Overpair

Also known as: over pair, over-pair

A pocket pair higher than every card on the board, beating any single top-pair hand.

An overpair is a pocket pair ranked higher than the highest board card — JJ on a 9♦7♠2♣ flop, for instance. It beats every one-pair hand the board can make, but it is still one pair, and its strength is entirely relative to board texture and stack depth.

Key nuances:

• Strength tiers. AA and KK are robust overpairs that dominate the field; a low overpair like 88 on a 7-high board is far more vulnerable to overcards on later streets and to the caller's set/two-pair region.
• Texture sensitivity. On a dry board an overpair is close to the nuts and bets big for value and protection. On a wet board it shrinks toward a one-pair bluff-catcher — many draws and made hands have strong equity against it.
• SPR drives commitment. At low SPR (≤ ~3) an overpair is usually a stack-off. At deep SPR it is a one-pair hand that should rarely play a 200bb pot for stacks against a raise — pot control and reading the nut advantage matter.

Overpairs win the most by betting for value and protection early, then slowing down on bad turns rather than blasting three streets on autopilot.