- 6, 7, 8, 65, 64, 74, 75, 76, etc.
- In games played for low, an unpaired low hand
is referred to by it's highest card, often it's highest two cards and
sometimes more if needed. So 8432A (in ace to
five lowball) is "an eight" or "an
eighty-four." (There's only one way to make an 84, so you'd never
need to say an 843). If you showdown an 86 and another player shows
down an 86, you might need to point out that you have an 863 while
they have an 864. 5432A is usually just called a wheel. See also smooth and
rough.
- 78
- Seven-card stud high-low with an 8 or better qualifier is sometimes referred to as 78. Old
record albums are also sometimes referred to 78's, because that's how
many revolutions per minute you have to play them at in order for them
to sound right.
- 8 or better
- A common qualifier for low hands in high-low
split games is that they must be unpaired with no card higher than an
8. Note that "8 or better" implies high-low split.
See also 8.
- Ace to five
- In a game played for low, ace to five means straights and flushes don't
count and the ace can be used as a low card. The best possible hand
in an ace to five game is therefore A2345 (often called a wheel). See also deuce to
seven and lowball.
- Act
- To do something when it's your turn, one of:
check,
call,
fold,
open bet, and
raise.
See also action.
- Action
- The placing of money into the pot. A table
with a lot of action is one at which there are a lot of bets, raises, and re-raises - in other words, betting action. To
give action is to put money into the pot when someone else should be
expected to win the hand. To receive action is to have someone else
put money into the pot when you expect to win the hand. It's better
to receive than to give.
Action is also used to mean someone's turn to act.
This table is too tight, let's go someplace where
there's some action.
- Your action, sir.
- Add-on
- Some tournaments allow players the
opportunity at a certain point to buy additional chips, called an add-on. This is different from a re-buy, because usually anyone still in the
tournament can add on. Typically a single add-on is
allowed at a particular point after the re-buy period ends, as the
last opportunity to add to your stack.
I was in such bad chip position, I decided it wasn't worth
paying for the add-on.
- Advertise
- Advertising usually means showing down a
mediocre hand, to give the impression that you play
overly loose or that you play a generally weak game. The idea is that other players will then
give you more action when you make a legitimate
hand. Since people are bad at revising first impressions, this
potentially beneficial effect can be long-lasting.
Typical advertising plays in hold'em might be
to show down top pair with a weak kicker (e.g., K2), middle
pair, or a gutshot draw
that missed. These hands have marginal intrinsic value, but playing
them early in a session might pay off later. Of course, it's best to
advertise if you actually want to be called down more often, e.g., at
an especially tight table. At a table full of calling stations, it might be unnecessary
or even harmful.
Advertising can also mean anything you do at the poker table to
manipulate how other players assess you.
- Aggressive
- A style of play characterized by frequent
raising and re-raising.
This is not the same thing as loose play.
Many good players are
selective about the cards they will play, but aggressive once they
get involved in a hand. An aggressive table is one dominated by
aggressive players.
- All-In
- When a player puts the last of their
chips into a pot, that player
is said to be all-in. When playing table stakes
(as in most places),
an all-in player is not eligible to win any money bet above their
final bet (the side pot). However, the all-in
player will be eligible for the main pot, and
therefore cannot be forced from the hand.
It's a shame you had to go all-in with your straight flush,
because you could've gotten two or three more bets out of those guys.
- After he raised my small
opening bet, I put him all-in.
- Angle
- An angle is any technically legal but ethically dubious way to
increase your expectation at a game.
Depending on who you ask, a particular weapon in your arsenal may be a
sleazy underhanded trick (a typical angle) or a vital strategic tool
that no player should be without. An example might be pretending to
be about to fold (or even folding out of turn and
then retrieving your cards), in order to encourage a call (when you
are about to raise).
- Ante
- A small forced bet that everyone at the table
is required to pay before each hand (in games with
an ante). These bets constitute the initial pot.
When used as a verb, it means to post this bet.
Sir, you forgot to ante.
- No, that's my ante right there.
- Back Door
- A hand made back door is one made using both of the last two
cards, as in seven card stud or Texas hold'em. For example, if in hold'em you hold
AhTh and the flop comes Ad4c9h, you have top
pair
and a backdoor flush draw. The
back door draw isn't anything to get excited about, but it can tip the
scales occasionally. While you're busy playing your made hand, you
might accidentally make a flush in the back door.
I couldn't believe he stayed around for that back door
straight
with no other outs.
- Back Into
- When you make a hand
other than the one you were originally
drawing to, you are said to have backed
into it. For example, if your first four cards in a
seven card stud hand are AA44, and you
end up making a flush, you backed into the flush.
- Bad Beat
- Different people seem to feel differently about what counts as a
bad beat. One thing is certain: you have to lose the hand. What
makes the beat bad? Maybe one or all of the following: you lose in a
situation where you're a very big favorite;
you lose with a hand you couldn't possibly have been expected to fold; you lose so improbably you feel compelled to
tell the story multiple times; you lose to a player who couldn't have
beat you without misplaying the hand (but who was astoundingly lucky);
you lose in a way that seemed inconceivable until you saw it happen;
or more than two experienced players at your table say, "ouch."
Here's an example. Say you're playing hold'em, you hold AA, the flop
comes A55, and someone holding 98, suited with one of the fives,
catches two perfect cards for a straight flush, you have suffered a very
painful bad beat. The guy holding 55 is in a similar position, only
more so.
The phrase "bad beat" is heard often in the phrase "bad beat
stories," because many poker players, especially (but not exclusively)
occasional or inexperienced players, love to tell stories about how
rotten their luck was. Some people don't mind listening, or even
enjoy these stories. Other people (especially jaded poker veterans
who are pretty sure they've heard and seen it all) would sooner sit
through eight hours of root canal surgery
than listen to one bad beat story. Don't take it personally.
Another phrase you'll hear is "bad beat jackpot." Some (especially
California) games have jackpots for particular
types of bad beats.
After that bad beat I put on him, he went on tilt for about six months.
- Bankroll
- The total amount of money one is willing (and able) to put at
risk. Many players keep poker bankrolls separate from their other
finances. An adequate playing bankroll for a particular game
(assuming positive expectation) is an
amount large enough to survive the expected swings due to
variance.
For a negative expectation game, an adequate bankroll is one which
doesn't run out before you die.
- Belly Buster
- Another name for an inside straight
draw. See also double belly buster.
- Bet
- To bet is to put money into the pot, usually by
opening as later action in a
round is a raise or a re-raise. As a noun, a bet can be the money added
to the pot by a player on one turn, or the amount required in order to
call. It can also be used to mean "turn to act," and lastly, especially when used in the plural,
it can be used to mean the number of bets and raises.
Who bet? (meaning who opened)
- That's his bet. (meaning that there is the money he wagered)
- What's the bet? (meaning how much to call)
- Your bet. (meaning your turn)
- Let's make it two bets. (meaning I raise)
- Bicycle Wheel
- A bicycle wheel (also called a wheel or a bicycle) is just the
following hand: A2345. Normally this is a straight to the five. In games played for low, this is sometimes the best possible low hand (see
ace to five). It's also a great hand in some
high-low games where it's the nut low and counts as a straight for the high pot.
Note that in Kansas City Lowball,
a wheel is 23457, or the nut low.
See also steel wheel.
- Big Bet
- In limit games in which the size of the
maximum bet increases in later rounds, a
big bet is the largest bet size. A small bet is the smallest bet
size. So in a 5-10 hold'em game, small bets are $5 and big bets are
$10. See structure and limit.
- Big Bet Poker
- Pot-limit
and no-limit poker are sometimes referred to as big bet
poker (as contrasted with limit games of any size).
The "big" in a sense
refers to the size of bets relative to the pot, irrespective of the amount
of money involved.
- Big Blind
- See blind bet.
- Big Slick
- An ace and a king as your hole
cards in hold'em.
I had big slick eight times last
night, and didn't win one pot with it.
- Black
- Black is the most common color for $100 chips.
If someone tells you they saw someone betting black at a blackjack
table, it means they were betting at least $100 a hand.
- Blank
- Any card that doesn't look like it's going to help anyone.
I was pretty sure she was on some sort of
draw, so I didn't mind
betting into her when the river was a
blank.
- Blind Bet (or Blind)
- A blind bet, or blind, is a forced bet that
must be posted before you see any cards. Blinds
are an alternative to antes for getting money in
the pot initially. Blinds are more often used in flop games like hold'em and omaha than in stud and draw games. Typically in hold'em the two players to
the left of the dealer button are forced to
place blind bets. In limit play, the small blind
(to the dealer's left) is typically half the size of a small bet, and
the big blind (to the small blind's left) is a full small bet.
Betting then starts with the player to the left of the big blind (who
is considered under the gun), who must at
least call the big blind to stay in. When you sit down at a new
table, it's good to wait until it's your turn to blind before playing
a hand. See also live blind, structure, and straddle.
"Big blind" and "small blind" are also used to refer to the
players who posted these bets.
I didn't get a playable hand for over three hours, but I lost
$135 in blinds.
- I tried to steal the blinds with a late-position
raise, but the big blind raised me back.
- Bluff
- A bet with a weak hand (typically a busted
hand), usually intended to get other players to fold. A bluffing player usually has little or no
chance of winning a showdown, but may suspect
that other players will fold if they have not made
strong hands either. In limit play, bluffing is
more often a good idea against weak, tight players, who may fold even if they think they
have a chance of winning. Bluffing is a bad idea against players who
call too often, because it's unlikely to scare them out of the pot.
Bluffing is also a much more significant factor in pot-limit and no-limit
play, where the bluffer can make calling an expensive proposition.
See also semi-bluff, represent, speeding, table cop, and advertising.
- Board
- The community cards in a flop game (like hold'em) or the
up cards in a stud game (like seven card stud). Someone who "plays the board"
isn't using any of their hole cards.
- Boat
- Another name for a full house. I've also
heard "full boat," but I think it sounds idiotic so I'm not giving it
a separate entry.
