What is the Lowest Pair in Poker?

A pair is the most commonly seen made hand in poker. Holding a pair often gives you a chance of winning the pot in Texas Hold’em.

Whether your dealt a pocket pair or make one on the board, a pair beats any high-card hand in a showdown. What is the lowest pair in poker? What is the highest? Let’s take a look:

What is the Lowest Pair in Poker?

Texas Hold’em, along with virtually any high-hand poker game, uses the standard poker hand rankings to determine the winning hand. 

The lowest pair you can possibly make in Texas Hold’em is a pair of twos, aka deuces. If you’re dealt 2♦ 2♠ as your hole cards in Texas Hold’em, you start the hand with a pair of deuces. If your hole cards are a hand like A♦ 2♦, and the flop comes 7♣ 3♣ 2♥, you’ve found another way to make a pair of twos.

A pair of twos beats any high-card hand (hand that doesn’t involve a pair or better). Pocket deuces lose to any other pair, however.

What is the Highest Pair in Poker?

A pair of aces is the best possible pair you can make in poker. Pocket aces are the best possible starting hand in Texas Hold’em, and in the long run will be your most profitable preflop hand.

While the ace also acts as the lowest card in the deck in some situations, a pair of aces always outranks all other pairs. For example, if you hold A♠ K♥ preflop, and A♦ T♥ 2♣  hits on the flop, it’s impossible for another player to have a better one-pair hand than yours. You have the top pair possible, as well as the best kicker, on that flop.

Two pair and three of a kind are still possible hands you could run into on an A♦ T♥ 2♣ flop, and those hands have you beat. Your pair of aces will beat any other pair at showdown, however.