In Texas Hold'em, The Hammer refers to a starting hand consisting of a 7-2 offsuit.

The term "The Hammer" is used derisively by most, humorously by some, and affectionately by others.

Those who play tightly or conservatively deride the 7-2 offsuit as a worthless starting hand for poker. It is rarely worth playing at all as it usually cannot win at showdown. It would take an exceptional set of community cards to make playing this hand profitable.

Those who use the term humorously accede that the 7-2 offsuit is hard to win with, and use the term to accentuate that fact.

Recently, there has been a spate of players, many of them bloggers or their fans, who have begun using the term with affection, and playing The Hammer whenever they are dealt it. These players follow a strategy of bluffing heavily with The Hammer pre-flop, and some even espouse playing the hand to the river as if you held Bullets. Occasionally, someone will hit that miracle flop of 7-7-2 and make a full house, giving them all the more incentive to play this hand again.

The term was first coined by the poker blogger The Poker Grub who issued a series of challenges to fellow poker bloggers to successfully play and win with The Hammer and post the results on their blogs. It has since become a permanent part of the poker blogger lexicon and has gained considerable ground in becoming a part of the poker lexicon at large.

The term is usually written in an emphatic way; the words are almost always capitalized, and occasionally the second word is written with all caps with exclamation points added for emphasis (The HAMMER!)

Originally, the hammer refered to the last player to act in a given round.

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