On the World Poker Tour the other night, their word of the day was “nuts”.
They always have some aspect of the game they highlight, and, while they occasionally use the term, as in: “She’s got the Nuts flush! Oh no, the pro has been trapped!”, they were going out of their way to use it as much as possible. Especially since Shana did a featurette on the meaning and use of the term. Fine. Then they haul out this gal with a folksy story who says the term comes from the “Old West”. When a rancher or whatever thought he had the high hand but not enough cash to lay on the table, she said, he’d bet his wagon rig double-parked outside by bringing in the “nuts” off the wheels and using them as chips.
Okay. That sounds about as plausible as any of the “whole nine yards” explanations. Which is to say - are you sure about that? I dunno. Anybody got a better one?
*A little WWII humor. History channel was doing battle tanks later that night. Battle of the Bulge. Bastonge. Nuts… you know the story.
Shana was in “Playboy” about nine years ago … she’s pretty hot!
Total rubbish! All they have to do is produce a cite for their speculation.
There is none. If the term were used in cards in the “Old West”, then it surely would appear by the 1950’s or so.
Can anyone here give me a print cite for the use of “nuts” in poker or cards? “Nuts flush?” Can you find that term in print before 1990? I can’t even find it.
Entertainment channels are there to entertain. That means making stuff up as you go. It’s a staple of morning DJ’s, in drive time. They contribute much info to the body of “urban legends.” And Paul Harvey helps out.
Precisely my point. I figured it to be bogus from the start. So my question is, does anybody know the real SD on this term? There are lotsa poker players here.
I remember hearing the term since I was a kid in the seventies, and its used in print in Doyle Brunson’s book “Super System” (which came out in the seventies) several times.
I just found a cite from a paper in 1985, indicating that “the nuts” was another term for a hand that was a “lock” (a sure thing).
Still working.
“The nuts” in poker refers to the best possible hand. A nut flush would be the highest possible valued flush in that particular round.
OED has it as an original U.S. phrase, and has it dated to 1917, with the meaning “an excellent or first-rate person or thing” (definition 5.c. on that page). Apparently, “nuts” referred to a thing that brought pleasure, and the specific poker meaning of “the nuts” came from that.