Texas Hold 'Em Hand Nicknames Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ace-Ace

Probably the most famous nickname for a pocket pair. If you've got two bullets (the best possible pair), you've probably got your opponent dead. Ignoring community cards, AA beats KK more than 80% of the time, and it beats AK (offsuit) more than 90% of the time.

Answer: Ace-Ace

Many hand nicknames play off of initials. AA may also be called American Airlines, Albert Anastasia, or Apollo 11. AK may be called a "Kalishnikov" (the designer of the AK-47), and you may hear AQ referred to as "Anthony and (Q)leopatra".

Answer: Ace-Ace

Ones are aces at the card tables, but in dice games, they are snake eyes. "Eyes", "Snake Eyes", and "Eyes of Texas" are all used (the latter being the Texas Longhorns' theme song). The aces of clubs and spades together are "Joe Louis" - the boxer who'll give you two "black Eyes". The aces of hearts and diamonds are "Visine", a brand of artificial tears for red eyes.

Answer: King-King

Viva Las Vegas - Elvis was "the King." If you have K8, you have a Cheeseburger (what the King "ate"). If you have a J8, you have a Jeffrey Dahmer (who famously "ate" his victims). Gruesome!

Answer: King-King

Nothing to do with the animated rockers; it's simply a play on King Kong. "King Kong", "Krispy Kreme", and "Kevin Keegan" are also in circulation, as is the derivative "Gorillas in the Mist".

Answer: King-King

Cowboys like their poker, and I guess they think very highly of themselves. By analogy, a pair of queens may be called a Calamity Jane. Trip kings make a Three Wise Men, and KKKAA makes a Nativity. KKKK make the Four Horsemen.

Answer: Queen-Queen

QQ looks like a pair of snowshoes. Some hands get their nicknames from notable players. AQ may be called a "Doyle Brunson", after the prolific poker author and champ. Brunson wrote in "Super/System", "I never play this hand". Predictably, in the 2008 WSOP, he lost playing AQ.

Answer: Queen-Queen

Unlike the Americans who invented hold 'em, Canadians revere the Queen... or rather, they did when hold 'em rose to prominence. Invented in the '60s, hold 'em supplanted "draw poker" styles like Omaha and stud poker during the 2000s - and all under Elizabeth II's reign. No sign yet of poker's Canada jokes updating in honor of King Charles III.

Answer: Queen-Queen

Paris and Nicky O. Hilton are the fashion-model daughters of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. Paris Hilton was famous throughout the 2000s as a fixture of the tabloids, while her younger sister has taken to being a fashion designer and a mom. This is certainly one of the more dated references.

QQ was the hardest pair to fit in this quiz. Almost none of the nicknames belong on a family site!

Answer: Jack-Jack

Like "Alan Alda", this is another play on initials. Jar Jar Binks was the much-maligned comic relief alien from the first "Star Wars" prequel, "The Phantom Menace". There are surprisingly many "Star Wars" references in poker slang: you may pocket a "Luke Skywalker" if the "fours" are with you.

In draw poker, TK42A is a "Stormtrooper", named for the designation of the Stormtrooper whom Luke disguises himself as.

Answer: Jack-Jack

Like "Snowshoes," two Js looks like a pair of Hooks. Add this to the long list of number-lookalikes. 88 is Snowmen or Pretzels, TT are Train Tracks, 99 is Pothooks, 44 is Sailboats, and 33 is called Crabs (apparently the round bits look like their raised claws).

Answer: Jack-Jack

In cards, "knave" is synonymous with "jack". A knave was originally a low-ranking, generalist servant to royalty. As with the knight in chess, abbreviating knave in cards created confusion with the king. For that reason, "jack" (in the same sense as "jack-of-all-trades") eventually replaced it.

Some German-derived games, like euchre, call jacks "bowers," and you may hear that term used as a nickname as well.

Answer: Ten-Ten

"T and T" sounds like TNT - dynamite! Tens, especially three or four tens, have some of the strangest nicknames in poker. Four tens may be called a Larry Fortensky (an Elizabeth Taylor husband). Three tens make thirty, which is referenced in the nicknames Judas (who received 30 pieces of silver) and Judge Bean/Duffy/Judy/Wapner (liable to give out a 30-day sentence to gamblers).

Answer: Ten-Ten

In U.S. currency, a dime is ten cents. "Dime" derives from the word "disme", which makes it, like "deuce" and "dozen", another number-nickname we get from Old French.

And here's one from the vault of True Facts That Totally Sound Made Up: between 1851 and 1873, the U.S. minted a three-cent piece called a "trime".

Answer: Ten-Ten

Two tens are 1010 - looks like binary code. Five-card hands include a few other mathy nicknames. 3A4A5 is "Pi" while "Euler" (as in Euler's number, e) refers to 27A82. Another name for 88 is "Infinity on the Side".

Answer: Two-Two

Much like bowling zeros in cricket, the worst pocket pair in hold 'em is ducks. (Apparently this is derived from their appearance, but I don't see it.) Four 2s are nicknamed the Mighty Ducks, after the Anaheim hockey team. A five-card hand with three Aces, a King and a Queen may also be called The Duck. Why? Ducks go QAAAK.

Answer: Two-Two

In fact, the use of "deuce" to mean a number two originates from card and dice games, before tennis ever used the term. Its use as a very mild expletive ("what the deuce?") probably stems from the visual similarity of "deus", the French root word, and "deus", the Latin for God.

Answer: Two-Two

Two twos are Desmond, dubbed after Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. 22 can also be a Richard Nixon, after the famous photo of Nixon making two peace signs. Potentially offensive in the Commonwealth; totally innocent in America!