• Texas Holdem Poker Hands Wikipedia
• Texas Holdem Poker Hands Wikipedia
• Texas Holdem Poker Rules Wikipedia

If you've ever played poker, you know that each hand has a name, such as a flush, for five cards of the same suit. A royal flush is the best hand in regular poker: making a straight-flush with the royal family (Ace-King-Queen-Jack-Ten) of one suit. Those names have been around for centuries.

In the poker game of Texas hold 'em, a starting hand consists of two hole cards, which belong solely to the player and remain hidden from the other players. Five community cards are also dealt into play. Betting begins before any of the community cards are exposed, and continues throughout the hand. Texas Hold'em hasn't been around that long, although it sometimes seems those old Texas Boys like Salior Roberts, Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim and the like had been playing the game for centuries, the way they dominated the early years of the WSOP!

• A kicker, also called a side card, is a card in a poker hand that does not itself take part in determining the rank of the hand, but that may be used to break ties between hands of the same rank. For example, the hand Q-Q-10-5-2 is ranked as a pair of queens. The 10, 5, and 2 are kickers.
• The above 3 sets of hands add up to form the common answer of 169 Texas Hold’em starting hands There are actually 1,326 combinations of starting hands if you count suits (e.g. A♣- A♦ and A♠- A♥ are different hands), but that is more of a “just for fun” number as suits have no value over each other in Texas Hold’em.
• This is now the most popular variant of poker. It is a variant of community card poker: In this kind of poker, some cards are revealed to the whole table, and each player can use those cards to build his or her 5-card hand. A round begins with blind bets, and sometimes ante bets.

Texas Hold'em hasn't been around that long, although it sometimes seems those old Texas Boys like Salior Roberts, Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim and the like had been playing the game for centuries, the way they dominated the early years of the WSOP! And, they seemed to have a particular way of talking, which included plenty of colorful names for the individual two-card Hold'em starting hands.

Over the years, some of the names like Broderick Crawford, for 10-4, have come and gone out of fashion. When it was first used, Broderick Crawford was the star of a TV show called Highway Patrol, and, you guessed it, he used a CB-like transmitter to talk to the other officers and headquarters. At the end of a transmission, he said '10-4.'

A number of other hands got their names from 1960's TV shows, like 77 (77 Sunset Strip) and 99 (Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldman in Get Smart). Another one, 95, is called Dolly Parton. Not because of her bust size, but because of the Movie 9 to 5 and the hit song she sang Workin' 9 to 5.Jus to help you out, the hands 29 and 38 do have to do with the moniker's bust size, but that's another preoccupation with poker players: women and sex, so there are several references (like bitches) that you'll probably hear, and be able to figure out for yourself.

As for other names, who knows. Where did 'old blocky' come from with regard to 6-3? Was that a fellow player called Blocky who won a big pot with the hand? How about 'Big Slick' for A-K? Some people say that you've got to be real slick to win with Ace-King, and others say the name comes from the 'A' looking like an oil derrick, and oil is slick and the hand comes with a King. Well, your guess is as good as ours. Enjoy!

AA: Pocket Rockets; Bullets; American Airlines
KK: Cowboys; King Kong
QQ: Ladies, Whores, Siegfried & Roy
JJ: Fishhooks; hooks
TT: Dimes
99: German Virgin; Barbara Feldon (Get Smart Agent 99)
88: Snowmen; Dog Balls; Piano Keys
77: Sunset Strip
66: Route 66
55: Speed Limit
44: Magnum; Sailboats
33: Crabs
22: Ducks

AK: Big Slick; Santa Barbara
AQ: Big Chick; Walking Back to Houston
AJ: Ajax
A8: Dead Man’s hand
KQ suited Marriage
KQ offsuit Mixed Marriage
KJ: Kojak
K9: Fido Canine What a Dog
K3: Commander Crab; King Crab
QJ: Maverick
QT: Quint; Varkony
Q7:Computer hand
Q3: Gay Waiter; San Francisco Busboy (queen with a tray)
J5: Motown; Jackson Five
J4: Flat ties (what’s a jack for?)
T5: Woolworth's; Five and Dime
T4: Broderick Crawford; Convoy; Good Buddy
T2: Texas Dolly
98: Oldsmobile
69: Big Lick; Dinner for Two
95: Dolly Parton
92: Montana Banana
76: Union Oil
57: Heinz
45: Jessie James; Jane Russell
39: Jack Benny
38: Raquel Welch
29: Twiggy

Until next time, remember:
'Luck comes and goes...Knowledge Stays Forever.'

Texas Holdem Poker Hands Wikipedia

With few exceptions, all poker games place hands on the same
scale from high- to low-value. Poker hands are ranked depending
on their likelihood. The least-likely hands are the
highest-ranked; the most common hands are the lowest-ranked.
Identical poker hands are ranked by which hands holds cards of
the highest value.

Poker Hand Rank

Here is the standard hand rank, from highest to lowest:

A royal flush is a hand where all the cards are of the same suit and the 5 highest cards in consecutive order (10, J, Q, K, A). This hand is the best hand that you can get in the game of Texas Hold’em.

A straight flush is a hand where all the cards are of the same suit and are in consecutive order. For example, a 23456, all of hearts, is a straight flush. In the event of a tie, the straight flush with the highest card wins.

A 4 of a kind is a hand where 4 of the 5 cards are of the same ranking. An example of a hand with a 4 of a kind might have KKKK2. That would be the 2 in every suit–clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades. In the event of a tie, the 4 of a kind with the highest hand ranking wins.

