Famous And No So Famous Poker Pocket Card Nicknames

If you have been playing poker a relatively modest amount of time, then you will likely have heard to players or commentators refer to certain hands by their nicknames.

The most famous of these is the famous “Dead Mans Hand” (famous mentioned in the Motorhead song “Ace of Spades”) and perhaps second only to that is the “Doyle Brunson”.

If you are new to poker then these nicknames may be a little confusing as to what hands they refer to and why that hand has got that nickname.

So, in this article, we are going to look at some of the most famous pocket hand nicknames you will come across, some of the less famous ones and perhaps, a couple of suggestions for other nicknames too.

Online poker fans won’t need to learn these nicknames of course, unless they want to enhance their knowledge of the game as they play at bet365 Poker.

So let’s begin with the most famous of these hands.

Famous Poker Hand Nicknames

The Dead Man’s Hand

Without doubt the most famous of all poker hands, mentioned in song and popular culture and apparently it’s name comes from a real event involving one of the most famous names of the Old West.

That man was Wild Bill Hickok, who was shot dead whilst playing poker on the second of August in 1876.

The story goes that after Hickok was shot, his hand fell onto the floor of the saloon amd some time later they were retrieved by a man called Neil Christy, who passed them to his son, who then showed them to a historian called Carl Breihan.

This is where the story gets a little confusing as the hand Breihan claims he saw was the ace of diamonds, ace of clubs, the two black eights and the queen of hearts.

However, over time, the name has now been applied to a hand containing black aces and eights (in the case of a four or five card starting hand) or just an ace and an eight in the case of a two-card starting hand.

Hickok was shot by Jack McCall, a player who Hickok had beaten at the Poker table the day previously. Hickok offered McCall a small amount of money to buy breakfast and advised him not to play again until he could cover his debts.

McCall felt slighted by this and the following day, he entered Nuttal & Mann Saloon in Deadwood, drunk and ordered another drink at the bar before walking over to Hickok and shooting him in the head at point blank range.

The murderer tried to escape but fell after his saddle became loose on his horse.

He was originally acquitted of the murder by a kangaroo court, but a short time later after bragging about his actions in a part of Wyoming, he was rearrested and tried, this time receiving the death penalty after being found guilty,

He was hanged on 1^st March 1877.

The Doyle Brunson

Doyle Brunson is one of the most legendary names in the history of poker and the hand that he will forever be linked to his name is a 10 and a 2 of any suit.

In 1976, Brunson was already an accomplished poker player and he was heads up on the final table of the World Series of Poker with Jesse Alto.

Alto had an ace and jack unsuited, while Brunson had a 10-2 and after Alto had raised, Brunson surprised many by calling despite being well behind.

The flop came out with an ace, a queen and a ten. Also now had two pair and the much stronger hand over Brunson’s pair of tens.

Alto raised from his strong position and may have been expecting a fold, but Brunson surprised many watching by going all in.

Alto unsurprisingly called him and the rest of the hand would be drawn.

On the turn came a two, which improved Brunson’s hand to two-pair, but Alto was still very comfortably the favourite to win.

However, on the River the incredible happened as Brunson connected with another ten for a full house and with it the $200,000 in prize money and WSOP bracelet.

That famous hand is probably enough for Brunson to have the hand named after him but incredibly, just a year later, it happened again.

This time Brunson was heads up against Bones Berland in the WSOP Main Event and with both players seeing the flop, the cards came down ten-eight-five. Berland had hit two pair with Brunson with two tens. This flop was checked by both players which allowed them to see the turn card, which was a two. Brunson now had two pair, which led him to bet and then Berland went all in.

When the river card was revealed, few people scarcely believed it when the dealer turned over a 10, handing Brunson another win and a $340,000 prize with the exact same hand he had won with a year previously.

Maverick

Maverick is nothing to do with the Tom Cruise-inspired Top Gun main character, but instead it is named after the gunslinger from the Old West characterised on TV by James Garner and in film by Mel Gibson.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the TV show, but the theme song to the show that landed a hand with the Maverick nickname.

The theme song included the lyrics “Livin’ on Jacks and Queens, Maverick is a legend of the west.”

As such having pocket cards of jacks and queens has now become the “Maverick” hand.

Occasionally a hand of jacks and queens may also be referred to as an Oedipus, from the Greek legend where Oedipus (the jack), kills his father (the king) before marrying his mother (the queen).

Computer Hand

The Computer Hand is a pocket hand of any queen and seven and there are two theories as to why this has become the nickname of the hand.

First up is the belief that it is named after the IBM computer which was the largest ever built when it was released, which was called the Q7 Sage.

However, another theory suggests that it is so named because a computer analysis of the hand revealed that when a player is dealt the hand, it gives the player closest to 50/50 chance of behind ahead or behind of another player in the deal.

Personally, I feel that the second of the theories seems more plausible.

Varkonyi & Negreanu Hands

A number of hands are linked to players in a similar way to the Doyle Brunson hand we named earlier.

One example of this is the “Varkonyi” named after the amateur 2002 World Series of Poker Main Event champion.

The Varokonyi hand is a Queen and a Ten and is so named as it was the hand he used to defeat the much-fancied Poker Brat himself, Phil Hellmuth early in the tournament.

This was such a shock that it immediately catapulted Varokonyi to fame and the amateur proved it was no fluke by winning the Main Event, taking home the $2m prize.

Another slightly different way a hand gets named after a player is by a player continually playing it in competition and landing wins as a result. That is how the Daniel Negreanu hand of a suited 10 and 7 has come into poker parlance.

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton is not a poker player of any renown, so what has she done to deserve a poker hand being named after her?

Well Dolly was the write of the song ‘9 to 5’ which was a big hit in the 1980s, with a film released of the same name.

Hence, a hand dealt comprising of any 9 and a 5 has become known as a Dolly Parton.

Other Hand Nicknames

A number of other hands have nicknames in poker namely –

• 8 + 4 – Known as Big Brother as taken from the George Orwell novel 1984.
• 3 + A – Known as a Baskin Robbins due to the ice cream company producing 31 flavours.
• 2 + 2 – Known as a Desmond after the Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
• J + 5 – Known as the Jackson Five as it sounds very much like pop group (Jacks and five).
• A & K (clubs or spades) – Big Slick or Exxon Valdez – named after the oil slick created by the Exxon Valdez oil tanker that polluted Prince William Sound in March 1989. Coincidentally, there were 21 members of crew on the ship, the number that an ace and king add up to match.
• 5 + 7 – Sometimes known as a Heinz, as in the number of varieties the company were purported to make, but which in actual fact was just a number selected to be memorable for customers when the brand was advertised (and it worked!).

I’d like to think we could expand on this. How about a 9 + 9 being known as an Ice Cream after the delicacy of an ice cream in a cone with a chocolate stick?

It’s something to think about next time you play!