- Bottom Pair
- If there are three cards of different ranks on
the flop in hold'em (or any
flop game), and you pair the lowest one, you have bottom pair.
I figured bottom pair was enough since we were
heads up.
- Brick
- A blank, or (especially in low or high-low games, a
card that counterfeits one's hand. "Brick"
is more often heard in seven card stud, while "blank" is more
appropriate to hold'em, probably because a brick
is a personal thing, while a blank is a community thing.
- Broadway
- An ace high straight.
- Bring In
- To bring in the betting is to make the first
bet on the first round of a hand (not including
blind bets and antes).
A player who does this is said to "bring it in." In
seven card stud, often the lowest card on the
board is forced to bring it in. The bet so placed is called the
bring-in.
- Brush
- A cardroom employee responsible
for managing the seating list
is sometimes called the brush.
- Bug
- A joker,
usually in five card draw or draw lowball. In high games,
a bug can usually only be used as an ace or to complete a straight or flush.
- Bullets
- A pair of aces in the hole.
- Bump
- To raise.
- Burn
- In order to reduce the chances of players getting advance
information about cards to come, in many games the top card on the
deck is discarded at certain pre-determined points in the dealing
process (e.g., in hold'em, before the flop, turn, and river). These cards are the burn cards. In
general, any time a card is discarded from the top of the deck it's
called a burn card.
- Burn Card
- See burn.
- Bust
- To run out of money, especially in a tournament.
I busted in the second round, when my rockets
lost to 87 off suit.
- Busted Hand
- A hand in poker without so much as a pair
(i.e., any hand that will lose to a pair of 2's). A busted hand that
missed a draw to a straight or a flush is a
busted straight or a busted flush.
- Button
- A button is a marker, usually a plastic disc, used to mark a
particular position at the table. Usually
"the button" refers specifically to the dealer button, used to mark
the dealer position, or the player playing in that position. In games
with a professional house-supplied dealer (who is not playing), this
marks the player who acts in the dealer's position (who is dealt the
last card and who is last to act in games where the order is fixed).
This player is said to be "on the button." Other buttons include the
ever-popular big blind button, used to indicate a
player who was absent when it would have been their turn to post a blind bet (and who will be forced to post
before they can return to the game).
(For some reason, in Maryland the dealer button
sits to the left of where it should be, so when you're on the button
you post the first blind and act first in
subsequent rounds. As far as I know Maryland is the only blatant
exception.)
I wouldn't have called with that hand,
except that I was on the button.
- Buy
- To buy a pot is to
make a bet large enough that other players
would be extremely unlikely to call.
To buy the button in flop games
is to raise
before the flop in order to induce the players with better position than yourself to fold. If
everyone closer to the button
folds, you've bought the button. Obviously this works better the closer to
the button you start out.
- Buy-In
- The amount of money with which you enter a game is your buy-in.
In a ring game, this is (hopefully) the amount
you get in chips. Most ring games have a minimum
buy-in that's typically less than you'll realistically need. In a tournament, your buy-in is the amount it costs
you to get your initial bunch of tourney chips. As a verb, to buy in
is to make your initial purchase of chips.
I wanted to play in the bigger game, but the buy-in was too
high.
- Call
- To call is to match the current bet. If there
has been a bet of $10 and a raise of $10 then it costs $20 to call.
Calling is the cheapest (and the most passive)
way to remain in a hand. See also cold call,
flat call, and it.
- Calling Station
- A player who calls much too often is called a
calling station. Such a player will pay you off
when you make hands, and will often fail to press
their advantage when they have relatively strong hands (see passive). On the other hand, calling stations
will hit more backdoor and other unlikely draws than other players, making it occasionally
frustrating to play against them, especially in large numbers.
Most of the players at the table were tough, but it was worth
playing there because of the two calling stations.
- Cap
- In limit games, the cap is the limit on the
number of raises in a round
of betting. In many places it's 3, for 4 bets total, but you can get
into very irritating arguments about the maximum number of raises
that's appropriate. A cap on the betting makes it more difficult for
players to collude. Some dealers have cutesy expressions they like to
use when a pot is capped (e.g., "capuccino"). To make the final
allowed raise is to cap the betting, or to "cap it."
After I made the loose
call in early position, much to my dismay
the pot was raised, reraised, and capped.
- Cardroom
- Poker is played in cardrooms. Most casinos that offer poker have a
separate room, or at least a roped-off area, designated as the cardroom.
In places where poker is legal, you will also find establishments dedicated
mostly to poker -- cardrooms.
Key things to look for in a cardroom include
tables,
floorpeople,
the brush, etc.
- Cards Speak
- Cards speak is simply the rule that the value of your hand is
determined solely by your cards. You don't have to declare your hand
properly in order to claim the part of the pot you deserve. The
alternative to this is mainly declare games,
usually played in home games for low stakes.
- Case
- The fourth card of a particular rank.
I knew he was bluffing because I had folded the case 7.
- Catch
- When the cards are treating you well, you are said to be catching
cards. The word often carries a mild connotation of improbable luck.
Someone who says "nice catch" may mean anything from "okay, take the
pot, you clueless moron," to "guess you outdrew
me, no problem."
- Chase
- To stay in a pot, with the sole hope of making
a particular hand (e.g., chasing a flush). Usually chasing implies
poor pot odds.
- Check
- If there has been no betting before you in a
betting round, you may check, which is like calling a bet of $0, or passing your turn.
Poker chips are also sometimes called checks.
I checked with the intention of folding on
the turn and the river,
but no one ever bet.
- Check-Raise
- A check-raise is just what it sounds like -- a raise after you have already checked within a betting round.
Check-raises can be used to trap a player who
(for example) would have folded to
a single bet, but who will open if it is checked
to them.
While check-raising is legal virtually everywhere
serious poker is
played, there are apparently a few public cardrooms
which prohibit
it at the lowest limits. Home poker games, which may be more or less
serious, vary more widely.
I noticed he liked to position bet a
lot, so whenever I had a good hand I check-raised him.
- Chip
- Poker chips are small round discs used instead of money at the poker
table. The ones used at casinos are typically made of clay, while home
poker games often substitute cheaper plastic chips. Using chips
instead of cash has a number of advantages, mostly just that they're
easier to count and manipulate. Color designations for chips are arbitrary, but
many casinos use white for $1 chips, red for $5 chips, green for $25
chips, and black for $100 chips. If someone asks for a rack
of white, they'd like $100 in $1 chips.
- Chop
- To return the blinds to the players who
posted them and move on to the next hand. This happens in hold'em when nobody calls the blind. By agreeing
to chop rather than play the hand, the two blinds often avoid paying
the rake, since many cardrooms only collect on
those hand when there is a flop.
Wanna chop?
- Okay.
- Cold Call
- Cold calling is calling more
than one bet at once. If one player
bets, another player
raises, and a third player calls the two bets,
this is a cold call. This is contrasted with the situation in which a
player calls one bet before the raise, and then calls the raise.
I knew he had at least trips
when he called two bets cold.
- Color Up
- To exchange one's chips for ones of higher
value, usually in order to reduce the number of chips one has on the
table. In tournaments, players are forced to
color up periodically as the tourney money becomes divided among
fewer and fewer players and the sizes of the forced
bets go up (it makes no sense to play with $25 chips when the
blinds are $10000).
- Come Hand
- A hand which must improve in order to have a realistic shot is a
come hand. See also draw.
- Community (Cards)
- Face-up cards that are shared by all the players in a hand.
Flop
games have five community cards.
- Connector
- Cards of consecutive ranks, especially
pocket cards, are connectors.
If they're also of the same suit, they're
suited connectors.
- Counterfeit
- In flop games, when your great hand is
subsequently made less powerful because of cards that hit the table
(especially cards that duplicate the strength of your hand), your hand
is said to be counterfeited. For example, if you hold J9 and the flop
is T87, you hold the nuts. If the turn is a 9,
suddenly anyone with a J has a straight, and QJ has a better straight.
If the river is a J, you're counterfeited even further - you're playing the board and anyone with a Q beats
you. Counterfeiting is especially common in high-low split omaha.
If you hold A2JQ and the flop is 678, you have the nut low. However,
if the turn card is an A or a 2, your nut low has been counterfeited.
It's no longer the nut low, and is probably not
even a winner.
- Cowboy
- A nickname for Kings, more often heard in the plural.
- I had cowboys six times last night and didn't win a pot with them.
- Crack
- When a powerful hand (especially powerful pocket cards) is beat, it's said to be cracked.
I've had rockets
cracked twelve consecutive times.
- Crying Call
- A call by someone who is virtually certain
they will not win the pot.
- Cut
- After the cards are
shuffled but before they are dealt, usually
the deck is split in the middle and the halves reversed. This is
known as cutting the cards. In cardroom games with house dealers,
this is done by the dealer. In home games, it's usually done by the
player next to the dealer.
- Dead
- A dead card is a card that is no longer available to help you. In
seven card stud, for example, a pair of kings
in the hole is less strong if the two remaining
kings are two other players' door cards, and
therefore dead.
A dead hand is a hand that is no longer eligible to win the
pot (i.e., one that has been
mucked or otherwise invalidated).
Dead money is money that was put in a pot by a
player who has since folded.
- Deal
- To deal is to give out the cards during a hand.
The person who
does this is called the dealer.
At most public cardrooms, a dealer is hired
for this purpose (and for generally running the game). At most private
games, players take turns dealing.
To be dealt in is to be given cards during a hand. To be dealt out or
dealt around is not to be given cards.
- Dealer Button
- See button.
- Dealer's Choice
- A format in which the dealer is allowed to select the particular
poker game that will be dealt. Sometimes this means before each hand, although a more sensible system (since in many
games the dealer has a positional advantage)
is one in which players take turns choosing the game for an entire round.
