So let's think about it. There are 36 unique cards, and I won't worry about there's 9 numbers in each suit, and there are 4 suits, 4 times 9 is 36. But let's just think of the cards as being 1 through 36, and we're going to pick 9 of them. So at first we'll say, well look, I have 9 slots in my hand, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. I'm going to pick 9 cards for my hand. And so for the very first card, how many possible cards can I pick from? Well, there's 36 unique cards, so for that first slot, there's 36.