The Kicker
A kicker is an unpaired card that plays in making your five card hand. For instance, you have AQ as your hole cards in a Hold’em game. The board is Q 4 2 5 5. You have two pair queens and fives but that is only 4 cards, the next highest card either in your hand or on the board will complete your Hold’em hand. So your playing hand is QQ 55 A, you have two pair with an ace kicker. You would win the hand over any player holding KQ or QJ or any other Qx hand, except Q5 because those hands will also have queens and fives but they have a lower kicker. Except the Q5, which makes a full house.
Be careful in applying this concept to an Omaha game, remember in Omaha you must play two and only two cards from your four card hand, so if the board is Q 4 3 5 5 and you have AQxx, you have the same hand as in Hold’em: two pair with an ace kicker. But if the ace was on the board (Q 4 A 5 5) and your Omaha hand was Q J 9 8, the you would have queens and fives with the jack kicker from your hand because your hand is the Q 5 5 from the board and the Q J from your hand.
Kickers are a big issue in Hold’em when you play a starting hand of Ax and the x card gets paired; you have flopped a pair with the best kicker. If you have the AQ starting hand and the board comes Q 4 3, you have top pair, top kicker; in online forums you will often see this situation abbreviated as TPTK.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #43
