all about it.
Why Does a Flush Beat Three-of-a-Kind?
Looking at the poker hand rankings chart, you will notice that a flush is ranked quite high, just under hands like a full house, four-of-a-kind, and a straight flush.
While flushes can definitely lose, they are very powerful hands that end up being the best possible combinations on quite a few boards.
On the other hand, multiple three-of-a-kind combinations are possible on every board and seeing a player turn over a set or trips is not too uncommon at the poker tables.
Since poker hands are ranked by how likely you are to make them with various starting card combinations, the superiority of a flush over three-of-a-kind is quite natural.
Check out the table below for a quick comparison of the likelihood of making the two hands on the flop, turn, and river:
| Chances To | Flush | Three-of-a-Kind |
| Make it on the Flop | 0% – 0.82% | 1.35% – 10.8% |
| Make it on the Turn | 19.2% | 4.2% |
| Make it on the River | 19.6% | 4.3% |
How Often Will You Make a Flush?
Starting a hand with suited cards, we all dream of that monotone flop that brings us a made flush, or at the very least, two cards of our suit to make us a strong flush draw.
The likelihood of making a flush on the flop is quite low, with 0.82% of all flops giving you a flush when you start with a suited hand. Starting with an offsuit hand, it is not possible to make a flush on the flop.
Fortunately, there are two more cards to come after the flop, and those two cards give you an extra chance of making your flush.
If you don’t quite flop the flush, you will flop a flush draw 10.9% of the time, in which case you will have 9 outs to make a flush on the turn or the river.
Going to the turn, you will have about 19.2% chance to make your flush, while the river card will give you another 19.6% chance, for a grand total of over 38%.
This means that nearly two out of five times you flop a flush draw, you will end up with a made flush by the river.
This allows you to play your flush draws aggressively, knowing you will improve quite often but also win the pot without having to make your flush some of the time.
How Often Will You Make Three-of-a-Kind?
Unlike a flush, which only comes along once in a while, three-of-a-kind is a relatively common hand in poker.
There are two ways to make three-of-a-kind in Texas Hold’em, depending on the structure of your starting hand.
Starting with a pocket pair, you will make three of a kind on the flop (a set) about 10.8% of the time by hitting the third card you need among the three on the flop.
Starting with a random unpaired hand, you will only flop trips about 1.35% of the time by hitting two of the cards you need on the flop.
You will notice that even an unpaired starting hand will make three-of-a-kind on the flop more often than a suited hand will flop a flush, which is a part of the reason three-of-a-kind ranks lower than a flush.
It’s worth noting that you can improve to three-of-a-kind on the turn or the river anytime you have one pair on the flop, but the odds of this are not quite favorable.
Whether you flop a pair or have a pair in the hole, you will have exactly two outs to improve to three-of-a-kind past the flop. This gives you 4.2% chance to improve on the turn and a 4.3% chance to improve on the river, for a grand total of 8.5% by showdown.
Chasing after trips and sets past the flop is not a good poker strategy, as they simply aren’t that likely to come, but pursuing flopped sets with your pocket pairs is one of the big ways you win chips in Texas Hold’em.