Anybody that has watched poker on television knows that some hands are referred to with distinctive names, such as Pocket Rockets, Cowboys, or Big Slick. Lots of Texas Hold 'em starting hands have nicknames, and my next couple of articles will give you some of the more common ones, as well as some you may not have heard before. In this article, we will focus on what to call your pocket pairs.
With the explosion of televised poker has come to an explosion in the terminology of the game. People that don't know a flop from a flush can sit down and watch a broadcast of the World Poker Tour or the World Series of Poker and gain a relatively good understanding of the jargon in a few hours. There are certain starting hands scr888 with distinct nicknames, and we will be taking a look at those now. Most of these have been around for a while, but are becoming a big part of the language of poker thanks to the WPT's Vince "Lady of Spain is going off in his head" van Patten and ESPN's Norman "How many jokes about divorce can I fit into a one hour broadcast" Chad.
Pair of Aces: Pocket Rockets, American Airlines, Bullets, Weapons of Mass Destruction
Pair of Kings: Cowboys, King Kong, Ace Magnets (depending on how your luck is running that day)
Pair of Queens: Ladies, Hilton/Gabor Sisters (depending on what generation you're from), Siegfried and Roy (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Pair of Jacks: Jokers, Fish Hooks
Pair of Tens: Dimes, Binary, Boxcars
Pair of Nines: Meathooks, Phil Hellmuth (Hellmuth won the final hand of his World Series of Poker Main Event championship with a pair of nines), German Virgins (the German word for "no" is nein), Wayne Gretzky
Pair of Eights: Snowmen, Two Fat Ladies, Double Infinity
Pair of Sevens: Walking Sticks, Hockey Sticks, Mullets (short in the front, long in the back)
Pair of Sixes: Route 66, Mario Lemieux
Pair of Fives: Speed Limit (old school version), Nickels, Presto
Pair of Fours: Magnum (thank you, Dirty Harry), Sailboats, Luke Skywalker (May the Fours be with you), Darth Vader (specific to two black fours, which would be the Dark Side of the Fours)
Pair of Threes: Crabs, Hooters
Pair of Twos: Ducks, Swans
Those are all the nicknames that you can use for pocket pairs in the game of Texas Hold 'Em. The next article you see from me will deal with nicknames for unpaired hole cards. Until then, here's hoping that your Cowboys don't get shot by any bullets and your Hilton Sisters don't end up with crabs!
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