elder hand

9.6

A player who sits to the left of the dealer and plays first

noun

Jargon

: mano mayor

In their weekly poker game, Maria was the elder hand and played first every round.

Examples

In poker, the elder hand starts the betting.
The rules state that the elder hand must place the opening bid.
After the cards were dealt, I realized I was sitting as elder hand this game.
The player in the elder hand must act first.
In their weekly poker game, Maria was the elder hand and played first every round.
The rules state that the elder hand must place the opening bid.
The player in the elder hand must act first.

Synonyms

eldest hand

vselder hand

Archaic

1 9.2

The player sitting immediately to the dealer's left who plays first

has identical meaning but uses a different word form or spelling

Surface Forms

elder hand singular

elder hands plural

Morphology

elder + hand

The constituent meanings ('elder' = senior/precedence; 'hand' = card-player) give a partial clue that this refers to a player with precedence (someone who acts first). However, the precise game-specific sense (the player immediately to the dealer's left and the formal role) is not directly derivable from the words alone, so learners would need exposure to the convention.

Etymology

Elder hand may come from old card games where the elder (the older player) had to act before the others and hand meant the cards a player held. So, the phrase came to mean the player who is 'first to play'.