- Declare
- Declare games are games in which you must declare the value of
your hand in order to claim the pot. A typical example is a high-low split game in which you must declare
before showdown whether you are claiming the
high, low, or both pots (typically if you declare both you must win
both in order to claim either). Declare games are played almost
exclusively in home games. In most if not all cardrooms, cards speak.
- Deuce
- Twos are sometimes called deuces. So 22277 can be called deuces full of sevens.
- Deuce to Seven
- In a game played for low, deuce to seven
usually means that the best low hand is simply the worst poker hand.
If you haven't figured it out already, that hand is 75432, with no flush. Deuce to seven lowball is also called Kansas City, or Kansas City
lowball. See also ace to five.
- Dog
- See underdog.
- Dominate
- A starting hand that will almost always beat another starting hand
is said to dominate that hand. For example, in hold'em, AK dominates K2. Most of the time K2
makes a playable hand, AK will make a better hand. However, a 2 might
still spoil the party.
- Door Card
- The first card dealt face up to each player
in seven card stud is the door card.
- Double Belly Buster
- A double belly buster is a hand with two inside straight draws. For example, 79TJK
can become a straight with an 8 or a Q. It's
roughly equivalent to an open-ended
straight draw, except that the double belly-buster is more
deceptive, and people often fail to notice that they have one
(especially in cases such as when the 7 in the above example shows up
on a later street, and the player is focused on
the gutshot they already had).
- Draw
- The word draw has slightly different meanings in different
contexts, although generally it has something to do with receiving
more cards, with the hope of improving your hand.
Draw games are games where at some point during the hand you are
allowed to discard some or all of your cards, to be replaced from the
deck. Drawing two is thus exchanging two of your cards. "The draw"
is the point during the game at which players may do this. By
default, when someone asks you if you want to play some draw, they
usually mean five card draw.
In other poker games, drawing simply means staying in the game with
the hope of improving your hand when more cards come (as opposed to
with the intention of seeing if your hand is best). A draw means a
way to improve. For example, if you have four suited cards, you have a flush
draw. When you stay in a hand with the hope of improving, you are
said to be "on a draw." You are also said to be "drawing to" the hand
you hope to make. For example, in lowball, if
you hold K7642 and draw one, you are drawing to a (ragged) 7 (i.e., a 7 low).
See also open-ended straight draw,
inside straight draw, draw out, draw dead, and
drawing hand.
I had to stay in the hand, I had a great draw.
- I was sure he was on a draw, so when the river was a blank I felt
comfortable betting with bottom pair.
- Draw Dead
- To draw when it turns out you would lose even
if you hit your draw. Most trivially on the turn in hold'em, if you have a fourflush with KQs but someone else holds A5s
and has already made a pair of aces, you're drawing dead. Whenever
you make your flush, they make a better flush.
- Draw Out (on)
- To draw out on someone is to outdraw
them.
When I called his
all-in bet, I didn't realize he had made
trips,
but I was lucky enough to draw out on him with my
backdoor flush.
- Drawing Hand
- A hand with which you expect to be on a
draw is a drawing hand.
Suited
connectors in
hold'em (e.g., QhJh)
are drawing hands, since while they
make strong hands (straights and
flushes) relatively often, they will
rarely make them on the flop.
- Drop
- To fold. Also to lose a particular amount of
money.
- The drop is also what the house takes from a hand.
I bet again on the
turn and three more players dropped.
- I dropped $600 in ten minutes. Guess
omaha isn't my game.
- I never play there, they drop 15% of every
pot.
- Equity
- Your mathematical share of a pot, based on the
amount in the pot and your chances of winning it. If the pot is $100,
and your chances of winning are N%, then your equity in that pot is
$N.
- Expectation
- Expectation is the rate of profit (or loss) you would expect to
make if there were no variance, or on average
over a very large number of sessions. A positive expectation poker
player is one who, due to an advantage in poker skills over his/her
average opposition, will earn money in the long run. A negative
expectation poker player is someone you want at your table.
Note that expectation changes in different situations.
You may be a positive expectation
player overall, but perhaps not at certain tables, or when you're in a
particular emotional or other state. A positive expectation bet is a
bet that would, if you made it a sufficient number of times in nearly
identical circumstances (from your perspective), earn you a profit.
Expectation is closely linked (essentially identical) to "expected
value," a precise mathematical concept best illustrated by the following
example. If you have a 50% chance of winning (and a 50% chance of losing)
a $100 pot, your expectation is $50, even though you will definitely not
win exactly $50. This example also illustrates variance.
I finally stood up when I realized that it wasn't just back luck, I
was a negative expectation player at the table.
- Family Pot
- When everyone at the table decides to enter a
pot (e.g., see the
flop in hold'em),
it's said to be a family pot.
- Fast
- To play fast is to play
aggressively. The opposite of
playing slow. See also
speeding.
- Favorite
- The hand that is expected to win most often in a particular
situation. In hold'em, AA
is always a pre-flop favorite. If the flop is
775, the player with 75 is now a pretty big favorite.
I knew he was on the flush draw,
so I figured I was still a favorite.
- Felt
- The surface of most poker tables is made of some sort of felt, or
is in any case referred to as such. A player who is
running out of chips
rapidly can be referred to as "down to the felt."
- Fill Up
- To make a full house either from
trips or
two pair.
- Fish
- A bad player. A terrible player. A player who will tend to give
away lots of money. Fish-ness can also be relative. Common poker
wisdom holds that if you can't find the fish at your table, you're it.
See also provider.
I love playing at that fish pond.
- Fishhook
- A nickname for a jack, more often heard in the plural.
- Damn these fishhooks, they keep getting me into trouble.
- Five Card Draw
- Probably the most well known poker game, although
it's not widely played in public cardrooms anymore.
Each player receives five cards. There is a round of betting, after which each player may
draw a certain number of cards (house rules often
stipulate how many may be drawn and under what circumstances).
Then there is a second round of
betting, and (if necessary) a showdown.
- Flat Call
- Flat call is a way of saying call that
emphasizes the fact that the player didn't raise.
See also smooth call.
When he flat called me on the flop
and on the turn, I put him on the flush draw.
- Floor
- See floorperson.
- Floorman
- A gender-specific form of floorperson.
- Floorperson
- In a cardroom floorpeople are responsible for the moment to moment
management of the cardroom - seating players, starting new tables,
settling disputes, generally making sure the cardroom runs smoothly.
You'll probably hear the "floorman" or "floor" more often.
Floor, get some live ones
in these empty seats!
- Flop
- A number of games, such as hold'em and omaha, are played with five community cards. The first three of these cards
are dealt all at once, and are called the flop. Games with a flop can
be called flop games.
To flop a hand is to make that hand on the flop. To "see" the flop
is to still be in the hand when the flop comes.
I missed my pre-flop raise, and lost the
hand when the big blind made a gutshot on the river.
- I flopped a fourflush and made my hand on the turn.
- Flush
- A hand in which all five cards share the same suit. When comparing two flushes, the hand with the
highest card not in common is better. So AK873 of hearts is a better
flush than AK872 of diamonds. Not much better.
- Fold
- To abandon your hand, usually because someone else has made a
larger bet than you are willing to call. Usually, one folds by mucking one's cards.
- Forced Bet
- Just what it sounds like - a bet that one is
forced to place, typically a blind bet or a
bring-in.
- Fourflush
- A hand with four cards of the same suit. If
there are no cards remaining to come (or to draw),
a fourflush is not very useful.
With top pair and a fourflush,
I thought my raise was a good idea.
- Four of a Kind
- Four cards of the same rank. Also called
quads. For example, if you hold 88882, you have quad 8's.
- Free Card
- Whenever you get to see an additional card without having to call a bet, it's a free card.
Generally speaking, you'd like to get free cards when you need to
improve, and you'd like to avoid giving free cards when you're ahead.
- Freeroll
- Whenever you have at least part of the pot
locked up and you still have a chance to outdraw your opponents, you're said to be
freerolling on them. In hold'em, this happens
when you and another player have the same hand at the moment, but you
also have a draw to a better hand. At worst you'll tie, but you have
a chance to win the whole pot while the other player doesn't. For
example, if you hold AhKh and the flop is ThJhQd,
you can freeroll on a player holding AcKd. You might make a flush or a straight
flush, while they can't improve.
Freeroll tournaments are tournaments with
no apparent entry fee or initial buy-in. Such
tournaments are often promotional events cardrooms host in order to
bring players in. Sometimes players must clock a certain number of
hours in the cardroom in order to qualify, or meet some other
requirement.
- Freezeout
- Any tournament format in which you
cannot re-buy. A freezeout is a good format for
heads-up pot limit or
no limit play, since the amount at stake can be
fixed in advance.
We decided to play a series of no-limit hold'em freezeouts to show
who was the better player.
- Full House
- A hand consisting of three cards of one rank
and two cards of another rank. AAA33 is aces full of threes, often
abbreviated to "aces full." To fill up is to draw
to and make a full house. Also called a boat.
I figured even if my trip sevens were no good, there was a decent
chance I'd fill up.
- Go
- See to go.
- Gutshot
- An inside straight draw.
- Green
- Green is the most common color for $25 chips.
If someone bets a stack of green, it means they're
betting a bunch of $25 chips, probably 20 of them.
- Hand
- A hand is also everything that happens between shuffles - cards are dealt, betting is done, a winner is declared, and the pot is pushed. To "play a hand" sometimes means to be
dealt in, and sometimes means to at least call the initial bet. Use
context to figure out which.
A hand also refers to the cards you hold - in games where you have
more than five cards (e.g., seven card stud
or Texas hold'em), it's your best five cards.
For your enjoyment, here are the different types of hands you can
make in poker, in increasing order of strength: no
pair; pair; two pair,
three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a
kind, straight flush.
Lastly, sometimes the phrase "a hand" means specifically a
good hand or a playable hand.
I've played (been dealt)
two thousand hands in a row without making a
flush.
- I haven't played (seen the
flop with) a hand in hours.
- I didn't get a hand for the next six hours.
- Lemme see your hand.
- You can't break up with me, I have hand.
- And you're gonna need it.
