Poker Dictionary
Holdem: A form of poker with two cards dealt face down to each poker player, and five community cards dealt face up in the center of the table.
Hole card: Any one of the downcards.
House: A cardroom or casino, or the management of a cardroom or casino often preceded by the ???.
Implied odds: The ratio of what you would have to win (including money likely to be bet in subsequent rounds) on a particular hand to what the current bet would cost.
Kicker: The unpaired card (side card) that would go with a poker player’s pair or set. For instance, a poker player with an ace and king and a board of a king, a nine, and a two would haves a pair of kings with an ace kicker (something known as top pair, top kicker).
Late position: Positions to the right of the dealer, that is, those that would make their decisions after the first few players were to have acted.
Leave money on the table: Failing to haul out as much as possible (by not betting with what would almost certainly be the best hand).
Limp: Open for the limit in a structural limit poker game, as opposed to coming in for a raise.
Liver one: A very loose poker player, usually implying one who loses.
Maniac: Someone who would bet and raise wildly and at every possible occasion – with little correlation to the value of his cards.
Middle position: Somewhere between early position and late position.
Miracle: When poker players would use this word, they would usually mean the catching of a long shot, as say, an inside straight or a third deuce when the player were to hold a pair of twos against a higher pair.
Muck: The discards.
Nut: The best possible poker hand for the situation. Thus a nut flush would be the best possible flush that could be made. With four hearts on the board, for instance, whoever was holding the ace of hearts would have the nut flush. Likewise, with a board of a six of hearts, a seven of diamonds, an eight of diamonds, a queen of hearts, and an ace of clubs, anyone with the hole cards ten and nine of any suits would have the nut straight. That poker hand would also be known as the nuts, because it would be the best possible hand that could be made with that board.
Odds: The probability or improbability of a particular event, which is typically expressed in the form of one number to a number.
Off suit: Descriptive of the hole cards being of different suits, as opposed to suited.
One gap: Describing starting cards, in which the two cards would be two apart in rank.
On the button: In the button position.
Option: When the action was to be on the poker player who was to put in the big blind, and the pot was to have been opened for the minimum (that is, there would have been no raise), that player could, if he wished, raise. A house dealer may say ‘Your option,’ as a reminder.
Outkicked: Losing with a pair because a rival would have the same pair, but with a higher kicker (side card). For instance, you were to have ten and jack and the board was a jack, a nine, a six, a three, and a two. If you were to lose to a poker player with an ace and jack, you would have been outkicked.
Outs: Cards that would improve a poker hand, usually used with reference to a hand that would not currently be the best hand.
Overcard: A card on the poker board higher than the rank of your pair.
Overcards: Cards higher than your pair, or cards odds higher than any on the poker board.
Overlay: Receiving a better return than the pot odds would signify. For instance, if the odds against making your hand were to be two-to-one and the pot was to offer nine-to-one, your hand would be an overlay,
Overpair: A poker player’s pair higher than any card among the community cards.
Pat hand: Complete, or five-card, hand, that is, a straight or better.
Pocket pair: A pair as one’s first two cards.
Position: Where a poker player would be sitting in relation to the dealer.
Pot odds: The ratio of the size of the pot compared to the size of the bet a poker player would have to call to continue in the hand.
Rag: A card in the flop that probably wouldn’t help poker players who were to have started with good cards.
Rainbow: Of all different suits.
Rake: A card in the flop that probably wouldn’t help poker players who would have started with good cards.
Ram and jam: Betting and raising recurrently and aggressively.
Read a hand: Making a conclusion about another poker player’s holdings based on that player’s actions, remarks, betting patterns, etc., and on the constitution of the board with relation to the preceding.
River: The fifth and final community card.
Rock: An extremely tight poker player, one who would takes few chances.
Runner-runner: Flush or straight cards that would arrive on the fourth and fifth cards, appearing for someone who, on the flop, was to have only three to that particular poker hand.
Scare card: A scary-looking card for the situation. When two of one suit would be on the board, the appearance of a third card of that suit could be a scare chard for anyone for whom that card would not make a flush. If you were to have two pair when there were three spades on the poker board, you could worry about someone having the needed two spades with which to make the flush. And if the third of a suit were a scare card, the fourth suited card would be even more so.
Second pair: Forming a pair that would comprise of one of your hole cards matching the second-highest card on the board.
Semibluff: A bet made on a poker hand that would probably not be the best at the time of the bet, but that would have two ways to win: either by getting everyone else to fold or, if called, that might improve on subsequent cards.
Set: Three of a kind. To flop a set would mean that (most often) one had started with a pair and one of those cards was among the flop.
Showdown: The point in a hand, after all the betting will be over, at which the poker players would turn their cards face up for comparison with all active hands, to establish which hand would win the pot.
Side pot: An auxiliary pot that would be created when one or more poker players would run out of chips, and which those who ran out couldn’t win.
Slow-play: Choosing to not bet or raise with a good hand in the hope of trapping other poker players on this or succeeding rounds.
Small blind : The poker player to the immediate left of the button would put chips into the pot equal to half the size of the lower limit of the game. Those chips (and the player who would have put the chips in) would be called the small blind.
Smooth call: Calling, and specifically not raising, on your turn.
Solid: Conservative, not likely to get out of line; said of someone’s play or a poker player.
Steal position: In a game with blinds, a late position, often the cutoff (position one to the right of the button) or button; so used because it would most likely be from this position that a poker player would attempt to steal the blinds, that is, opening with a raise in the hope of not getting called by either blind.
Structured limit: Describing the betting structure of a limit game (as opposed to no-limit), that is, with bets at one level before and on the flop, and twice that level on the turn and river, such as fifteen to thirty dollar.
Suited: Descriptive of the first two cards being of the same suit, as opposed to off suit
Tell: A mannerism that would give away your holdings.
Texas holdem: The ‘official’ name for holdem poker.
The nuts: The best possible poker hand at a given point in a pot. See nut.
Third pair: Forming a pair that would comprise of one of your hole cards matching the third-highest card on the poker board.
Tight: The state of playing poorly and foolishly due to emotional upset, often caused by the poker player in question having had a good hand beat by a freak draw from another poker player or the player having lost a pot because of his own bad play.
Top pair: The situation in which a poker player would pair one of his hole cards with the highest card on the board.
Turn: The fourth card dealt to the center. Also known as fourth street.
Underpair: A poker player’s pair lower than any card among the community cards.