Nuts

Also known as: the nuts, nut hand, nutted

The best possible hand on a given board — a holding that cannot be beaten given the community cards.

The nuts is the strongest hand available on the current board. On K♥ Q♥ 7♠ the nuts is a set of kings (no straight or flush is yet possible); on J♥ T♥ 9♥ it's the ace-high flush. Because the board changes, the nuts changes street to street — a hand that's the nuts on the flop can be counterfeited by the turn or river.

Related terms matter for strategy. "Nut advantage" (see nut advantage) describes which player's range contains more of the absolute-strongest combos — it's what justifies overbets and big polarised sizings. The "second nuts" is the next-best hand, and being stuck with it against the actual nuts is a classic cooler.

Players also say "nut low" in split games and "drawing to the nuts" — meaning your draw, if it hits, makes the unbeatable hand, which is exactly the draw you want when chips might go in big, since you avoid reverse implied odds.