- Heads-Up
- Play between only two players.
We decided to play a heads-up
freezeout to settle the argument.
- I raised on the turn and managed to get it heads-up.
- Help
- Someone who says they need help means they need their hand to
improve in order to have a chance at the pot.
Or that they've just pawned their pacemaker to fund a few more hours
of poker. Use context to figure out which.
- High-Low Split
- In high-low split games, half the pot goes to
the best hand (the high), half to the worst (the low). The criteria
for deciding the low vary - see low. Split games
are also often played with a qualifier that
the low hand must be "8 or better." This means that the low hand must
have five unpaired cards 8 or lower. Omaha and
Seven Card Stud are the most popular high-low
split games.
Note that if there is a sole winner of one pot and a tie for
the other, the sole winner wins half the pot while the other
half is split evenly among the tied hands.
- Hit
- To hit (or miss) the
flop means to match (or not to match) the
flop in some way, usually to pair one of the flopped cards. You can
also hit or miss on a
draw, depending on whether or not the cards you
were drawing for showed up. Players whose
bluffs are
called when they
miss their draws on the
river often mutter "I missed," as if to point
out that they weren't betting completely insanely.
The reason I bet with overcards
was because I didn't see how anyone
who called my raise could've hit that flop.
- Hold'em
- See Texas Hold'em.
- Hole
- Your first two down cards in seven card
stud. If they're both jacks, you have a pair of jacks "in the
hole." See also pocket.
- Horsing
- Another name for scooting.
[Note: I've only heard this from one source. If you've heard
the term "horsing" in use, please
drop me a line.]
- House
- The cardroom is the house. The house
rakes money from the pot,
has house rules, and when someone walks in,
you might say they're "in the house." If you're so inclined.
See also full house.
- Implied Odds
- Implied odds are similar to pot odds,
except that the money in the pot is not actually there yet. In an
extreme case, if you're first to call a bet, and
you know for a certainty that the eight players to act after you will
all call (and not raise), you have great implied
odds. Similarly if you know that several players in the hand will pay you off when you make your flush - you can act as though the pot were larger.
In general, implied odds is just a way of referring to odds that
require some estimation.
- In the Air
- Traditionally, a poker tournament starts
when the tournament director (or whoever's running things) instructs the
dealers to get the cards "in the air." This just means to start
dealing.
- Inside Straight (Draw)
- An inside straight draw is a draw to a straight that's missing one of the cards in the
middle (as opposed to on the end). 4578 is an inside straight, 4567
is an outside straight. Also called a one-gapper or a gutshot.
- Insurance
- In big bet poker, it is possible to reach a situation
in which you are uncomfortable with the amount of money you have invested in a pot.
To reduce variance, players will sometimes take insurance against an unfortunate outcome,
essentially selling the actual outcome of the hand
for its mathematical equity
(at a slight discount). For example, if you
hold a flush against a player who has three of a kind,
your equity in the pot is a
percentage of the pot equal to the probability that the other player will not
fill up.
If the pot is large,
and you don't want to risk coming away with nothing, you might
take insurance from somebody who has more money and would be glad to have the overlay.
- Isolate
- To raise with the intention of thinning the field
to yourself and a single other player is to isolate that player.
I raised to isolate him, but ended up getting three callers.
- It
- Yes, "it" is poker terminology. "It" usually refers to the
largest amount anyone has yet bet in a round. If someone opens for $5,
and the next player raises $10, they're "making
it $15." With the exception of all-in players,
if a player wants to see the next round, eventually they have to match
whatever "it" is. "It" can also mean the amount required to call. So
if someone bets $5 and two other players each raise $5 in the same
betting round, they may ask "what's it to me?" The correct answer is,
"Pay attention."
- Jackpot
- When is a bad beat not so bad? When you're
playing jackpot poker, of course. A large number of cardrooms
(especially in California, although jackpots may soon be outlawed there)
now offer sizeable jackpots for
particularly bad beats. The rules vary somewhat, but typically you
must have aces full beat by quads or better. If the game is hold'em, both players must use both of their pocket
cards. Other rules and technicalities make it worthwhile finding out
just what could invalidate a jackpot before you play your first hand.
Typically the "loser" gets the lion's share (e.g., 50%), the winner of
the hand the next largest share (e.g., 25%), and often the remainder
of the table splits the rest of the jackpot. The jackpot itself is
usually built by a jackpot drop from every hand,
sometimes the small blind. Jackpots for low-limit games are often in
the tens of thousands of dollars, and can get very big if no one wins
for a while.
Feelings about jackpot poker are divided. Some players get upset
about all the bad beats they take at the hands
of wild players chasing every remote chance at the jackpot, and resent
the extra money taken out of every pot. On the other hand, jackpot
poker is certainly popular, and it's hard to argue with anything that
fills seats.
Yay, I hit the jackpot.
- Jam
- To bet or raise the maximum,
especially in nolimit, is to jam.
- Joker
- A joker is a card that is usually not used in
serious poker, but when it is used it's
usually considered a wild card.
See also bug.
- Kansas City
- Kansas City, or Kansas City lowball, is a
low only game played for a
deuce to seven low.
- Kicker
- The highest unpaired card in your hand that doesn't participate in a straight or flush - i.e.,
the card that does not contribute to the strength of your hand except
by itself. For example, if you hold AA743, you have a pair of
aces with a 7 kicker. Five card hands - straights, flushes, and
full
houses, - don't have kickers per se.
In games with community cards,
kickers are especially important,
because it's easy for two players to make similar hands. For example,
if you hold A8 and someone else holds A7, and the flop is AK642, you
have your opponent out-kicked. Your hand is AAK86 while theirs is AAK76.
And you both lose to the guy playing 53 off suit
under the gun.
- Kill
- A "kill" game is one in which a player may
place an extra bet, causing the betting limits
to go up for just that hand. The player
posting the bet is the "killer," and the hand is considered a "kill
pot." The player is said to have "killed the pot" for the amount of
the kill. The exact details
depend on the local rules and on the game.
As examples, here are the rules for
three kill games I've played in (all in San Diego).
In the kill hold'em game,
any player who wins two pots in a row
is required to kill by posting a blind small bet on the subsequent hand,
with the limits doubled for that hand.
In a kill high-low split game, any player who
scooped a pot larger than a certain size was required to kill the
subsequent pot.
And in a draw game,
any player could kill any pot for an arbitrary amount
after looking at their first two cards.
These are just examples, the details
vary from cardroom to cardroom.
- Large Bet
- See big bet.
- Leak
- Winning poker players often lose back part or all of their winnings through
other gambling habits, either at the casino or elsewhere
(e.g., sports betting, craps, or golf). These are often referred to as
leaks.
- Limit (Limit Poker)
- Limit poker is any game in which there is a fixed limit on how
much you can bet or raise in
any round. Limit games usually offer either
fixed-sized bets for different betting rounds or spread limits, in which there is a minimum and
maximum bet for each round. For example, a 5-10 hold'em game usually requires $5 bets and raises on
the first two rounds and $10 bets and raises on the last two.
Games are often referred to as low-limit, medium-limit, and
high-limit. Typical low-limit games are 2-4, 3-6, and 5-10. Medium
limits are 10-20, 20-40, and 30-60. High-limits are 50-100 on up.
More generally, the word limit is used to refer to the maximum bet
at a given point, whether it's pot-limit,
spread limit, or whatever. See also structure.
I didn't want to give him a chance to draw
out on me, so I bet the limit.
- Limp
- To flat call an opening
forced bet is to limp into a hand.
Three players limped in ahead of me, so I decided just to call.
- Live
- A live player, or "live one," is someone who is expected to lose
their money at a pretty good rate. Players reminding floorpeople to fill a vacant seat often
request a live one.
For other uses of the word "live" see live
blind, live card, and live hand.
- Live Blind
- A blind bet is considered a live blind if the
player is allowed to raise even if no one else raises first. See also
straddle.
- Live Card
- A live card is a card that has not been seen. In seven card stud, for example, a player with a draw to a flush, is concerned with how many of the
remaining suited cards are live (i.e., have not been seen in other
players' hands). A live hand is a hand for which many of the outs are still live.
- Live Hand
- A live hand is a hand that is still eligible to win the pot (i.e.,
one that has not been mucked or otherwise
invalidated). In seven card stud, a hand is also called live if many
of the cards which would improve it are still unaccounted for (see
live card).
- Lock
- A lock is a hand guaranteed to win at least part of the
pot.
In a high-low split game, for example,
the lock low is the best possible low hand.
See also nuts.
- Loose
- Playing loose simply means playing more hands and holding on to
them longer. In essence, loose with your cash. A loose table is a table
dominated (so to speak) by loose players.
Loose isn't always bad -
excessively tight play can
be equally costly, especially at high
levels of play. Looseness should not be confused with
aggressiveness.
A loose call is a borderline
inadvisable or even incorrect call.
He was playing so loose, it seemed like he was in every
pot.
- Low
- In most poker games, the best hand wins. Most but not all. In a
number of games, the worst hand wins all or some of the pot. Draw lowball and razz are just two
examples of games played for low. Omaha and seven card stud have popular high-low split variants, in which the low
hand gets half the pot. There are two common ways to evaluate low
hands. In deuce to seven games, the best
low hand is just the worst high hand. The best possible low is 75432,
provided there is no flush. In ace to five games, straights and flushes don't count, and aces are
lower than 2's. So the best possible low is A2345, a wheel.
- Lowball (or Draw Lowball)
- Five card draw played for low only (i.e., where
the low hand wins the entire pot).
- Main pot
- When a player goes all-in in a table stakes game, that player is only
eligible to win the main pot - the pot consisting of those bets they
were able to match. Additional bets, placed in a side pot, are contested among the remaining
players.
Unfortunately, since I was all-in pre-flop,
the main pot was very small.
- Make
- To (non-specifically)
make a hand means to get a decent hand that has a
shot at winning the pot.
I didn't make a hand
for two hours, but then I went on a major
rush.
