What is Kicker?
A kicker is a card in a poker hand that does not form part of the main combination but is used to break ties between hands of the same rank.
If two players both have a pair of kings, the next highest card decides the winner. A player holding king and ace beats one holding king and jack, because the ace kicker outranks the jack. If all five cards are equal, the pot is split.
Kickers are especially important in Texas hold'em, where players share community cards and often make the same pair. Holding a strong card with a weak kicker, such as ace and three, is a common source of losses.
In video poker, the term appears in paytables for some games that pay extra for four of a kind with specific kickers. When two hands both contain a full house, flush or straight, the kicker concept does not apply in the same way, because all five cards already form the combination. In those cases the ranks of the made hands decide the winner directly.
