“Ace in the hole” can refer to a literal advantage in poker, where a player has an ace as their hole card, or a figurative advantage in any situation where someone has a secret edge over others. The phrase originated in poker and has expanded to other contexts.
The phrase “ace in the hole” can be used both figuratively and literally, and the general use of the phrase as an idiom refers to its literal use. In a literal sense, the phrase means that a person has an ace as their hole card in a game of poker. This is in reference to community card poker games where each player is dealt one or more cards “in the hole” that are part of an incomplete hand and uses a set of community cards to complete a hand. A trump card can also refer to a notional advantage someone has that others are unaware of.
While the origins of the phrase “ace in the hole” are certainly from poker, there is little evidence to indicate when it came into widespread use in a figurative sense. The exact meaning of the phrase depends on whether it is used literally or figuratively. Its literal use and origin occur in certain types of poker games. These are referred to as community card games, not because a community is playing, but because all players use a community card pool to try and get the best possible hand.
Games like “Texas hold ’em,” for example, are played with one or more cards dealt to each player, but not enough to complete a hand. These cards are usually dealt face down, although they can be a combination of up and down cards, and the hole cards are called “the hole”. An ace up his sleeve, then, would be an ace card that someone dealt him face down, that only he or she would know about. Since the ace is typically the highest card in games and is almost universally advantageous, a player with an ace up his sleeve has a strong secret advantage.
This term has been expanded into usage outside of poker, and someone can have an ace up their sleeve in many different ways. In general, however, it refers to an edge that someone has, that others are unaware of, just like the player with an ace that other players cannot see. If two employees of a company are trying to get a major investor for that company, for example, and one employee is friends with the investor without the other knowing it, then he would have a trick up his sleeve.
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