- Maniac
- A maniac is a player who plays extremely loose and
aggressive,
often raising with just about anything. Maniacs
at the table tend to increase the
variance considerably.
With all the maniacs at the table, I decided to just wait for the
nuts and let the money come to me.
- Middle Pair
- If there are three cards of different ranks on
the flop in
hold'em, and you pair the middle one, you have
middle pair.
I'll often raise with middle pair and an
overcard.
- Miss
- See hit.
- Monster
- An extremely strong hand, one that is almost certain to win the
pot.
It's often a bad idea to slowplay
unless you make a monster.
- Muck
- The pile of discarded cards in front of the dealer, or the act of putting
cards in this pile (and therefore taking them out of play).
The house rule is that as soon as the cards touch the muck, they
are ineligible to win the pot.
- After I mucked my hand, I realized that I should
have called the bet.
- No-Limit
- As you might guess, any game in which there is no
limit on the sizes of bets and
raises. Note that in
table stakes games, players are still limited to
the amount of money they have in front of them.
- Nuts (or Nut -)
- The nuts is the best possible hand.
This makes most sense in flop games like
hold'em, where the community cards make the nuts pretty much
the same for everyone. An exception is when your hole
cards make a better hand impossible. If the
board is AAK52, the nuts
would be AA to an observer, but a player with AK would effectively hold the
nuts (assuming the 2 and 5 didn't share a suit with one
of the A's).
In hold'em, the nuts is never less than trips.
"Nut xxx" is used to refer to the best hand of a particular type,
especially a straight or
flush. If the table described above had the AK2
of spades, the nut flush would be the queen and any other spade.
- Odds
- A ratio of two probabilities, usually the probability of making a
hand to the probability of not making the hand. Thus if you have a
25% chance of making a hand, the odds are 3 to 1 against your making
it. In poker, this is especially important in considering pot odds.
- Off-suit
- Not of the same suit, especially in reference to
hole cards. Sometimes abbreviated to just
"off."
I'll play KT off suit occasionally, but never in early
position.
- Omaha
- Omaha is a flop game similar to hold'em, but with two key differences.
First, each player is dealt four cards instead of just two.
Second, a hand must be made using
exactly two pocket cards (out of those four)
and three from the table. That
is, if four
suited cards hit the table, you still need two more to
make a flush. And if you start with
four aces, then you have a pair of aces, with little chance to improve.
The high-low variant of omaha,
with an 8 or better
qualifier for low, is especially popular.
- One-Gap
- See inside straight.
- Open
- To open, or open betting, is simply to make the first
bet in a
round.
When everyone checked to me,
I figured it was okay to open
with middle pair.
- Open-Ender
- See open-ended straight draw
(right down there).
- Open-Ended Straight (Draw)
- An straight draw is open-ended if it
consists of four consecutive
cards (none of them an ace). The straight can be completed at either
end. See also double belly buster
and inside straight.
I had an open-ended straight draw. Really.
- Open Pair
- An open pair in seven card stud is an
exposed pair - a pair among your up
cards.
- Option
- When a player posts a live blind, that
player is given the option to raise when their
turn comes around, even if no one else has raised. The dealer will
typically say something like "your option," to remind them. See also
straddle.
- Out
- An out is a card that will improve your hand, usually one that
you think
will make it a winner. In hold'em, an open-ended straight draw has eight outs (the
four cards of each rank that will complete the
straight). But it may be only six outs if there are two suited cards on the table and someone else is
drawing for the flush.
With all that money in the
pot and fifteen outs, it seemed like a
good idea to call the raise.
Except that I was drawing dead on both the
flush and the straight.
- Outdraw
- To make a better hand than an opponent by merit of the cards you
draw.
- Outrun
- See outdraw.
- Overcall
- Any additional call after a
bet is first called.
Player A bets, player B calls, player C overcalls.
- Overcard
- In flop games, a card higher
than the highest card on the board.
If you hold AJ and the flop is J92, you have
top pair with an
overcard. If the flop is T92, you just have two overcards.
- Overpair
- In flop games, a pocket pair
higher than the highest card on the
board. If you hold AA and the flop is K62, you have a nice overpair.
- Paint
- A jack, king, or queen (i.e., a card with a picture on it).
Let's see some paint.
- Pair
- Two cards of the same rank. If you hold AAKJ3,
you have a pair. See also
top pair, middle pair,
bottom pair, and
two pair.
- Pass
- To pass is to fold.
- Passive
- Passive is a style of play that is characterized by reluctance to
bet and raise.
This does not always mean tight.
A typical loose-passive
player will call with almost anything, but raise only with very
powerful hands (see
calling station). A passive table is one
with many passive players, so that, for example,
few hands are raised pre-flop.
- Pat
- In draw games, a pat hand is one to which you
draw no cards. In lowball, J7542 is a pat
jack, but also offers a draw to a 7.
The other day I made pat
straights twice in a row.
- Pay Off
- To call a bet by a player
you're reasonably sure has you beat. Usually you ought to have some
sort of reason to do this, other than just generosity. Weak players pay you off more often than other
players.
I was pretty sure he had the flush, but
with all that money in the pot I figured it was
worth paying him off to be sure.
- Perfect
- When you only have one way to make a hand, you
need perfect cards. Usually this means two cards. If you hold 8JQ,
you need two perfect cards for a straight.
- Pineapple
- Any of a number of variants of hold'em
in which each player gets three cards and must discard one at some
point (usually after pre-flop betting, after the
flop, or after the second round of betting).
- Play the Board
- In flop games like hold'em, if your best five card hand uses the five
community cards, you're playing the board.
The best you can do in this situation is split the pot with anyone who
calls. Nevertheless, betting can be a good idea if you don't think
anyone else can improve on the board either. For example, if the
board is ThJhQdKdAd, someone would have to have two diamonds not to be
playing the board.
- Pocket
- The two cards dealt to you face down in hold'em, or the first two face down in seven card stud are your pocket cards, or hole
cards. Hold'em players tend to call them pocket cards, stud players
tend to call them hole cards. See also pocket
pair.
- Pocket Pair
- Two pocket cards of the same rank.
- Poker
- Poker is a class of card games defined by the fact that they are
poker games. A more useful definition is beyond the scope of this
dictionary. However, the majority of poker games do share some common
features, especially: betting in rounds, the ranking of hands,
and the use of chips for betting. Poker is
commonly played in cardrooms (often within casinos) and in private
home games (illegally in most states). The games played in cardrooms
seem to divide neatly into stud games, draw games, and flop games. In
home games, anything goes, including games that seem to have no reason
to be called poker. The varieties played in home games probably
number in the hundreds, or even the thousands. Some common cardroom
games include Texas Hold'em, Seven Card Stud, Omaha, Razz, Lowball, Pineapple, and Anaconda. (Just kidding about
the anaconda.)
- Position
- Position refers to your place at the table, especially with
respect to the order of betting within a particular
betting round. The first few players to act are
said to be in early position, the next few in middle position, and the
last few in late position. Late position is almost always best, since
you have the advantage of knowing what your opponents have done. For
this reason, many players are more liberal about the hands they will
play from later positions. In some games (most flop and draw games), position is
fixed from one round of betting to the next, and the dealer (or the
player on the button) is always in last
position.
More generally, to have position on someone is to be in a position
to bet after them, either during a particular hand or in general. You
have position on anyone sitting immediately to your right, since you
will far more often than not be able to act after them.
I didn't think he could've made the straight because he would've had to be playing 65
in early position. Shows what I know.
- Position Bet
- A position bet is a bet made more on the strength of one's position than on the strength of one's hand. A player on the button
in hold'em is in good position to steal the pot if no one else opens.
- Post
- To post a bet is to place your chips in the pot (or, commonly, out in front of you, so that your
bet can be counted). In poker, posting usually means a forced bet,
such as a blind.
- Pot
- All the money in the middle of the poker table that goes to the
winner of the hand is the pot. Any player who has not yet
folded is said to be "in the pot." A player who has
called an initial bet is said to have entered the pot.
- Pot-Limit
- Any game in which the maximum bet or raise is the size of the pot.
For raises, the size of the pot includes the call, so if the pot is
$100 and player A bets $100, player B can throw $400 out for a maximum
raise (calling the $100 and then raising the size of the $300 pot).
- Pot Odds
- The ratio of the amount of money in the pot to
the amount of money it will cost you to call a
bet. The greater the pot odds, the more likely you should be to call
(all else being equal), because you will have to win fewer times (in
the long run) to make the bet positive
expectation.
I knew it was a longshot, but with all that money in the pot and a
draw to the nuts, I had no choice but to call.
- Prop
- Short for proposition player.
- Proposition Player
- A proposition player, or "prop,"
is a player who is paid by a cardroom to play poker,
usually in order to keep games going when they get shorthanded, or to get games started. Props
are paid a salary, but they gamble with their own money. Props either
learn how to play pretty solid poker or they run out of money. See
also shill.
- Protect
- To protect a hand is to bet so as to reduce the
chances of anyone outdrawing you (by getting
them to fold). A hand that needs protection is
one that is almost certainly best, but that is vulnerable to being
outdrawn. Large pots make it difficult to protect
hands, since players will be willing to chase more long shots. The
structure of a game has a large impact on how easy it is to protect a
hand, as do the personalities of the players at the table. It's
easiest to protect a hand in no-limit play,
where you can potentially make it as expensive as you like for someone
to draw.
To protect your cards is to place a chip or some other small object
(players often have particular artifacts they like to use) on top of
them so that they don't accidentally get mucked by the dealer, mixed
with another player's discards, or otherwise become dead when you'd
like to play them.
- Provider
- A provider is a poker player who makes the game profitable for the
other players at the table. Similar in meaning to fish, although provider has a somehow less negative
connotation. A provider might be a decent player who just happens to
be playing out of his/her
league. A fish is usually someone who's probably out of any league.
