• Texas Holdem Poker strategy: The importance of the Kicker A Kicker is a poker term used to describe the left over cards once players have made a hand. They are used to determine the winner of a hand where both players have the same cards but there are still cards remaining to make the best five card hand.
• Pair of Fours Jack Kicker. Texas HoldEm Poker. June 29, 2019 Jack of all trades wins this one. That’s Player 1 to you. Texas HoldEm Poker Turn.

The 'kicker' is just a fancy way of saying that all the cards in a 5 card hand play, and somewhere in that sequence one of our cards which isn't part of the main rank is higher than another hand of the same rank.

Kicker –
1. The unpaired hole card that accompanies a made pair in a Texas Hold'em game.
2. An unpaired card in your hand that often plays as a high card.
The term “kicker” is most commonly used in all varieties of Texas Holdem. In this type of poker game, each player is dealt a starting hand of exactly two hole cards. These cards are dealt face down and are each individual’s private cards. The rest of the cards are community cards and are dealt face up, in the center of the table, for all players to share. Frequently, a player will make a pair by matching one of his hole cards with one of the community cards. The remaining unpaired hole card is referred to as “the kicker.” This card is of supreme importance in Texas Holdem, because it often plays. When it does, it can often be the card which determines who wins and who loses.
It is especially important when two or more players all make the same pair, by matching one of their hole cards with the same card on the board. Since each player has only a two card hand, when both players make an identical pair, the kicker is the only difference between the two hands. Since one pair often wins in Hold’em, it is relatively common for hand ranking to come down to a kicker. This is one reason that you should be mindful of the quality of your kicker during the preflop hand selection process.
Since it is relatively common for multiple players to make the same pair in a Hold’em game, you will want to make sure that you come out on top the majority of times that it occurs when you are involved This is one reason it is correct to adopt tight starting hand requirements. If you only play high cards, you will always have a decent kicker, if not the top kicker, nearly every time you pair. This step of tightening up preflop can simplify the game and make it easier to play well, especially if you're a new player. If you do this, you will not have to spend so much of your time or mental resources evaluating if your kicker is a problem.
Texas Holdem is not the only poker game where two or more players can make the same pair, it just happens more frequently in Holdem games, because all players are sharing the same community cards. This means that kickers will come into play far more often in Holdem games than they will in other types of poker games, like Seven Card Stud. When two players make the same pair in a Seven Card Stud game, up to three kickers can be involved in determining which hand ranks highest, since each hand is composed of a player’s best five cards. Sometimes a player will make the same pair as their opponent, and will also match their opponent’s top kicker. In this situation it becomes necessary to go to the second and sometimes the third kicker to determine who has the higher ranked hand. It is also possible for two players to make the same two pairs in Seven Card Stud. When this happens, the player with the highest kicker has the higher ranked hand and is entitled to the pot. As is the case in Texas Hold’em, if two players make identical hands, with all kickers matching, the result is a split pot.
Kickers only matter if the ranking of the hands is close. In Seven Card Stud games they are only relevant in hands containing no pair, one pair, or two pair. In Texas Hold’em, because community cards are used, hands containing three of a kind may also have their final rankings determined by kickers. This coupled with the fact that lower ranked hands like one pair frequently go down to the kicker in Holdem, makes kickers a major factor in Holdem games. The quality of your kicker is always a concern in a Holdem game. This is not the case in Seven Card Stud. Since each player holds their own cards, and community cards are not typically used in Stud games, kickers are not much of a concern. Most of the time, players don’t have hands that are close enough for their kickers to matter, and when they do it is often more a matter of luck than skill. In a Holdem game, you can avoid kicker problems by simply avoiding hands before the flop which contain marginal kickers. In a Stud game, it is not really possible to preempt kicker problems through tighter hand selection on third street, as the issue tends to come up later in the hand. Clearly, kickers do not have the impact in a Stud game that they have in Holdem. While they can still affect the outcome of the hand, kickers simply don’t have the strategic relevance in Stud as they do in Holdem.
Usage: Good Kicker, Kicker Kicks, Top Pair Top Kicker (TPTK)
Previous Poker Term: Joker
Next Poker Term: Kill Pot

The Basic Concept of Kickers

Let's look at a basic example of poker kickers to give you an idea of what this involves. Suppose we have the following match-up in an Omaha game:

What you can see here is that both players have a pair of aces. However, Hero has a king kicker, and Villain has a jack kicker. Since a king is higher than a jack, Hero gets the pot. This is a very straight-forward form of tie-breaking, but it can lead to some complications in certain types of scenarios. We want to clear up all possible misunderstandings for you with the following concept.

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Texas Holdem Poker Clock

Poker Hands Use Five Cards

Poker hands use five cards. This might seem like the most obvious thing in the world, but if you always know which five cards you are using to make the best hand possible, then you can eliminate a lot of mistakes when it comes to not realizing which kickers were in play. Consider the following Texas Holdem example:

Both players have the same two pair hand of aces over nines. From a first glance, it would look like Villain has the higher kicker. However, this hand is actually a tie. The reason for this is easy to see if you look at the best five card poker hand that each player has. Hero has A♦A♣9♥9♠J♦, and Villain has A♦A♥9♥9♠J♦. In this case, both players actually have the same jack kicker, and the other cards in their respective hands are irrelevant.

When Playing Omaha

If you're playing Omaha, the same exact idea applies of making sure that you use precisely five cards. The only difference is that you're forced into using three cards from the board and two cards from your hand. What's ironic is that this can actually make keeping up with your kickers easier since you are forced into avoiding a lot of the common mistakes that people make in holdem.

Hands of a Higher Rank

If you use this idea of making sure you think of the five card hand that each player has, then you will eliminate every possible mistake that you can make with kickers. With that having been said, it's still good to know common scenarios where kicker problems can come up, and we're going to look at how they work with hands of a higher rank.

Texas Holdem Poker Kickers

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Kickers and Flushes

While kickers are typically viewed as being the cards outside of a hand that break a tie, sometimes the cards that are inside of a hand can be used to break a tie as well. In this case, you still have to look at the five cards that make up the hands at showdown. For a good example of this, look at how this seemingly silly holdem hand plays out at showdown:

Take a moment with this example to verify that neither of these players have straight-flushes. Once you do that, you'll want to figure out which player has the highest hand by evaluating their respective flushes. To do that, you list out the five highest cards that each player has available to them in the suit of that flush. This process gives you the following two hands:

Player	First	Second	Third	Fourth	Fifth
Hero	A♣	9♣	8♣	7♣	5♣
Villain	A♣	9♣	8♣	6♣	5♣

To evaluate these hands, you'll need to line up the cards in descending order like we have done in the chart above. Once you have them listed out correctly, work from left to right seeing which player has a higher kicker first. In this example, the tie-breaker comes down to the fourth card of the flush because Hero has a seven while Villain has a six.

Four of a Kind

Texas Holdem Poker Kicker Online

Even hands as large as four of a kind can come down to a kicker. Consider the following highly-instructive example:

Texas Holdem Poker Check

When most people look at a hand like this, they immediately feel as if Hero should have the advantage because his pocket pair has connected with the board on the river. However, both players actually have four of a kind here, and so the fact that Hero has caught a jack on the river is irrelevant. The final hand for Hero will be 9999J, but the final hand for Villain will be 9999Q. As we can see, Villain has the higher kicker and would be awarded the pot.

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