Kickers only come into play when two players have the same hand in terms of pairs and three of a kind. Since the king is higher than the queen, player 1 wins the hand. Player 1, holding AK, has a five-card hand of AAKJ9.
This becomes more clear when we look at each player’s five-card hand. If another player has AQ, while you both have one pair of aces, the player with AK will win since they have the higher kicker. This is also called “top pair top kicker” because your king is the highest possible kicker you can have. In a game of Texas Hold’em, if you have AK and the board is AJ943, you have an ace with a king kicker. If you have one pair, you technically have three kickers, although only the highest card will usually matter. Your kicker in poker is the remaining card or cards needed to create a five-card hand. The fifth card is known as their kicker, and often the kicker is what determines who wins a hand. A player with two pairs, however, is really only using four cards, two for each pair. For example, a flush is five cards of the same suit, so the player is using all five cards to make their best hand. Some of these hands don’t require all five cards. There are many different hands a player can make, ranging from a high card to a royal flush. When playing most variations of poker, the player with the best five-card hand wins the pot.
