THE NUTS

The nuts are the two hole cards that produce the strongest possible hand in a given situation. That means your hand is, after all common cards are dealt, the absolute unbeatable strongest hand at the table.

Where the name came from?*

A common and certainly apocryphal folk etymology is that the term originated from the historical poker games in the colonial west of America, where if a player bet everything he possessed, he would place the nuts of his wagon wheels on the table to ensure that, should he lose, he would be unable to flee and would have to make good on the bet. Since it would be expected that a player would only make such a bet when he had the best possible hand, the folklore says that this is how the best possible hand came to be known as the nuts. It is also rumored that these historical games were played only in the winter, and therefore, the nuts that were placed on the table were "stone cold", hence coining the term "stone-cold-nuts".

A far more likely explanation is that "the nuts" originated from the old English usage of "nuts", meaning "any source of pleasure".

Another seemingly fitting explanation is that the term was derived from the UK English slang "the dog's bollocks" or "the mutt's nuts", meaning "the absolute best". However, this phrase originated around 1949, and the term "the nuts" pre-dates it.

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* Source: Wikipedia