- Push
- What the dealer does with the pot when he or
she figures out who the winner is. Because of the nature of
poker tables, the dealer can almost always orient him- or herself so
as to be facing the winner of the pot. From this position, pushing
the pot (literally, the chips in the pot) will result in the movement
of the pot towards the winner of the hand, so that the player can
add the chips to his or her stacks. Aren't you
glad you asked?
- Pushka
- A pushka is an arrangement between two or more players to share part of
the pots they win, or more precisely, the container into which the shared
chips are placed. Typically pushka partners will place as much as $10 from
each pot won into a container, and split the container's contents later.
I've only heard this term in Maryland, although apparently it's due to the
Polish word for box, via Yiddish. Of course removing chips from the table
is illegal in table stakes games. See also scoot.
- Put On
- To put someone on a hand (or on a draw) is to
guess that that is what they are holding.
When she re-raised the flop, I tentatively put her on two
pair.
- When she flat called the re-raise,
I put her on the flush draw.
- Quads
- Four of a kind.
- Qualifier
- In high-low split games, the qualifier is
a requirement that a hand must meet in order to be eligible for part of the
pot, generally the low part. See 8 or better.
- Quarter
- To win one fourth of the pot is to be
quartered. This is usually the result of splitting half the pot in a
high-low split game.
- Rack
- Poker chips can get a bit unweildy in large
quantities, so cardrooms usually supply plastic racks that hold 100
chips in 5 rows of 20. A rack of red means a rack
of red chips, typically worth $500. If someone asks for a rack, it
usually means they're about to leave the table. If someone asks to
buy a rack of red, it means they'd like to buy $500
in chips.
Someone is said to be "racking up" a game if they're winning a lot of
money at the table.
- Rag
- A card, usually a low card,
that, when it appears, has no apparent impact on the hand. A flop of 7 4
2 is a rag flop - few playable hands match the flop well. If the table
shows QJT9, all of spades, a 2h on the river is a rag.
I didn't think anyone could've
hit the flop when it came all rags.
- Rail
- The rail is the sideline at a poker table - the (often imaginary)
rail separating spectators from the field of play. Watching from the
rail means watching a poker game as a spectator. People on the rail
are sometimes called railbirds.
- Railbird
- Someone watching a game from the rail.
- Ragged
- See rough.
- Rainbow
- Three or four cards of different suits, for example on a flop.
(Two cards of different suits are unsuited and five is impossible.)
I figured my rockets
were going to win when the flop came queen
seven two, rainbow.
- Raise
- After someone has opened betting in a round, to increase the amount of the bet is to
raise. For example, if the betting limit is $5
and player A bets $5, player B can fold, call the $5, or raise it to $10.
Knowledgeable poker players sometimes get irritated when someone says
raise to indicate an opening bet. But they usually know what you
mean.
- Rake
- The money removed from each pot by the house. Medium and
high-limit games typically have a time charge rather than a rake. A
typical Atlantic City low-limit rake is 10% of the pot up to a $4
maximum. The same table in California may rake just the big blind,
with the small blind going towards a jackpot.
Despite all the bad players, the high rake made it hard to turn a
profit at the game.
- Rank
- Each card has a suit and a rank. The eight of
diamonds and the eight of hearts have the same rank. A pair is two cards of the same rank. Come on, you
know this.
- Razz
- Seven card stud played for low (ace to five) only.
- Read
- To read someone is to have a good idea from their play (or through
tells) what their cards might be. To have a read
on someone is to have a good understanding of how they play. Reading
players is an important skill in poker, because... well, if you can't
figure out why, it's going to be hard to explain here.
- Re-buy
- When you first sit down at a game, you buy in
with a certain amount of money. Re-buying is what you do when you buy
more chips before you leave. This is no big deal in ring games. Re-buys are also allowed in some tournaments to players who fall below a certain
point -- usually only up until a certain point and often limited to a
fixed number of re-buys. Such tournaments are called, generically,
re-buy tournaments. See also add-on.
I had to re-buy after the second hand when I had quads shot down.
- Red
- Red is the most common color for $5 chips.
If someone bets a Redraw
- A way to further improve your hand after hitting a
draw is a redraw.
For example, if you hold 9s2s (on the big blind
of course) and the flop comes JsTs3c, you have a flush draw. If the turn
is the 8s, you have made your flush and picked up a straight flush
redraw.
- Represent
- To bet in such a way as to indicate that you
have a certain hand. For instance, when you check-raise after the third suited card hits the board in hold'em, you are representing a strong flush.
- Re-raise
- Any raise after the first raise in a round. See also cap and check-raise.
- Ring Game
- A bunch of people playing poker for money at a table in a
cardroom. The term ring game is used to differentiate such games from
tournaments.
Tournaments are fun, but I much prefer ring games.
- River
- The last of five community cards in flop games (e.g. hold'em and omaha). Sometimes called fifth street. Sometimes "river" is used to refer
to the last card in non-flop games, such as
seven card stud.
- Rock
- A player who plays an extremely tight,
patient game is a rock. Rocks don't create a lot of action, and when they enter a pot, more often than
not they're in as a favorite. This is a
decent strategy at some tables (especially at a table full of maniacs). But good players with more varied
strategies will eventually get the best of a real rock.
- Rock Garden
- A table populated with rocks.
I never play there anymore, it's a real rock garden.
- Rockets
- Or "pocket rockets" - a pair of aces in the hole.
- Roll
- Short for bankroll.
- Rolled Up
- In seven card stud, three of a kind on the first three cards are called
rolled up X's, where X is the rank of the cards. The hand and the
player can both be said to be rolled up.
I didn't outdraw you, I was rolled up.
- I haven't had a rolled up hand in weeks.
- Root Canal
- A really unpleasant form of dental surgery.
- Rough
- A hand of a particular type that will not beat many other hands of
that type. Often used in low games to indicate
non-nut low hands with a particular high card. A
rough 8 in ace to five
lowball could be any eight high hand other than 8432A, although
8532A isn't too rough.
- Round
- A round can refer either to a round of betting
or a round of hands. A betting round usually
begins after a card or several cards are dealt. Each player is given
a chance to act, and the round ends when everyone
has either folded to or called
the last bet or raise. (See it.) Each round of betting is followed either by
further dealing or by a showdown.
A round of hands consists of one hand dealt by each player at the
table (or, when there's a house dealer, one hand with the dealer button at each position). In a round of hold'em you're in each position once, and you
expect on average to hold the best hand once (although you will fold
it pre-flop and kick yourself for the rest of the evening).
One more round and I'm outta here. (round of hands)
- After I missed the check-raise I made
sure to open the next round. (round of betting)
- Royal Straight Flush
- An ace high straight flush is a royal
straight flush, or a royal flush, or just a royal. Some
traditionalists dislike the phrase "royal flush" (preferring "ace high
straight flush"), but no one dislikes the hand. It's the most
powerful hand in casino poker.
- Runner-runner
- A hand made on the last two cards. A player
holding 55, with a board of AA455, in that order,
makes runner-runner quads. See also backdoor.
- Rush
- A player who wins a large number of pots in a
short period of time is said to be on a rush. Some players feel
superstitiously that a rush is an independent entity, and will "play
their rush" or "bet their rush" after winning a few pots - play looser
and more aggressively, or just be certain to play out each hand until
the rush ends. Sometimes this isn't such a bad idea if the other players
at the table are superstitious as well and will fold.
I was down about $500 after two hours of bad
beats, but then I went on a monster rush and made it all back in
three hands.
- Sandbag
- Sandbagging means concealing your strength for the purpose of
increasing your profit. In poker, this usually means
slowplaying in the early betting
rounds in order to extract more profit on the later rounds.
Especially when called "sandbagging," this practice sometimes has
the negative connotation -- usually among occasional or less serious
players -- of being a hostile or marginally unethical way to play.
Experienced players regard it as just another part of the game, a
vital strategic tool. The same is true for
check-raising, which bears some resemblance
to slowplaying.
- Scare Card
- A card that when it appears makes a better hand more likely. In
hold'em, a third suited
card on the river is a scare card, because it
makes a flush possible. If you're pretty sure
your opponent paired a king on the flop, an ace on
the turn is a scare card. Scare cards will often
make it difficult for the best hand to bet, and offer an opportunity
for bluffing. Obviously such cards are scarier
in pot-limit or no-limit games.
- Scoop
- To win an entire pot, especially in
high-low split games.
When he failed to make his low, I scooped.
- Scoot
- Scooting is the practice of passing chips to another player after
winning a pot. Typically, scooting partners will agree to "scoot"
each other a predetermined number of chips after winning each pot.
This is at least technically illegal at most table stakes games, but single chips can often
be scooted anyway.
- Seating List
- In most cardrooms, if there is no seat
available for you when you arrive, you can put your name on a list
to be seated when a seat opens up. Typically, games are listed
across the top of a board, and names are written below each game
so that players are seated for games in the order in which they arrive.
See also table change.
- Second Pair
- See middle pair.
- Semi-bluff
- A semi-bluff is similar to a bluff, except
that the semi-bluffer has some chance of making a winning hand. The
idea behind a semi-bluff is that while neither the bluff nor the draw
might be positive expectation, in
combination they could be. Betting a weak draw is often only correct as a semi-bluff.
- Serious Poker
- Serious poker players like to distinguish the game they play
from the average weekly penny poker game. Although these things
tend to be relative (a 10-20
hold'em game might not seem so serious
to someone used to playing 150-300), some particular features
common to home games tend to make the game less "serious."
Most irksome to the serious player is probably a proliferation
of zany, poorly thought-out games, often involving
wild cards, and sometimes having little in common
with other poker games. While some serious players
like the challenge of having to develop a strategy on-line for
a game that was just invented, many feel it just increases the
luck factor.
Less serious games also tend to involve very low stakes, because
they are played for fun, and not out of either a deep interest in poker
or in making money at it.
Hey Bob, wanna play poker with the guys tomorrow?
Sorry, Ted, I only play serious poker. Also you irritate me.
- Set
- Three of a kind with two in the hole.
If I don't flop a set with 22, I almost always fold immediately.
