When does a kicker matter?

... if the kicker does matter or not ?

Hey Poker people. Sometimes I am wondering about the kicker. In some tournaments the pot is splitted and some I loose if I have the lower kicker. What are the rules ? Thanks a lot for answers.

Best 5 cards win.
For example, you and your opponent are both playing the 2 pair on the board, If the board has an Ace, you both will split assuming niether one of you has an Ace for a bigger 2 pair. If the board has a 2 kicker and you have a King, and your opponent has a Queen, then you would win since your 2 pair with a King kicker, is better than your opponents 2 pair with Queen kicker.
Hope that makes sense.

Let me use a hand to give you a visual of it.

Hand 1 is Ac Kc
Hand 2 is Ah 8h

The flop, turn and river are: As Td Ts 3c 2c

Both hands will have Aces and Tens. Here is where the kicker comes in.

Hand 1 hand would be Ac, As, Td, Ts, Kc
Hand 2 hand would be Ah, As, Td, Ts, 8h.

The King is higher than the 8 so since that would represent the 5th card, and the 1st hand would win. Hope this helps.

if you and your opponent have equal hands say you both have the same two pair, the highest kicker would come into play, if the highest kicker is in the community cards then its a split pot, if any player has a kicker higher than the community cards and higher than his opponent the he would be the winner

When you and opponenet have same pair,or you and him have nothing,or in similar situatons then high card or kikcer won the hand!

Playful has lost many a hand by being out-kicked at the end , so she never plays Ace/rag if theres an Ace on the Board

You make the best 5 card hand. If that includes the kicker, then the higher kicker takes the pot.

I think kicker is important, that's why I don't like playing an ace with low kicker.

Play Poker and you will see that the Kicker matter.

If you have the best pair and put a high value in the table, you can loose a lot of chips just because the other player have a best kicker (and he will pay probably any raise that you can do).

very often. Most hads you will win will be with top pair so having "extra boost" is good

Kicker makes sense always))

good kicker is good to semi-bluff. I mean if your opponent has Q4s on a board of QT7 and I hold things like TJs I would bluff the hell out of him.

a lot of players get crippled big or even busted because of these low kickers.
You get top pair but low kicker and another player has the same top pair but has a better kicker, most of the time you'll get buried.
If u r lucky, you'll only be saved if the community cards r higher than both kickers.

A good kicker is so important in my view because I have lost many huge pots when I had the Top pair in a rainbow board but the opponent had also the top pair ano a better kicker so if not in position and depending on my stack site and stage of tournament I will fold pre-flop with A2, A3 up to A9 (less A5 suited for straight and flash draws) and play carefully with AT up to AQ and also fold with K2 up to K8 and sometimes play with K9 suited and playing carefully with KT, KJ and KQ.

Kicker wins when u have same pairs with ur opponent i mean for example u have AQ and ur opponent has KQ, flop is Q 2 5 , and u are winning in this situation because ur kicker is ACE and his kicker is K so A > K ;p

when you are playing the weaker hand it matters weaker kicker weaker hand you got to read the betting style of your opponents whether can push off pot or you need to fold etc..

That's why it's bad playing A2o out of position

Word (kicker) in English comes from the verb of kick, that often means "beat", mostly - "kicking". And the kicker - is the one who makes the most of kick, that is, "Striker ball player" (football, etc.), "kicker" and in a figurative sense - "stubborn"? "An unexpected turn of events" and even "a trap". Life, too, sometimes have kicks, is not it?
Apparently, it is the figurative meaning and got into poker at the dawn of the last existence. Kicker - a kind of "trap", which can cater to even the most experienced players. And if we talk about the meaning of vocabulary, the "kicker" in poker games is a synonym for "high card". Usually the word is used in two cases:
1) least significant combination. In the event that a showdown (showdown) it turns out that no one at the table do not even have a pair, the winner is the one with the highest card in the hands of dignity. And if there are two or more players - one who has the second-ranking card, etc. Finally, if all 5 cards of the same (of course, it happens very rarely), the pot is split in half;
2) the highest card not included in the combination. It is about the sequences that involve no more than four cards. This square, two pairs (and there, and there are involved 4 cards), set (3 cards) and a pair (2 cards). At concurrence of combinations of two players should also look at the highest card. And if at least one of them, it does not apply to the general, the pot goes to the holder of the highest rank card. In general, a square and two equal pairs to determine a winner look at one additional card when the total set - into two, with the pair - three. The remaining cards (if any) - are not included.
Of particular importance are the kickers in the poker variants with community cards - such as Texas Hold'em and Omaha. After all, in these games often at the board formed a powerful combination, and on the extent to which "pocket hand" players complement it depends on the outcome of the hand. The following table shows the calculation of equity to a number of situations that differ from each other different quality combinations on the board, the number of players, initial Hand Player. From there, one can see clearly that the players who already have aces preflop, have a much better chance of winning than, for example, the owners of jacks or fives.