A full house is a hand that consists of 3 cards of one rank and 2 cards of another rank. An example of a full house might look like this: KKKQQ. In the event of a tie, the hand with the higher cards in the 3 cards is the winner.

A flush is a hand that consists of 5 cards of the same suit—clubs, diamonds, hearts, or spades. In the event of a tie, the flush with the highest card is the winner.

A straight is a hand where all 5 cards of consecutive ranks. 23456 is an example of a straight. In the event of a tie, the straight with the highest card is the winner.

2 pairs is a hand where you have 2 cards of one rank and 2 cards of another rank along with a final card of another rank. An example of 2 pairs might look like this: AAKK7.In the event of a tie, the hand with the highest pair wins.

1 pair is a hand where you 2 cards of one rank and 3 cards with different ranks. An example of a pair might look like this: JJ278. In the event of a tie, the higher ranked pair wins.

High card means a hand where none of the other hand rankings apply. If no one still in the hand can make a pair or better, the player with the highest card in his hand wins the pot.

Playing a live game of poker requires that you know this
hierarchy. For new players, this may seem a little daunting.
After all, here you have nine pieces of complex information to
remember in precise order.

A Word About Mnemonic Devices

I learned the order of poker hands using a mnemonic. I think
anyone can use this simple method to learn the hierarchy in a
matter of minutes. Mnemonics are popular memory devices used by
students, teachers, and people of all stripes for hundreds of
years in order to remember complex information.

You probably used a mnemonic device to remember the order of
the planets in our solar system. I remember learning the
sentence: “My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas.”
The first letter of each of the words in that sentence will help
you remember that the planets go in this order – Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. I’ll
probably never forget that fact, thanks to the mnemonic device I
was taught.

The trouble is, it’s hard to convert hand rankings into
words. Besides that, I don’t think you learn much about poker by
simply memorizing the order of hands. You should use the
opportunity of needing to learn proper hand hierarchy to improve
your understanding of poker strategy.

The tips below will help you understand the proper order of
poker hands better and introduce you to some basic poker
concepts to help you improve your overall game.

Low-Value Poker Hands

To remember the order of the four lowest-value hands, just
remember the number series “0, 1, 2, 3.”

• 0 means “high card.” Having nothing in your hand means
  the value of your hand depends on the value of your highest
  card. Remember – in poker, aces rank high, while 2’s rank
  low.
• 1 means “one pair.” Any hand that contains just a single
  pair of cards and nothing else valuable is a 1.
• 2 means “two pair.” This is a hand that contains two
  pairs of cards.
• 3 means “three-of-a-kind.” It’s the most valuable of the
  low-value hands.

High-Value Poker Hands

For the purpose of this post, I’m calling every hand above a
three-of-a-kind a “high-value hand,” but lots of poker
strategists would consider a straight to be a low-value hand.
This is really a difference in philosophy and a language issue
more than anything else.

For that reason, and for simplicity’s sake, I like to think
of straight as a “/” symbol in my mnemonic. That means our
current mnemonic string goes: “0, 1, 2, 3, /.”

Texas Holdem Poker Hands Wikipedia

It’s easier to memorize the order of the other high-ranking
hands if you count the number of letters in the hand’s name.
It’s made all the easier to remember by the fact that the number
of letters increases as you move up the scale.

Here’s how I break it down:

• 5 – The word flush contains five letters.
• 9 – The words full house contain nine letters.
• 11 – The words four of a kind contain eleven letters.
• 13 – The words straight flush contain thirteen letters.
• 18 – The words royal straight flush contain eighteen
  letters.

Putting them all together, our mnemonic is: “0 – 1 – 2 – 3 /
5 – 9 – 11 – 13 – 18.”

Other Ways to Memorize Hand Hierarchy

I’m not going to pretend that the method I used to learn hand
hierarchy is the only one that will work. The three ideas below
are the most popular tactics on the Web besides the use of
mnemonics, based on my research. You can use any of the four
methods described on this post to keep track of what hand beats
what other hand. That way, you’ll be able to plan your tactics
ahead of time and make smart bidding decisions.

Rote Memorization

Some people learn best by repeated drilling of the material
to be memorized. I’ve heard of actors reading their scripts over
and over, playing tapes of the script in their sleep, and
learning their lines by rote. I can’t think of any reason why
you shouldn’t try this method.

Hand Evaluation Diagrams

Various poker trainer programs and strategy gurus have put
together diagrams to help you analyze your hand. You can use
these in poker rooms, and obviously you can use them online, so
long as you don’t care about the other guys at the table making
fun of you. They’re available for free with a simple Google
search.

Texas Holdem Poker Rules Wikipedia

Frequent Exposure

The more rounds of poker you play, the more you’ll become
familiar with all the rules, including the rules of hand
ranking. You may lose a bunch on the way there, because of your
lack of familiarity with hand ranks, but, by God, you’ll get it
eventually.

Conclusion

Remember that some poker variations assign different values
to cards and hands. Some games are totally reversed, rewarding
the lowest-value hand instead of the highest-value one. Other
games may consider an Ace to be low, or use Jokers, which throws
off the hierarchy and strategy a bit.

I hope that this page helped you learn about the value of the
cards you’re dealt. I believe the best way to practice your
newfound understanding of hand hierarchy is to get out there and
play a bunch of poker. If you’re still new to the game and not
yet comfortable with your understanding of hand rankings, you
can always play in free-to-play apps or use play-money at your
favorite online poker room.