Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 209. The idiom today is up one's
sleeve. Okay. Let's take a look at the note. If someone
has something up one's sleeve, it is hidden or secret, but is usually kept in reserve
for when it is needed. So you hold it in reserve, just in case
you do need it. It could come in handy. Okay. Let's continue.
They say this phrase is often used with other words such as ace. Yeah. We open
here somebody may have an ace up their sleeve. All right.. We find out you know, because
it originally comes from the card game. We might hear if somebody has more up
their sleeve or somebody has something up their sleeve or somebody may have a
surprise of their sleeve or somebody may have a trick up their sleeve. So there's
a number of words that this this idiom could be used with. All right. Let's
continue. This idiom originally comes from the idea of hiding a card up one's
sleeve, especially in a poker game. We actually have seen this played out,
especially in old westerns where a poker player may actually have an ace up his
sleeve. Yeah. Well normally, if you're going to hide
a card you want to hide you want to hide the card that has usually the most value
or the most power. So aces are usually the most valuable card. So an ace would
be the most likely card that you would hide. If you've got a hide one. You'd
probably hide an ace, and we've seen this in a lot of the old cowboy movies and if
somebody gets caught cheating. You're cheating you know, they caught them that
they had an ace up their sleeve. I don't know there must have been about
10 different cowboy movies where I've seen a scene like this.
Okay. Westerns, where a poker player may actually have an ace up his sleeve
and use it at an opportune time. Well you know, of course maybe he placed some
hands he still loses, but there may be there may be one time where the ace is needed
to help him , you know, get a really good hand to win a hand. So that's when he
would do it. He wouldn't do it every hand but he'll use it during that hand, you
know to try to bet higher. And you know win more. It's it's definitely still
cheating. During one of the poker hands. Yeah. Each time you know, the cards are
dealt and somebody wins a pot that's a hand. Okay and let's look at a couple of
examples here. Example number one. This seems too easy.
Be careful. He must have something up his sleeve. All right. Yeah. So in this case
this is something. We say somebody may have something up their sleeve. I don't
know what that something is. But it's probably again it's probably something
tricky. Or number two. We are running out of options. Meaning choices. I hope you
still have some tricks up your sleeve. Yeah or I hope you still have an ace up
your sleeve. That we can use and this is the way we usually use it. So it's pretty
common. Again you can hear it with all those different words there. Anyway I
hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.