Full house
A full house is a hand in the game of poker that consists of three of something, and two of something else. If it were not something else but the same thing, the player with the hand would own five-of-a-kind and, if the game were for money, would be escorted out to the parking lot, where poker play would be replaced with gunplay. Likewise if the two were three, as this would constitute six-of-a-kind, leading to the same outcome.
Etymology[edit]
The full house has the most colorful name in poker, with the exception of the flush. If one's house does not flush, that is not an issue for the gamesters but for the plumber.
Wikipedia does not have an article on the full house but only a fleeting paragraph within an article called List of poker hands, which tells us that the full house can be called a full boat. It does not disclose why the house or the boat or the houseboat should be full, nor especially if it is because something did not flush. It is true that all five cards are gainfully occupied, but this is equally true of the flush or the five-of-a-kind.
"Full", of course, comes from Old English "full", through Middle English "ful(l)", the final "l" taking a centuries-long bathroom break but eventually returning; while "house" comes from Old English "hǜs", by way of Middle English "h(o)us", and having something to do with Germanic "hǜsam", which the dictionary says means "unattested".
Rank[edit]
The poker player holding a full unattested may want to know if the hand entitles him to sweep all the money off the table and into his pocket without risking a date with death in the parking lot. The answer is that it loses to the five-of-a-kind (unless the holder of that hand experiences terminal distrust, see above) and to the fancier forms of flush (which Wikipedia warns us might not be a thing at all under the rules currently in use). Thus it could be an all-powerful hand. On the other hand, it is clearly better than those hands that lack such a flower and historic name, such as the one pair and the nothing at all, God-damn it. In summary, a full unattested is something the poker player wants to have.
If competing players both have a full unattested, there are arcane rules to determine who is the winner, which are outside the scope of this article.
Other Full House[edit]
Full House was also the name of a situation comedy that ran on American television from 1987 through 1995, an era of complete innocence in the United States. In the show, a widowed father enlisted his brother-in-law and his madcap best friend to help him rear his three daughters, and it is hard to see what could go wrong with that. It was like a reboot of Family Affair without the portly butler. Oddly, it had nothing to do with poker or poker hands.
A sequel series, Fuller House ran on Netflix from 2016 through 2020, but judging by what they did with Star Trek, everyone had turned gay, made excuses all day, and hated America.