All cards are of the same suit and are in sequence. Another way to think of it is as a “suited straight.” An Ace-high straight flush is the “Royal Flush,” and it beats all other hands.
Example:
Royal Flush
As a slightly bitter aside, Doug lost with a Queen-high straight flush at the Borgata poker room room a few weeks before this chapter was written. The other guy had a Royal Flush. Ugh. Congratulations, by the way, as you may have just been subjected to your first “bad beat” story! A bad beat is when you have a winning hand but lose when someone gets very lucky or when your 400-lb. gorilla hand loses to an 800-lb. gorilla hand. The result: People get to hear about it for hours and hours and weeks and weeks and years and years. Doug’s had his fair share of giving other players bad beats, though. If you’re good, maybe later on we’ll tell you about how he hit the longest odds possible to win a hand.
