Showdown Sprint
Five showdowns, back to back. Read each board, pick the winner, and see how many of five you can nail. A quick daily rep for hand rankings.
Who wins this pot?
How to play
Read each showdown. Five hands in a row, every card face up.
Call the winner. Pick the best hand — or a split — for each one.
Score out of five. See how many you nailed, then chase a perfect run.
Player 1 wins. A straight beats three of a kind — even though trip kings look powerful, the run of five cards is higher up the rankings.
How it works
Each hand deals two or three players and a full board, all face up. You pick the winner (or a split pot); after five hands you get a score out of five. Every player's best five-card hand is built from their two cards plus the board — the same seven-card showdown as Texas Hold'em, with ties broken down to the last kicker. It's short by design: five hands is enough to warm up your reading before a session without turning into a grind.
How to read a showdown quickly
Speed comes from a fixed scan order. First ask what the board makes possible — are three to a flush or four to a straight out there? Then look for the strongest made hands (full houses and better), and only when two players share a category do you compare kickers. Working top-down like this stops the classic errors: paying off a flush you didn't notice, or splitting a pot you thought you'd won. After a handful of sprints the scan becomes automatic.
Why score out of five?
A fixed, short round gives you a clean benchmark you can chase day to day — much easier to track than an open-ended session. Aim for 5/5 consistently before moving up to timed or endless formats. It also keeps the drill honest: there's nowhere to hide a lucky guess across five hands.
More ways to train
Want an endless run instead? Chase a streak in Survival, take it slow with Which Hand Wins?, or name the winning category in Name the Hand. New to the order of hands? See the poker hand rankings.
Frequently asked questions
What is Showdown Sprint?
It's a free five-hand poker quiz. You're shown five showdowns in a row with every card face up, you pick the winner of each, and at the end you get a score out of five. It's built to be a fast, repeatable drill for reading finished hands.
How is the winner of each hand decided?
Each player's best five-card hand is built from their two hole cards plus the five community cards — the standard Texas Hold'em showdown. The highest hand wins, and ties are compared down to the last kicker, so split pots are handled exactly.
How many players are in each hand?
Two or three, chosen at random, so you practise both heads-up reads and three-way pots where a split is more likely.
Is a split pot a possible answer?
Yes. When no single player is ahead — often when the board plays — the correct answer is 'Split pot'. Learning to spot chops is part of reading showdowns well.
Does it cost anything or need an account?
No. It's completely free, needs no signup, and runs entirely in your browser.