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Dumb beginners question but why are kickers important?

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In five-card draw, kickers aren't really that important -- they really only mater very infrequently since you've got to have, matched pairs, matched 2 pairs , or 2 flushes for kicker cards to matter. In community card games such as Hold-em or Omaha they are much more important by comparison, since the shared board cards mean that people are much more likely to end up with the same high hands.

Aside from covering play, the increased likelyhood of drawing a high second pair may be more important than the kicker value if you draw two cards to ace plus pair.