Hand Review

What Is Hand ?

A hand is a set of playing cards held by a player that has been dealt with by the dealer. The hand begins with the cards being dealt at the beginning of the round and ends when the round has been won or the cards (hand) have been folded.
A hand can be made up of any number of cards depending on the game being played. For example, in Texas Hold Em, a hand is made up of a combination of the five best cards, including the players two hole cards and three of the four community cards.

In Blackjack, a hand is made up of as many cards as is required to get to 21 without going over. For example, 10d-7c-3h is equal to 20, the next card (unless its an Ace) will take him over 21 so his hand is 3 cards.

Hand Explained

A standard pack of playing cards contains 52 cards divided into four suits Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades with each suit containing individual cards ranked from high to low: Ace-King-Queen-Jack-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2.
A hand can be ranked either as a multiple of its score, for example, in Blackjack, 10d-6c scores 16 or on the probability of a hand appearing in the game; for example, in poker, 3c-3h-3d-Ad-As (a full house) outranks a flush, (5 cards of the same suit) because the probability of gaining a full house (2.60%) is less than achieving a flush (3.03%).

In some games, individual cards can have two values in order to make the best hand. In Blackjack, for example, Aces can have a value of 1 or 11. In this case, the player chooses the value of the card depending on the rest of the cards in his hand. So if a player holds As-6h, his score is either 17 or 7. If he hits and the next card is 5d, he is still in the game with a score of 12. That’s why Aces are so valuable in Blackjack hands.