Your column stated that when there is more than one royal flush in a game that the hearts would be the highest.  What order would follow? Ken

Granted, Ken, some of the hot air in this column contributes to global warming, but I did not say that hearts as a suit ranked supreme. What I referred to was a casino that offered a poker machine with a payout of $1,000,000 for a sequential royal flush, and if you were to play a machine that was suit specific, such as being in hearts, those odds would be astronomical.

Mutant home games, however, are known to have some quirky rules that embrace suits, like when I play a family game of pinochle, calling spades doubles your points. A poker game that comes to mind would be a Seven-Card stud game like Black Mariah, where the high spade in the hole splits the pot. But in general, Vernell, and you too, Ken, suits (hearts—priesthood; spades—nobility; clubs—peasantry; diamonds—the wealthy merchant class) have little to do with hand rankings. Hand rankings are strictly a function of probability. The rarer the hand, the more valuable it is.