Few hands in poker feel as safe as four aces. You hold the highest four of a kind in the deck, and most players go months without seeing it once. Still, there is a hand that can take the whole pot away from you, and it is worth knowing it before you put your stack in. In this BC Poker guide we break down four aces in poker, explain what beats four aces, play out a real royal flush vs quad aces situation and work out how often such a clash happens at the table.
The examples use No-Limit Texas Hold’em, the most popular game at BCPoker, but the hand rankings are the same in every high-hand poker game, including Omaha and Five-Card Draw.
What Are Quad Aces in Poker?
Quad aces, or four aces, is a hand that contains all four aces in the deck plus one side card, called the kicker. It belongs to the four of a kind category, which sits third in the hand rankings, right below the straight flush and the royal flush. Since the Ace in poker is the highest rank, four aces is the strongest four of a kind you can make.
This is how the hand looks with a king as the kicker. In Hold’em the kicker almost never decides anything with quads. It matters only when all four aces are on the board, because then every player at the showdown shares the same quads and the best fifth card wins.
How often do you actually make four aces in poker? In a five-card hand the chance is 48 out of 2,598,960, or about 1 in 54,145. In Hold’em you see seven cards, two in your hand and five on the board, so the odds improve to about 1 in 7,735. Both numbers explain why players tend to remember these hands for years.
What Beats 4 Aces?
Only two hands beat four aces: a straight flush and a royal flush. Every other hand, including any other four of a kind, any full house and any flush, loses to quad aces.
So, what beats 4 aces in poker? A straight flush is five cards in sequence of the same suit, for example 5♥ 6♥ 7♥ 8♥ 9♥. A royal flush is the highest straight flush possible, ten through ace of one suit. Technically, a royal flush is simply the best straight flush, which is why some charts list only nine hand categories instead of ten.
This also answers a common beginner question: does a straight flush beat four aces? Yes, any straight flush wins, even the smallest one. Players often ask it the other way round too, does four aces beat a straight flush, and the answer stays the same: no, not in standard poker. Home games with wild cards add five of a kind, which also beats quads, but wild cards are not used in Hold’em or Omaha.
The table below sums up what beats 4 aces in poker and which nearby hands fall short.
| 🃏 Hand | ♥️ Example ♠️ | ♦️ Beats four aces? ♣️ |
| Royal flush | A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠ | Yes |
| Straight flush | 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ | Yes |
| Four kings or lower quads | K♠ K♥ K♦ K♣ 2♠ | No |
| Full house | A♠ A♥ A♦ K♣ K♠ | No |
| Flush | A♦ J♦ 8♦ 6♦ 2♦ | No |
What Is a Royal Flush in Poker?
A royal flush is the ace, king, queen, jack and ten of the same suit. It is the top hand in poker and cannot be beaten, only tied. A tie is possible only when all five cards of the royal flush are on the board, and in that case everyone still in the hand splits the pot. You can read more about this combination in our guide to the Royal Flush in Poker.
A 52-card deck holds exactly four royal flushes, one in each suit. Suits do not have any ranking in poker, so a royal flush in hearts is worth the same as one in spades. And since a royal flush is a straight flush too, the question does a straight flush beat four aces covers it as well: yes, it does.
Quad Aces vs Royal Flush: Which Hand Wins?
The royal flush wins every time. If you are wondering what wins quad aces or royal flush, the hand rankings give a clear answer, and standard poker has no exceptions to it. The kicker does not matter, the position does not matter, and neither does the size of the bet.
Here is how a royal flush vs quad aces hand can play out in Texas Hold’em.
| Stage ⭐ | Player 1️⃣ | Player 2️⃣ |
| Hole cards | A♥ A♦ | K♠ Q♠ |
| Flop | A♠ A♣ J♠ | A♠ A♣ J♠ |
| Turn | 10♠ | 10♠ |
| River | 4♥ | 4♥ |
| Best five cards | A♥ A♦ A♠ A♣ J♠ | A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠ |
| Result | Four aces, loses | Royal flush, wins |
On the flop Player 1 already has four aces, while Player 2 holds a royal flush draw that needs one specific card. At that moment Player 2 has only one out, the 10♠, and about a 4.4% chance to hit it by the river. The turn brings exactly that card. Player 1 cannot improve anymore, because there is nothing above a royal flush, and Player 2 wins the pot at showdown.
Hands like this are called coolers. Neither player made a mistake: four aces is far too strong to fold, and a royal flush draw is far too strong to give up on the flop.
What Are the Odds of Getting Quad Aces vs a Royal Flush?
Each hand is rare on its own. In Hold’em you make four aces about once in 7,735 hands that go to the river, and a royal flush about once in 30,940. Seeing both in the same hand is a different story. In a heads-up Hold’em hand dealt to the river, the probability that one player ends up with four aces and the other with a royal flush is roughly 1 in 165 million.
In practice this means that once you have quad aces, you should think about how to get the most value, not how to protect yourself. Deciding what wins quad aces or royal flush is easy, but losing with four aces is so rare that most players never see it. When you hit quads at the BC Poker tables, focus on bet sizing that keeps your opponent in the pot.
That said, royal flush vs quad aces situations do happen sometimes, and when they do, they become the hands that people talk about for years.