- Seven Card Stud
- A poker game. In seven card stud (sometimes "seven stud" or just
"stud"), each player is dealt seven cards of their own: two down, then
four up, and a final card down. There is a round
of betting after the first up card and after each subsequent card
dealt.
- Shill
- A shill is similar to a
proposition player, except a shill
gambles with the cardroom's
money instead of his/her own.
- Shootout
- A tournament format in which a single
player ends up with the entire prize money, or in which play continues
at each table until only one player remains.
- Short Stack
- A short stack is a stack that's too small to
cover the likely betting in a hand. A player who has such a stack is said to be
short-stacked. This has advantages (e.g., that you cannot be
pressured to fold) and disadvantages (e.g., that
you cannot get maximum value from your winning hands). Asking whether
or not this is a good thing over all is a good way to start an
argument.
The phrase "short stack" can also refer to the players at a table
(especially in no-limit or pot-limit play, often in a tournament) who have the least money in front
of them.
After building up a big chip lead in the tourney, I proceeded to beat up
on the short stacks.
- Shorthanded
- A game is said to be shorthanded when it falls below a certain number
of players. Most poker tables accomodate nine or ten players.
Five players is clearly shorthanded, nine players is clearly not.
Since many people are uncomfortable playing shorthanded,
some cardrooms make special provisions for shorthanded tables -
reducing the blinds or the
rake, or providing shills
or props.
Since the number of players at a table has a significant impact on
strategy, learning to play well shorthanded is an important skill. This
is especially true in tournaments, where
shorthanded play is much more common (if you last long enough).
- Showdown
- When all the betting's done, if more than one
player is still in the pot, showdown is the process
of figuring out who wins. Usually the last player to open or raise
is required to show their cards first,
and anyone else can try to muck their cards if
they decide they've lost. However, in most cardrooms any player who
reaches showdown (or calls the final bet) can be asked to show their cards.
When used to
describe the process, showdown is one word. When used to describe
what each player does at that point, it's usually two words.
Only one hand made it to showdown in the entire hour.
- I was embarassed to show down such ugly cards.
- Show One Show All
- Most cardrooms have a rule,
generally referred to as "show one show all,"
that if a player shows their
cards to anyone at the table
they can be asked to show
everyone else (even if they would ordinarily not be required
to show their hand). This usually comes up at the end of a hand
that did not reach showdown
(e.g., if a player shows a friend a
successful bluff).
Obviously showing one's hand to someone else who
has cards is illegal for more reasons.
- Shuffle
- Before each hand, the dealer shuffles the cards -
mixes them up in order to make
their order as unpredictable as possible.
Most cardrooms have fairly
specific requirements for how the cards are to be shuffled.
- Side Pot
- See main pot
and all-in. If you still don't know what a side pot
is, we can't help you.
- Slow
- When you play passively, you are playing slow.
See speed.
- Slowplay
- To slowplay is to underbet a very strong hand (i.e., to play it slow, except that when used in this way it's made
into one word). The purpose of slowplaying a hand is to give other
players the chance to make stronger second-best hands, and also to
conceal the strength of your hand. Instead of betting early and
risking the loss of future action, slowplay
means checking and calling.
It's of course best to slowplay when you have a hand that no one is
likely to actually catch (e.g., four of a kind). Slowplay is not the
same thing as check-raising, but the two
strategic options are similar in that both are often intended to trap more money in the pot in situations where you
are fairly sure you will win.
I tried to slowplay my quad nines and walked right into a
straight flush.
- Slowroll
- To reveal one's hand slowly at showdown,
one card at a time,
is to slowroll. This is usually only done with a winning hand, for the purpose
of irritating other players (well, some people do it innocently).
- Small Bet
- See big bet.
- Small Blind
- See blind bet.
- Smooth
- The best possible low hand with a particular
high card. 8432A is a smooth 8. See also rough.
- Smooth Call
- To call one or more bets with a hand that's
strong enough for a raise, with the intention of
trapping more money in the pot. Smooth call is
like flat call, although it more strongly
connotes a powerful hand that one is trying to slowplay.
- Snap Off
- To beat someone, often a bluffer,
and usually with a not especially powerful
hand, is to snap them off.
I snapped off his pair of eights with my small
two pair.
- Speed
- Speed refers to the level of aggressiveness with which you play. Fast play is more aggressive, slow play is more passive.
Good players may change speeds so that their play will not be so
predictable.
- Speeding
- Someone who is caught
bluffing is sometimes said to be caught
speeding. See speed and
table cop for more of this metaphor.
- Splash (the pot)
- To throw your chips into the pot, instead of placing them in front of
you, is to splash the pot. Doing so can make it difficult for the dealer to
determine if you've bet the correct amount, or to keep track of the action.
- Split Pot
- In a game that isn't high-low split,
a hand in which two players
show down the same hand
(especially in games with community cards)
results in a pot split between those two players. In a high-low split
game, of course, many hands result in split pots.
- Spread
- When a cardroom starts a table for a particular game, it is said
to spread that game. If you want to know what games are played in a
particular place, you can ask what they spread.
We don't spread high only stud.
- Spread Limit
- Betting limits
in which there is a fixed minimum and maximum bet
for each betting round, and any amount in between
these limits may be bet. See structure.
- Stack
- The amount of money you have in front of you on the poker table
(i.e., stack of chips).
Often used in the plural. See also short
stack.
A stack can also refer to a particular number of chips. Most chip
racks take stacks of 20 chips. Many players
like to keep their chips in stacks of particular numbers of chips. I
favor 10-chip stacks, but most players seem to opt for 20 or 25.
I was doing well earlier, but my stacks have been dwindling.
- Steal
- To (attempt to) steal a pot is to make a bet
when it appears no one else has anything. A player who raises from the small blind
when everyone else has folded (and who is
therefore competing only against the big blind) is likely to be on a
steal. Similarly with a player who opens from late position when it's checked around on the flop.
- Steam
- A player who is on tilt is sometimes said to
be steaming. A steam raise is a raise made more
out of frustration than out of strategic concerns.
- Steel Wheel
- A straight flush, five high. That
is, A2345 of the same suit. A pretty nice hand to have in a high-low split game.
- Straddle
- In a game played with blinds,
the player under the gun may
raise before looking at their cards, effectively
posting an additional blind bet. This is called a straddle.
House rules often make these bets live, so that the
player who posts a live straddle has the
option of raising when it's their
turn again, even if no one has re-raised. It's
hard to imagine a good reason to do this, although some
players like to do it to liven up a tight table,
or for advertising value.
- Straight
- A hand composed of five cards of consecutive
ranks (aces count as high or low). A2345 is a
five high straight, or a straight to the five. 789TJ is a jack high
straight, or a straight to the jack. TJQKA is an exercise for the
reader (but see broadway). In comparing
straights, the straight to the higher card wins.
- Straight Flush
- A hand consisting of five cards of consecutive ranks of the same suit. A
straight flush is the strongest possible hand. Of two straight
flushes, the one with the highest high card is better. An ace high
straight flush is often called a royal flush or a
royal straight flush, or just a royal.
- Street
- The cards that come out one at a time in a card game are sometimes
referred to as different numbered streets. The
door card in seven
card stud is third street, and subsequent cards are numbered
consecutively. In hold'em and other flop games, players sometimes
refer to the turn and
river as fourth and fifth street.
- String Bet
- Most cardrooms (and serious home games) require you to make your
entire bet at once. In other words, you can't raise by putting out enough to call and then
reaching back to your stack for your raise. As
well, since verbal statements are considered binding at most poker
games, if you say "I call your bet and raise you ten more," you have
called, since the raise was added afterwards. To be on the safe side,
when you want to raise it's best to say "raise" so that your bet won't
be mistaken. The reason for the string bet rule is to prevent players
from strategically misleading other players about the size of their
bet (see angle). Note that movie and television
depictions of poker games are filled with egregious examples of string
bets.
- Structure
- The structure of a game is just the details about the betting that
include antes, blinds, and
the amount that may be bet on any round. In
cardrooms, games are typically posted along with shorthand for the
limits. For example, 5-10 hold'em is usually a
fixed limit game, played with $5 bets and raises
pre-flop and on the flop, and $10 bets and raises
on the turn and the river.
This usually generalizes to any game where the structure is X-2X.
Games with more complicated structures sometimes spell it out like
this: 5-10-10-15. Spread limit games are
ones in which a the betting on a round is constrained to a particular
range. So a 1-4 spread limit game would allow a bet from $1 to $4 on
any round (often constrained that a bet or raise must be at least the
size of the previous action). Many different structures are possible,
and the sizes of antes and blinds vary from game to game. The
structure of a game has a substantial impact on appropriate strategy.
In connection with tournaments, structure can also mean anything
having to do with the amount of money in tournament chips players can
get, the rebuy and add-on
rules, and the way in which the blinds increase.
I was reluctant to dive right in because of the unfamiliar
structure.
- Stuck
- Losing money, usually enough so you'd notice.
I was stuck about $200 after that hand, but I couldn't quit.
- Even the best players in the world get stuck sometimes.
- Stud
- Usually short for seven card stud. Also
refers to stud games in general, including five card stud, in which
each player is dealt a number of non-shared cards and must use only
those cards. May be contrasted with flop games
and draw games.
- Suck Out
- To win a hand by virtue of hitting a very weak draw, often with poor pot
odds.
- Suit
- You know, clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades.
- Suited
- Of the same suit.
I almost never play 98 unless it's suited.
- Sweat
- To sweat someone is to watch them play from the rail, in order to lend your support.
- Table
- The word "table" can be used to refer to community cards, the poker table itself, or the
players at the table as a group.
When the case 9 hit the table, I
checked.
- The table was playing tight, so I was
bluffing more than usual.
- This is a nice table, I especially like the cup holders.
- Table Change
- If you're playing at a public cardroom, and you'd
like to play at a table other than the one you're currently at, you can ask
the floor
for a table change. Different cardrooms handle this differently, but typically
you'll be moved as soon as an opening develops, and a player from the
seating list will be moved into your seat.
