Sometimes it is convenient to assign relative values to the suits for special purposes such as drawing a card to decide who deals first. In this case it is traditional to rank the suits in alphabetical order:
clubs (lowest), followed by
diamonds,
hearts, and
spades (highest). Note that this is also the order of suits in the game of
bridge. Cards are always compared by rank first, only then by suit (for example, the ace of clubs ranks higher than any king, but lower than the ace of diamonds. This ranking of cards is called
high card by suit. It is
never used to break ties between poker hands, but can be used in the following situations:
- Randomly selecting a player or players.
- To randomly select a player to deal, to choose the game, to move to another table, or for other reasons, deal each player one card and the player with high card by suit is selected. Multiple players can be selected this way.
- In games such as Seven-card stud, where the player with the lowest-ranking face-up card is required to open the first betting round for a minimal amount, ties can be broken by suit.
- Awarding odd chips in a split pot
- In /High-low split games, or when two players' hands tie, the pot must be split evenly between them. When there is an odd amount of money in the pot that can't be split evenly, the odd low-denomination chip can be given to the player whose hand contains the high card by suit.
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