For the real enthusiastic poker players there are plenty of expressions, abbreviations and nicknames that together almost form it’s own language. When terminology meets slang, a bunch of words can grow for things. Things that for a layman is complicated enough when the correct name is being used.

One of those things is poker hands. Even if you aren’t a hundred percent sure about how to play the best given hand, it is still fun to have a small insight in the various names that can be used to describe the hand.

Let’s take a look at some of the most classic ones.

If you have two Aces, which generally is the best hand you can have before the flop, then you could call them “Pocket rockets”. Then at least all players in a game of professional Texas Hold’em would know what you meant. A couple of other names for the Aces are “American Airlines” and “Bullets”.

Let’s switch one of the Aces for a King. Most people would think that these are terrific cards and overestimate the effect that they would give. Of course everyone would be lucky to get an Ace and a King in their lap. But statistically, it sometimes isn’t as easy to play as you would think. That is why the hand has been given the name “Anna Kournikova”, after the beautiful tennis player. Always looks great, never wins…

The ace and king could together also be called “Big Slick”.

While we are on the ladies topic, I want to grab the chance to list a couple of names for a pair of Queens. This is probably the combination of cards that has the most nicknames. Here are some of them:

“Ladies”, “4 tits”, “Flower girls”, “Big pair: Dolly Parton” and “Sigfried and Roy”. More recently there has been a new addition to the list: “The Hilton sisters”. Any blessed uninformed readers might need to know that the Hilton sisters are two happy gals that are heiresses of the Hilton family (owner of the hotel chain with the same name), who spends most of their time spending that money on partying and shopping. Ever once and again they also make less thought-through statements on national television.

But back to the list: The hand with the sweetest names is probably the one with a Jack and a King. Either it is called “Harry Potter” or “People who need love”.

But there are poker hand names that have a bit worse kind of history. Like Ace and Eight, that is called Dead man’s hand. This is because Wild Bill Hickok was holding Aces and Eights when he was shot to death. The same goes for the hand of a Four and a Five, which is called “Jesse James”. This is because it is said that he was killed with a .45 pistol.

My favourite poker hand name is “Doyle Brunson”; a Ten and a Two. This is actually the hand that named poker player won the World Series of Poker with – twice!