Holdem Poker Kicker
Do not underestimate the value of the kicker in Texas Holdem Poker. It may mean the difference between winning or losing. You will be suprised to find out how many times a Texas Holdem hand comes down to a tie with the kicker as the tie breaker.
Today's hand comes from early in a $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament and features a commonly faced situation — you make top pair, top kicker, but the board is coordinated so that your. 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 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.
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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. Where two players have the same five card hand - most often a Flush, Straight, or Full House then a Split Pot situation arises and the Kicker does not apply.
Only the very inexperienced do not take the kicker into consideration when assesing the value of the hand. While you may live or die on the River you kicker can put a knife in your heart fast. The one and only time that you need not worry about your kicker is if you have flopped four of a kind. If you have four deuces and a trey kicker you are going to win the hand the greatest per centage of the time, by far.
That is why you do not waste time and money playing suited hands like [8d,2d] The eight is essentially your kicker in the flush draw. Even if you ignore the odds that over 90% of the time you will not end up with a flush by the end of the hand. Some poker player luckier than you may have come in with an [9d,3d] You loose.
In a tight game, the hand-domination perspective does lead you to the best course of action. You should check and call if someone bets. You should probably not call if there is a bet and a raise, although it actually turns out that checking and calling a raise rather than folding to a raise is not a large error. It only costs you a few pennies on average.
In very loose games, this popular wisdom just doesn't hold up. In a very loose game, betting the hand straightforwardly, and calling if anyone raises, makes almost twice as much money in the long run as checking and calling. This is not the popular wisdom. Most players would feel very uncomfortable if they bet this top pair with a weak kicker and got raised when the flop had no draws that someone may be raising on. Betting and calling is the right thing to do against a field of loose or very loose players.
The reason for this is that in very loose games you are more likely to have other players with 3s and 8s than Kings in their hands. In a loose game, your opponents are more likely to have two kinds of hands than are likely in a tight game. A hand such as Ks-2s is much more likely to be played by an opponent in a loose game, and a hand such as 8d-6h is also much more likely to be played. You'll get action, maybe even a raise from hands like that, if you bet out your top pair with a weak kicker in a loose game. In a tight game, players aren't likely to be holding those kinds of hands on the flop. Of course, even in a loose game, you are probably beaten if you get raised, but the chances are good enough that you are not beaten to make it worth calling a raise. The pot will be large enough to hold onto that hand because there are enough worse hands that loose players might raise with to make it pay off. Don't expect to win most of the pots by doing this, but do expect to win most of the money eventually.
In more typical games, the two plays, betting versus checking and calling, are about equivalent in terms of the amount of money made. The best play is to probably check and call in a typical game. It makes about the same money as betting and does so with a little less risk.
The general lesson here is to play your top pairs more aggressively in loose games while playing top pairs with weak kickers more passively in tight games. This is a major difference in how a common situation should be played different under different game conditions. I think it illustrates how important it is to think in terms of the game conditions and the kinds of hands you opponents are likely to have rather than thinking in terms of only your own hand.
– 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.
Holdem Poker Kickers
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.
Kicker Holdem Poker
Usage: Good Kicker, Kicker Kicks, Top Pair Top Kicker (TPTK)Previous Poker Term: Joker
Holdem Poker Kicker Online
Next Poker Term: Kill PotHoldem Poker Kicker Game