- Table Cop
- A player who calls with the intention of
keeping other players honest (e.g., to snap off
bluffs) is said to be playing table cop. Also a
player who makes an effort to point out violations (significant and
otherwise) of casino rules (e.g., reminding other players to act in turn,
which is properly the responsibility of the dealer).
- Table Stakes
- Table stakes is simply the (nearly universal) rule that a player
may only wager money they have on the table at the beginning of a
hand. Usually it also implies that money may not be removed from the
table at any time (exceptions are made for tipping), although money
may be added to one's stacks between hands. A
player who goes all-in at a table stakes game may
not continue to bet, and is eligible only for the
main pot. Sometimes "table stakes" also
implies no-limit play.
To the best of my knowledge, Maryland is the only place where most
of the games are not table stakes, although the Maryland rules seem to
change fairly often.
- Table Talk
- Any discussion at the table of the hand
currently underway, especially by players not involved in the pot, and especially any talk that might affect play.
Depending on the nature of the discussion, table talk is often
considered somewhere between rude and an act of war. The most common
example of table talk to be avoided is announcing what cards you've
folded. If the flop is 888 and you shout "Damn!"
or slam your fist into the table, you've done a disservice to anyone
at the table who thought they might like to represent quads.
- Tell
- A tell is any habit or behavior that gives other players more
information about your hand than they would have simply from your
play. For instance, you might unconsciously play with your chips every time you bluff. Or
you might notice that another player blinks a lot whenever he has a
strong hand. Mike Caro's "The Body Language of Poker" describes a large
number of tells that can often be seen in inexperienced (and
experienced) players.
I picked up reliable tells on two players at the table, so my
evening was very profitable.
- Texas Hold'em
- Texas Hold'em (or just "hold'em") is a poker
game in which each player gets two pocket cards,
while five community cards are dealt face-up
on the table. The strength of a player's hand is the best hand that
can be made with these seven cards. There is a round of betting after the pocket cards are dealt,
after the first three community cards (the flop),
after the fourth, or turn card, and after the final, or river card.
- Three of a kind
- Three cards of the same rank. Also called
trips. For example, if you hold 888AK, you have trip 8's.
- Tight
- Playing tight simply means playing fewer hands and folding them earlier. In essence, tight with your
cash. A tight table is a table dominated by tight players. Tightness
is frequently described as a good thing, and especially at low levels
of play can be a big advantage over players who will always pay you off. Tightness should not be confused with
passivity. Many good players recommend a tight
aggressive strategy.
He was playing so tight, when he finally played a hand we all
folded pre-flop.
- Tilt
- Good poker seems to require good discipline. However, even good
players are often tempted to do things they know are bad ideas when
they get frustrated, angry, or upset for any reason. They go "on
tilt." Sort of like a pinball machine, except with pinball it only
costs you a quarter. Typical tilt play is much too loose and often very aggressive, beacause a player on tilt wants
very badly to win a pot, and isn't rational enough to wait for cards
that are worth playing or situations that are worth attacking.
When he started raising every hand,
I thought he was on tilt, but it turned out he just had an
incredible run of good cards.
- Time
- If the house doesn't drop from the pot but instead collects money
from each player periodically, this is called a time charge, or a seat
charge, and you're said to be paying time to play.
"Time" is also what you're supposed to say when you need more than
a split second to decide what to do.
- To Go
- An amount "to go" is the amount it takes to enter the
pot. In limit flop
games, this is usually the amount of the big blind, but if
someone raises in a 5-10 game, they're making it ten to go.
In some pot-limit and
no-limit games, an initial call is more than the largest of the
forced bets, so the game might have blinds of
$5 and $10 and be $20 to go.
- Toke
- A tip, usually a tip to the dealer affer winning the pot. Tips
are usually between $.50 and $3, depending on the limit, the size of the pot, and the generosity of
the player.
I toked the dealer an extra couple bucks because it was my first
straight flush in over a year.
- Top Pair
- If there are three cards of different ranks on
the flop in
hold'em (or any flop game),
and you pair the highest one, you have top pair.
Even though the board was suited, I bet out when
I flopped top pair.
- Tournament
- The general idea behind poker tournaments is that a bunch of poker
players sit down in roughly the same starting situation, and
eventually only one player has any chips left. Formats, structures, and other details (esp. concerning
buy-ins, re-buys, and add-ons) vary widely.
In tournaments you gamble
with tournament chips, which only have real value in that they impact
on your chance of finishing in the money. Usually, the sizes of
required bets (antes and/or blinds) increase as the tournament
progresses, thinning the field until there is a winner. Generally,
tournaments pay more than just the top place, but the prize structure can
vary widely as well.
- Trips
- Three of a kind.
- Trap
- Money is trapped in the pot if it faces the
imminent danger of becoming dead money. Typically
you're trapped if after putting some money in the pot you're faced
with the proposition of calling a raise in order to continue, especially an
uncomfortably large raise. A player is also said to be trapped if
caught calling (e.g. on a draw) between two other
players who keep raising and re-raising each other.
- Trey
- Threes are sometimes called treys. So 33377 can be called treys full of sevens.
- Turn
- The fourth of five community cards in flop games (e.g. hold'em and omaha). Sometimes called fourth street.
- Two Pair
- A hand consisting of two cards of one rank, and two cards of another rank (and an unpaired
card). AA883 is two pair, sometimes also called aces up. Wise guys often describe their quads as two pair. "Let's see, I got a pair of tens
and... another pair of tens." Bad things happen to wise guys.
- Under the gun
- The first player to act after the blind bets
is said to be under the gun. See also position and straddle.
I'll play those cards occasionally, but never under the gun.
- Underdog
- When two hands face off, the underdog is the one
that's less likely to win than the other.
As with many of the terms in this dictionary,
this isn't poker terminology, this is just English.
- Up
- Aces up is two pair with aces as the higher
pair. Kings up is two pair with kings as the higher pair. Are you
getting this?
In stud games, your face-up, exposed cards are
also just called your up cards.
- Value
- There are many potential reasons to bet or raise (e.g., to get people to fold, to manipulate the size of the pot, to express anger, to impress someone watching
from the rail, etc.). Betting for value is one of
the better ones. Value means the return you get on your investment;
the expected increase in your equity in the pot
(your return), as compared to the size of your bet or raise (your
investment). Typically this means either that you believe you will
receive action from inferior hands, or that the
the chance you will win the hand makes the bet worthwhile.
- Variance
- If you have a sufficient advantage at the game you're playing, you
expect to make money over the long haul. This is true whether the
game is poker, blackjack, or craps, and whether your advantage is due
to skill, cheating, or psychic powers. However, over a small period
of time, you may do better or worse than what your average should be.
For example,
you may expect to make one big bet per hour at
the poker table, but in a given hour it may not be uncommon for you to
win or lose twenty big bets. Variance is the statistical measure of
just how widely your results will be dispersed.
When variance is high enough, a small
advantage may be of no use during your lifetime. When variance is low
enough, a small sample will be much more likely to reflect your real
advantage (or disadvantage).
In other words, variance describes just how
long the long haul is.
In poker terms, high variance means that a
small number of hands will not be very representative of your
long-term expectation.
Here's a simple non-poker example. A slot machine that pays you $1 every
time you put two quarters into it (or vice versa) has no variance
whatsoever. Your expected win (or loss) is $.50 per spin, and you get
exactly that every spin. On the other hand, a slot machine that takes
the same two quarters (or $1) and usually just eats them but one time
in ten thousand spits back $10,000 (or 5,000) will have identical
expectation. If you play enough games, you will tend to average the
same $.50 per spin profit (or loss). But because you need so many
more spins to get a representative sample of the possible outcomes,
your variance is very large.
Variance is such a strong contributor to poker results that it
often obscures the importance of good play. The best player at the
table may start with the best cards and still have far less than a 50 percent
chance of winning the hand. A skilled professional can lose money over
days or weeks, without necessarily doing anything wrong. And while bad
play may have negative expectation, it is often rewarded in the short
term - players who draw for incredible longshots do sometimes get
lucky, despite their poor judgement. Variance is what makes losing players
think they have a chance in the long run, and what gives them a real
chance in the short run.
Poker players often characterize particular plays as higher or
lower in variance. For example, in a situation where you know it will
cost you a few bets to draw for a real longshot, but the pot is large
enough to justify the calls, your expectation may be positive while
your variance will be much higher than you'd like. This sort of
situation is typical of high-variance bets - high potential payoff
with a small probability of winning. As well, different qualities of
the other players at the table can contribute to your variance. If
many of the players are maniacs, willing to cap the betting and see the flop
with any two cards, your variance may be high at that table. On the
other hand, exceptionally weak and passive players, who may fold an extremely high
proportion of the time when they are raised, will reduce your
variance. Obviously the variance you experience in your play will be
affected not just by the nature of the game, but also
by your style of play and by the style of those you play with.
Although in the context of poker it's often used loosely,
"variance" is a statistical term with a precise definition. Given
accurate estimates of your variance and expectation (along with some
assumptions about the distribution of your outcomes), it is easy to
calculate confidence intervals, or ranges, within which your results
are most likely to fall over different periods of time. If all this
is news to you, pick up a book. Learning a little about statistics
wouldn't kill you, especially if you want to play poker seriously.
- Weak
- A style of play characterized by a readiness to fold and a reluctance to raise.
Weak is also used to generally describe a poor player or a table
that's easy to beat.
- Wheel
- See bicycle wheel.
- White
- White is the most common color for $1 chips.
- Wild Card
- A card that can serve as any other card in making your hand.
For example, if tens are wild, and you have four aces and a ten, then your
hand is five aces. Obviously wild cards make for some odd games.
See also bug and serious poker.
- Wired
- A pair in the hole in
seven card stud is a wired pair.
"Wired" can also describe someone who's had a few gallons of coffee trying to stay
alert through an all-night poker game.