If you need to catch up on your poker lingo see our the poker stipulations page.

Here’s some basic poker jargon that we’ll be using:

Suit - The suits are Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs.
Suited - Having the same suit.
Cards Speak - Your hand consists of the best possible five card combination, no topic how you call it.
Rank - Two, Three, Four… Jack, Queen, King, Ace are the ranks of cards.
Split Pot - When multiple players tie for a hand, the pot is split up evenly among the winners.
Kicker - The other card(s) left over after a hand is declared.

Let’s consider what happens when you both have the same hand?

With the most common hands, it comes down to a topic of Kickers.  It must be remembered that a player can only play with or use a total of Five cards. Although 7 cards will be down 2 in the hand 5 on the boards a player may only make use 5 of the cards. Additionally is Texas Holdem all suits are ranked the same meaning no suit is giving a higher value than another , an Ace is an Ace or a Queen is a Queen. Therefore is players have the same 5 card hand after evaluating the hands then the pot will be split equally amongst the players. There are examples of when a split pot will occur to help you know this concept better.

In the above example the best possible hand is laid down on the enter, being 4 of a Kind Aces, despite player 1 having a better hand both players share the best hand which is being laid down on the enter. Therefore the pot will be split.

In the above example both player split the pot since the both have a Run Ace High (10, J, Q, K, A)

The example below the pot would be split since the highest possible hand is on the table, an Ace High Flush.