poker

Tie-breaking of flushes, or "flush-breaking", is a matter of controversy, especially in communal-card games such as Texas hold 'em. Some tables compare only the highest cards of the flush (if these are the same, the pot is split). This is known as top-only, as opposed to top-down, flush-breaking. The disadvantage of top-down flush-breaking is unanticipated kicker-screw. For example, a player with two low hole spades, when three out of four table cards are spades, may bet aggressively knowing he or she has the flush. If a fourth spade comes on the river, this player's hand is degraded from powerful to effectively useless. As the essential idea of poker is to bet on improving (or, at least, no worse than stagnating) hands, this is considered an undesirable situation. Top-only flush-breaking reduces the frequency with which such scenarios occur.