It frequently occurs that no player actually has the nuts. Note that the nuts is not the best hand that a player actually has, but is instead the best possible hand.
In draw games, where all cards are concealed, the nuts is static: For example, in five-card draw for high, a royal flush is always the nuts in deuce to seven lowball games, such as deuce to seven triple draw, 75432 without a flush (a ' wheel') is always the nuts, unless you know from discards that a wheel is not possible in your opponent's hand. The term has particular significance in variants of poker that use community (board) cards, such as Hold 'em and Omaha, since the possible number of hands a player can have is limited, and it's usually easy to determine what the best possible hand would be based on the board. The nuts is a common poker term for the best possible hand.
