What are Counterfeit Cards in Poker?

Every so often you will have hand in poker that gets off to a really strong start like this one for example, where you flopped 2 pair and managed to build a good pot as a result. The board is A5K7 rainbow and you hold K5os. Since you started the hand in the big blind, the strength of your hand is well disguised too. So if your opponent is holding an ace here, you will likely get even more out him if another ace does not come on the river. However, besides him hitting 3 of a kind or pairing his kicker with whatever his kicker may be, you have another concern here too, and that is called counterfeiting. Your poker calculator will take into account counterfeit cards as winners for your opponent.

Counterfeit cards in poker is a little different, and not nearly as fun as watching a Leonardo DiCaprio movie like in this video. Counterfeiting happens in community card poker games where a board card duplicates, or nullifies the strength of your hand. The board itself improves and in turn weakens your hole cards. If you are new to community card games, this can be a little confusing and rather aggravating when you realize it has happened to you.

So getting back to that hand, if a 7 lands on the river, then your pair of fives become useless in this hand because if your opponents holds an ace with ANY other card, he now has he best hand, where before you were ahead of a lot of his holdings like AT, A4, AJ etc. The reason this happens is because you still have to use the best 5 cards in poker to make a winning hand. Your best hand here no longer includes the pair of fives, but instead Kings and Sevens with and Ace kicker. But your opponent, holding just an ace, now shows up with Aces and 7s, with a king kicker. He wins, and that kind of sucks.

Counterfeiting in poker happens much more in Omaha Hi-Lo, because so many players are often holding low sequence cards. For example if you have A2TQ and the board shows 45K7 you have the low hand. However if a deuce lands on the river your poker hand is now counterfeited because someone with an ACE-3 has the better low now as well as a straight for the high hand. The deuce is the worst card for you and bad news all around. This is just another reason why you want to keep a sharp eye out for counterfeiting situations, and be aware of such a possibility when you are considering pot size control in the hand.