What is a full boat? The poker term ‘full boat’ or often just ‘boat’ describes the hand ranking of a full house in poker.
This hand ranking consists of 3-of-a-kind backed up with a pair.
A full boat only loses to quads, a straight flush, or a royal flush, all of which are extremely rare.
Since you can reasonably expect to make a couple of full houses a session, a boat is the strongest poker hand you will see with any regularity.
How Strong Is My Full Boat in Hold’em
Despite its strength, however, not all boats are created equal. Imagine for a minute: a person with a rubber dinghy can say they have a boat as accurately as someone with a yacht can.
The actual value of your boat will depend on what kind you have or, more accurately, how it’s made.
In Texas Hold’em, the top or best full boat in a hand dominates other lower full houses.
We’ll discuss types of full boats later.
How to Make a Full Boat
You’ll need a pair and three-of-a-kind (or trips) to make a full boat, and there are several ways to do this. The first makes use of a pocket pair, which describes holding two cards of the same rank in your hand.
To make a boat with a pocket pair like 8s8d, you’ll need one of the two remaining eights on the board and any other pair.
A board like 6♦️2♠️2♥️8♣️J♠️ is one example.
You can also make a full boat with a pocket pair if the board shows 3-of-a-kind. With 99 on 4c4dKsJc4s, for instance, you would have fours-full-of-nines.
You can win a big pot when your pocket pair is an over-pair to the board (higher than the highest card on the poker board).
However, boats made using trips from the board aren’t as strong because you will likelier run into four-of-a-kind with three already out there.
How to Make a Full Boat without a Pocket Pair
You can make boats with unpaired hole cards, for example, with a hand like A3 on an AsAc3dJs9h poker board or KQ on KsQhKd6sJd. These boats are the strongest alongside those that use trips made with pocket pairs.
These types of full boats will often be on the right side of a big, cooler poker hand.
The worst way to make a full boat is by using just one of your cards on a double-paired board, as you would with 89 on 6♠️6♣️8♠️8♣️3♦️.
These boats suck because they are easy to make and hard to disguise, which makes it difficult to get any action.
This kind of boat will usually still be the best hand. However, a sane opponent is only likely to call a small bet unless they’re aiming to hit a bad beat jackpot.
How to Announce a Full Boat?
Since they’re very strong, simply saying ‘boat’ will often be enough to see your opponent tossing their cards into the muck. But there is a right way to declare the strength of your boat, as you would a ‘Ten-high straight’ or ‘Q-high flush’.
Announce the value of your three-of-a-kind before your pair.
If you have pocket kings on a board of KdJs7d8cJh, for example, you will have kings-full-of-jacks, and Q8 on 8s8d7sQd4h would be eights-full-of-queens.
What If Two Players Make a Full Boat?
Though they are uncommon, two players can have a full house simultaneously. When this happens, the person with the highest three-of-a-kind will scoop the pot.
A player with A6 would beat another with 66 on a board of A♠️A♦️6♥️J♣️2♦️ since they would have aces-full-of-sixes against sixes-full-of-aces.
If both players have the same 3-of-a-kind, the size of the supporting pair will come into effect.
For example, on a 2♦️2♠️2♥️7♥️8♣️ board, 89 would beat A7, because their twos-full-of-eights out rank their opponent’s twos-full-of-sevens.
Is Using Two Cards Better Than One?
Making a full house using both of your hole cards might seem more difficult. However, Texas Hold’em is all about making the best 5-card hand from the seven available.
So, a boat that uses two hole cards is no more powerful than one that uses a single card.
For example, A6 will beat KK on A♠️A♥️K♠️4♠️4♦️, despite only using one hole card.
Getting paid with a boat that uses two hole cards can be easier because it is a little more disguised. You get to take chips from opponents with hands that are usually very strong but behind your boat, like a flush or three-of-a-kind.
Conversely, a board that enables a one-card boat will have three-of-a-kind or two pair, making winning challenging versus a flush. Your opponents are likely to play any poker combos quite cautiously.
On J♠️3♦️3♠️8♥️K♠️, you’d need to use two cards to make a full boat. So, flushes b will be way more confident, which can lead to a great day at the office if you hold 88 or JJ.
Boats made with just one hole card can be dangerous because players often overestimate their relative strength when facing raises.
That might sound confusing, but it’s a basic idea:
Although A5 is very strong on 3♠️3♦️5♥️5♦️6♠️, it’s much weaker compared to the hands our opponents would choose to raise for value.
Yes, it only loses to a few hands (33, 66 and 56). But when we consider the nature of the board, a player confident enough to raise is going to turn up with one of them pretty often.
More often than not, players will still talk themselves into calling in fear that their opponent is trying to push them off a split pot.
Spoiler alert: they usually aren’t!
Why Are Full Houses Called Boats in Poker?
Poker’s been around for a long time, so the origins of most poker lingo have been lost along the way. When it comes to the term “full boat”, one theory holds a lot of water… pun intended.
Over the centuries, the legalities of gambling have changed many times in the US, which means poker has switched between being legal and illegal cyclically.
As A.M. Calberg discusses in an article about 19th-century riverboat gambling, card players began to move their games to the riverboats to avoid the increasingly strict gambling laws.
The games were now played on a boat instead of in the casino, often called ‘the house’. It stands to reason that the slang switched from ‘full house’ to ‘full boat’.
It’s a solid theory that seems to make sense.
Where do you think the term ‘full boat’ comes from?
