Face Card
What a face card is
A face card is a jack, a queen, or a king. Those three ranks carry a figure on the card, which is where the name comes from. The same three are also called picture cards or court cards, and all three names mean exactly the same thing.
How many face cards are in a deck
Three per suit, four suits, so twelve face cards in a 52-card deck. Broken out: four jacks, four queens, four kings, one of each in hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
The ace is not a face card. It outranks all three of them in poker, but face card covers the jack, queen, and king only.
What are the four faces of cards
The question usually means the four suits the faces are printed in rather than four separate figures. Each face rank appears once in each suit: the jack of hearts, the jack of diamonds, the jack of clubs, the jack of spades, and the same for queens and kings. Three ranks across four suits is the whole set.
Why face cards matter in Hold’em
They are the top of the deck below the ace, which makes them the cards that build the hands most pots are decided by. Two face cards in your hand is a broadway holding, one that flops top pair often and flops it with a strong kicker.
Face cards on the board are the cards most likely to have connected with a preflop raiser’s range, because raising ranges are packed with them. A king-high flop is friendlier to whoever raised before the flop than a seven-high flop is.
Common mistakes
- Counting the ace as a face card when someone asks how many there are.
- Assuming a face card in your hand is strong on its own. A lone queen is a queen.
- Reading a face-card flop as safe when you called a raise. It usually helps the raiser.
Quick checklist
- Face card means jack, queen, or king.
- Also called picture cards and court cards.
- Twelve in a deck, three in each of the four suits.
- The ace is not one, even though it ranks higher.