Kicker or playoff card
The "kicker" is the "extra" card, which is not part of any winning combination in our hand, but serves to add value to our play in case of a tie.

In order to become a winner in poker, it is necessary to pay attention to all the circumstances that usually decide the plays. Therefore, when we have a play that we think is good, we should ensure that our kicker also strengthens our hand.

Suppose that on the table one of the cards is a K (King), and that we have another K in our hands, accompanied by a 3. If, out of the five community cards, the King is the largest, it is possible that our pair Of kings is a good move. But there is one detail: You have only one king and the other king is on the table. The probability indicates that any of the other players could have another of the kings.

That being so, it is certain that what will decide the winner will be the second hand card - in our case a very low value card (a 3). Our fundamental card is the King, and the other will be the "kicker." Remember that in case of a tie, the kicker will determine who the winner is. Therefore, we should not be overly optimistic if the table presents these five community cards: K 6 7 9 2. This is because our hand (K-3) would be hit by any player who had a King accompanied by an 8. For example:

With our K-3 the play we will make will be K K 9 7 6 (five better cards).

With the K-8 of our rival the play will be K K 9 8 7 (five better cards).

If, on the contrary, our opponent had K-4, which, despite having a kicker value higher than ours (a 3), would divide the pot, since the community cards would be the ones that both would use to compose the play:

With our K-3 the play we will make will be K K 9 7 6 (five better cards).
If our opponent has K-4 the move he will make will also be K K 9 7 6 (five better cards).

So that's it, GL on the tables.
Yelmopoker01

kickers always matter

kaetzchenfg said:

... if the kicker does matter or not ?

Hey Poker people. Sometimes I am wondering about the kicker. In some tournaments the pot is splitted and some I loose if I have the lower kicker. What are the rules ? Thanks a lot for answers.

Click to expand...

the kicker always matters. but if you look at the draw and learn your hands you can see that the draw only allows certian hands to be involved like the

flop Ah 5d 6d
turn 9c
river 10d

there you can see whoever is in they can only be holding

any 2 cards with diamonds
A with 5, 6, 9, or 10
8 7 with any suit
pocket pair of anything there
pocket pair better than 10
or any combination of 2 pair without the ace

there can be more but those are mainly most of them

If u had A2 any suit and the other guy has A3 any suit then u guys split pot because neither of you can beat the 5,6,9, or 10 with your 2 or 3... Hope this helps you!

.. ya kickers always matter ,
as others have said if the board has the highest kicker the best 5 card hand is split between you and your opponent since you share the community cards to make your hands .. other wise it's not a split and the player with the highest kicker wins , gl

It matters , especially , I would say , at later stages of a tournament , when a player ,let's say with , might shove to double or get the blinds as he was card dead for a long time , and the SB or BB big stack calls with , and both miss the flop , if the flop is then the kickers matter , cause the best hands for everyone is A (suit don't matter) and >> , so A wins , so thanks to the kicker he doubles .

On a flop like the kickers don't win ,suit don't matter , we have draw : both have the same winning hand J A .

the kicker always matters in poker. playing with an ace with a lower kicker isnt the same as playing it with a10 or better. also it matters if they are suited or connectors. a2 or a3 suited can make a straight or a flush however a hand like a7 or a8 cant make a straight so even though a7 is stronger than a2, this hand can be very strong postflop specially on a low flop like 345 or 234, etc.

Heres an example;

Player a: AK. Player b: AQ

Board: 3 5 10 8 J

Player a wins with A K J 10 8
Player b loses with A Q J 10 8

Now if the board was:

5 6 7 8 9

They would both tie with a straight so their hands would not be in the best five cards which means there kicker and their Ace does not matter.

Hope that helped