Pocket cards, also called hole cards, are the private cards dealt face down to each player in community-card poker. In Texas Hold’em every player receives two, and in Omaha four. Only their owner sees them, and they are combined with the shared board cards to build the best five-card hand. A pocket pair is two cards of the same rank, and pocket aces are the strongest starting hand in Hold’em before the flop.
Most early decisions in a poker hand depend on the value of the pocket cards, which is why starting-hand charts are built around them. In online and live dealer poker, the software reveals them only to their owner, and hand histories record them so that disputes and fair-play reviews can be settled accurately.