Explanation of Cowboys
It’s common in poker for players to assign nicknames to different types of hand. One of the most common nicknames for pocket Kings in Hold’em is “cowboys”.
Other names for pocket Kings in Hold’em -
Ace Magnets
Gorillas
Kangaroos
Kevin Keegan
King Kong
The name “Ace Magnets” is a reference to the fact that villain always seems to have pocket Aces when we pick up pocket Kings (which of course, is statistically not true).
Example of Cowboys used in a sentence -> First hand at the table we were dealt cowboys in the big blind.
How to Use Cowboys as Part of Your Poker Strategy
Pocket Kings is the second best starting hand in No Limit Hold’em. As such it is nearly always good enough to play for stacks with preflop. There are exceptions however -
1. If the stacks become noticeably deeper than 100bb.
2. If villain is overly tight and won’t give action with worse holdings.
These are exceptions however, and we should usually not feel bad going broke with the cowboys even if villain occasionally shows up with pocket Aces.
Knowing the nicknames is presumably not important, but we may occasionally find ourselves feeling left out of a poker discussion if we aren’t familiar with them.
