Hold'em Hand Names

Hold'em players have many names for their starting cards. Those who are new to the game, particularly those coming primarily from online sites, may not be familiar with all of them. You'll see here that hold'em players have great imaginations.

acey-deucey: A-2

Ainsworth: 6-2

Ajax: A-J; also called foamy cleanser

Alaska hand: See king crab

American Airlines: A-A, sometimes a pair of red aces (since the logo of the airline is two red A's)

Barbara Hutton: 10-5. Comes from the name of the dime store heiress. Dime stores used to be called five-and-dimes. Youngsters may not know about dime stores. They were similar to stores like Walgreens and Longs, although they usually didn't have pharmacies, and were also called variety stores.

Baskin-Robbins: 3-A, from the ice cream chain's "31 flavors"

beer hand: 7-2

big slick: A-K; also known as Santa Barbara.

blocky: 6-3

Broderick Crawford: 10-4. The term came from the '50s television show Highway Patrol, starring Broderick Crawford, who always said, "10-4" into his police radio; 10-4 is part of the police "10-code," and signifies affirmation or confirmation.

Bully Johnson: 3-5

canine: K-9; also, pedigree, mongrel

computer hand: Q-7. Comes from an apocryphal story that "someone" did an extensive computer simulation of hold'em hands in which those two cards appeared most frequently in the flop, or, in some stories, among the downcards. The simulation was atypical, however, because the chances are the same for any two cards of different ranks.

crabs: 3-3; so called because a 3 looks like it has pincers

Darth Vader: the two black fours (the "dark side of the force")

dead man's hand: A-8. Legend has it that "Wild Bill" Hickok was holding aces and eights when he was shot in the back by Jack McCall in the Mann-Lewis Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, on Aug. 2, 1876. Some controversy exists as to the fifth card. Some say all the cards in the hand were black, and that the fifth card was the J. The current story promulgated by the cardrooms of Deadwood is that the two pair were black and the fifth card was the 9. Even so, the term dead man's hand usually just refers to two pair, aces and eights, in any combination.

dime store: 10-5; also called five and dime, nickels and dimes, Woolworth, Barbara Hutton

Dolly Parton: 9-5; from the movie 9 to 5, in which she starred

Doyle Brunson: 10-2; so named because Doyle Brunson twice won the $10,000 buy-in main event of the World Series of Poker (1975 and 1976) with those two holecards

Eubie: 8-6; supposedly comes from the saying, "If you play these, you be broke."

eyes: A-A; also called eyes of Texas

eyes of Texas: A-A

finky dink: 8-5

five and dime: 10-5

foamy cleanser: A-J; also, from whose advertising slogan it comes, Ajax.

Goolsby: Q-10

gorillas: K-K; comes from King Kong, an imitative name for a king

Heinz: 5-7; so called because of the Heinz slogan, "57 varieties"; also, pickle man

hockey sticks: 7-7. That's what they look like. As I said, hold'em players have great imaginations.

Jack Benny: 3-9. The old vaudeville and early television comedian had a running gag that that was his age.

Jackson Five: J-5; from the Motown singing group

Jesse James: 4-5. Legend has it that the famous outlaw was shot with a .45.

Joe Bernstein: 6-9; named after a famous gambler and high roller of the '20s and '30s

Katy: K-10 (because 10 is often rendered "T" in print)

king crab: K-3; so called because a 3 looks a bit like a crab; also called Alaska hand

Kojak: K-J; named because it sounds like the old television show

Kokomo: K-8

little Oldsmobile: 8-8; see Oldsmobile. The 88 was an Oldsmobile model.

little Pete: 2-3

little slick: A-2 or A-Q; compare with big slick

lumberman's hand: 2-4; comes from two-by-four, a kind of board (in carpentry, not poker)

marriage: K-Q suited; comes from the game of pinochle; compare with pinochle

Mighty Wurlitzer: 8-8; comes from the number of keys on the instrument, a theater organ

mongrel: K-9; also, canine, pedigree

Montana banana: 9-2. Some say that 92 is the number of the proposition that legalized poker in Montana; others conjecture it is called that because bananas will grow in Montana before that hand makes money. I'm not taking sides; I have not been able to confirm either contention.

Motown: J-5; from the Motown singing group the Jackson Five

nickels and dimes: 5-10; see dime store

Oldsmobile: 9-8 (sometimes, rarely, 8-8, which is more commonly called little Oldsmobile); the 98 and 88 were Oldsmobile models

pedigree: K-9; also, canine, mongrel

pickle man: 5-7; so called because of the Heinz slogan, "57 varieties;" also, Heinz

pinochle: J Q; comes from the game of pinochle; compare with marriage

pocket rockets: A-A

presto: 5-5. Comes from what one says when revealing a pair of fives as one's holecards. The term was coined at BARGE and evolved from what a blackjack player says when turning over a blackjack. (BARGE is Big August Rec.Gambling Excursion, an annual Las Vegas convention of online poker enthusiasts. RGPers – those who read and post on the Usenet newsgroup rec.gambling.poker – have used the term presto as an identifying catchword.)

quinine: Q-9

railroad hand: J-6. Say it out loud, like this: jacks and sixes, jacks and sixes, jacks and sixes. Sounds a bit like a steam train, doesn't it? Imagination …

Raquel Welch: 3-8; has to do with certain measurements (and you can see how long the term has been around)

Santa Barbara: A-K; refers to a destructive oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast, the name arising from the more well-known name for the hand, big slick

Siegfried and Roy: two queens

trombones: 7-6; comes from the song 76 Trombones (from Meredith Wilson's stage play and movie The Music Man)

Twiggy: 2-9; probably comes from this erstwhile ultraskinny model's measurements (and you can see how long this term has been around)

Union Oil: 7-6; comes from the symbol of the oil company

Weinberg: 10-3

Woolworth: 10-5; comes from the F. W. Woolworth retail chain, individual stores of which were often called five-and-ten-cent stores or five-and-dime stores (and often shortened to dime stores).

Michael Wiesenberg's The Official Dictionary of Poker is the ultimate authority on the language of cardrooms. Order it from the Card Player Bookstore or online at CardPlayer.com.