The Two Pair Hand

On the face of it, it’s easy to identify a Two Pair Hand in poker. This popular hand ranks in seventh place on the poker hand rankings chart. As you guessed, this 5-card hand includes 2 pairs – each pair has the same rank. In other words, there are Two Pairs of cards and a kicker. When you’re playing Texas Hold’em poker, Two Pairs is often a winning hand.

When you hear the words ‘Two Pair’, your mind should instantly perceive 2 pairs of cards of the same rank or denomination. Put differently, there are Two Pairs of equally ranked playing cards.

For example, you may be holding 9♥9 ♣, and the board – the community cards – reads 6♦6♣2♠. In this case, you will have already formed a Two Pair hand in poker. You’re holding a pair of 9s and a pair of 6s with a 2 kicker.

You don’t need to be holding a pair in your pocket cards to form Two Pair from the board. Consider the following scenario:

Your pocket cards may be Q♥10♠, and The Flop (the first 3 community cards) may read A♠Q♠10♥. In this case, you have instantly formed Two Pair with an Ace-high kicker. You are now holding a pair of Queens and a pair of 10s. This is known as a Two Pair Hand in poker.

Since you paired your Queen with a Queen from the board, and you paired your 10 with a 10 from the board, you formed Two Pair.

Continuing from our example, if The Flop turned out to be Q♦7♠7♦ you also have Two Pair.

Why?

Because you have a pair of Queens (one from your pocket cards and one from the board) and you also hold a pair of 7s.

It’s also possible to form Two Pair by waiting for The Turn and the River cards to come in.

Let’s say that the board (Flop, Turn and River) reads as follows:

And let us further assume that you are holding the following pocket cards, A♠K♥.

Note that your cards don’t help you to form a Two Pair hand, but you can play the board and hold the following hand: J♦J♥3♣3♦ A♠. The Ace of spades is the kicker card which would help you to beat any other Two Pair hand identical to yours.

Note that when you compare one Two Pair Hand against another, the rank is important. The best Two Pair Poker Hand that you can possibly form is a pair of Aces and Kings.

We briefly referenced kickers above. The kicker is an important card when players have identical Two Pair Poker hands. Remember, if you have identical ranked pairs – they are equal regardless of the suit (clubs, hearts, spades, or diamonds).

We will now turn our attention to ranking Two Pair Hands.

How Do Two Pair Hands Measure up?

With a 52-card deck, you can form an incredible 123,552 Two Pair Poker Hand combinations. There are also 858 unique ranks of Two Pair hands. As with other poker hands, these are ranked by the highest pair first and then by the second highest pair. The kicker is the fifth card that comes into the reckoning.

Below are several examples of Two Pair Poker Hands:

Can you pick the strongest Two Pair Poker hand from the five combinations above?

Remember that the suits don’t matter when you’re comparing Two Pair Poker hands. It’s the rank or denomination of the highest pair, the second highest pair, and the kicker that comes into play.

How Do Two Pair Poker Hands Compare to Other Hands?

On the poker hand rankings chart, a Two Pair Hand ranks at position #7. The poker hand which is directly above Two Pair is Three of a Kind. The best possible Three of a Kind hand you can form is 3 x Aces. This is otherwise known as Trip Aces.

When you form a Two Pair Poker Hand, there are two hands that are weaker than this – One Pair poker hand and a High Card hand. The best One Pair poker hand you can form is a Pair of Pocket Rockets, otherwise known as American Airlines.

What Are the Probabilities of Forming a Two Pair Hand?

Next, we’re going to look at the probabilities of forming a Two Pair Hand at various stages of the game. We will consider the Pre-Flop Stage, the Flop, the Turn, and the River. We will evaluate Two Pair Hands in Texas Hold’em and in Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) games.

Probabilities of Forming a Two Pair Hand in Texas Hold’em

Probabilities of Forming a Two Pair Hand in Pot Limit Omaha

And that’s everything you need to know about Two Pair Poker Hands in Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha (PLO). We’ll next turn our attention to a One Pair Poker Hand and how you should play it.

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