Full House

7th on the ranking list of poker hands is a 'full house', also known as a 'boat' or 'full Boat'. The hand consists of any two of a kind and three of a kind in combination - for example 8 8 6 6 6 . This is a strong hand, only beaten by a four of a kind, a Straight Flush and a Royal Flush - all hands which are rarely seen in play.

The biggest threat your full house will face is a better one held by one of your opponents. To make the hand, the board needs to have paired - that's to say there needs to be two cards of the same numerical value dealt. If you hold 10 3 and the board reads 3 5 10 3 J , you have a house, threes full. Your opponents could have a pair of fives, jacks or tens in hand and have a bigger full house than you, so you need to be careful.

When determining the best boat, the person with the highest set of three cards will be the one that wins the pot. Knowing the hands that are possible will keep you aware when there's danger lurking. The best possible hand in the example above is Jacks full (J-J-J-3-3-).

There are 2,598,960 possible hands that can be dealt in poker. Of them, there are 3,744 possible full houses that could be hit. What are the odds of hitting the hand? A player would have 3,744 / 2,598,960 = 0.144% chance.