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Aces Up Two pairs, one of which is aces.
Action The betting.
Add-On The opportunity to buy additional chips in a Re-buy tournament.
All-In A player is All-In when all of his (her) remaining chips are bet into the pot
Ante A bet required to begin a hand.
Blind A compulsory bet by one or more players before any cards are dealt.
Boat A full house
Bounty An additional reward to a tournament player for achieving a predetermined goal. e.g having a 4 of a kind with Aces
Bullets Aces
Board The community cards in a Texas Hold'em game. (the flop, the turn, and the river card)
Call To call is to match the current bet.
Cardroom The rooms in which poker is played, or the organizations who run those rooms.
Check If there is no betting before you in a betting round, you may check. (call a bet of $0).
Exposed Card A card that is inadvertently turned face up.
Fifth Street see River Card
Fixed Limit Bets can only be made in specified increments.
Flop The flop is the first three community cards dealt.
Flush All five cards in your hand of the same suit.
Fold To muck/discard your cards.
Forced Bet A blind/ante bet or a bring-in.
Full House A hand that consists of three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank. (Also called a boat) example AAA44 known as aces full of fours- often abbreviated to "aces full".
Hand Everything that occurs after the initial shuffling of the cards.
Hand (2) The five cards that you chose to play.
Heads-up A one-on-one poker game.
Hole cards see pocket cards
Limit poker A structured poker style that uses fixed limits on betting and raising per round. Limit poker games require specific bet amounts, as opposed to no-limit games in which you can bet your whole stack.
Live Hand A hand that has not been folded/ mucked.
Main Pot The only pot an all-in player is eligible to win. The main pot consists of the all-in player's bet plus all player's calls of that bet. Additional bets, placed in a side pot, are contested among the remaining players.
Meet see Call
Middle Pair If you pair one of your pocket cards to the second highest card on the flop, you have the middle pair.
Muck To throw your cards away because you cannot or did not win the pot. Cards cannot win the pot if they are mucked.
No-Limit A version of poker in which a player may bet any amount of chips (up to the number in front of him) whenever it is his turn to act. It is a very different action of game than limit poker.
Open The first bet in a round.
Open-Ended Straight Draw A straight draw with four consecutive cards that can be completed on either end.
Option If no one raises the big blind, then the player in that position has the option to raise when their turn comes around. The dealer might typically say "your option," to remind them.
Over Button A type of button that indicates you are willing to play at higher limits. Any time everyone left in the hand has an over button, the limits go up.
Pair Two cards of the same value.
Pocket Your first two down cards.
Position Your place at the table, relative to the order of betting within a betting round. The first few players to act are in early position, the next few in middle position, and the last few in late position. There is an advantage to being in late position, because will you know exactly what how opponents have bet.
If you have position on someone, then they are on your right and you will always act after them.
Position Bet A bet made relying on the strength of one's position rather than on the strength of one's hand. If no one opens, a player on the button in Texas Hold'em is in good position to steal the pot, due to his position.
Post To post is to put in the pot the required amount before the hand starts, such as an ante or blind.
Pot The money gathered in the middle of the table from blinds, bets, and raises. This money goes to the winner, or winners as the case may be. If you have not yet folded, you are "in the pot."
Pot Limit A poker structure 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 bet $400 out as a maximum raise. ( i.e. calling the $100 plus then raising the size of then $300 pot).
Pot Odds A mathematical solution to whether or not a particular situation is worth a call. 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 would call.
Pre-Flop Before the flop.
Protect To induce a player to fold to prevent another player from outdrawing you is protecting your hand. This is done by betting and raising so that someone on a draw will fold rather than call . A protectable hand is one that is almost always the best, but is vulnerable to being outdrawn. It's easiest to protect a hand in a no-limit game, where you can potentially make it as expensive as you like for someone to draw.
To protect your cards is to put a chip or some other artifact, ( your lucky mascot maybe ), on them so that the dealer does not muck them.
Raise To increase the amount of the bet after the betting has already been opened in a round.
Rake The house cut of each pot. The rake amount and protocol changes from cardroom to cardroom. Some rake the big blind and put the small blind in a jackpot, while others use a time charge, and others yet do a percentage of the pot as the rake.
Rank The numerical value of a card. Each card has a suit and a rank. The nine of spades has the same rank as any other nine. A pair is therefore two cards of the same rank.
Re-buy see Add-on If you run out of chips in a tournament, and you wish to continue playing, you then re-buy, meaning, you buy more chips. This is only legal in re-buy tournaments. You can only re-buy up until a certain point.
Redraw After you get your initial draw, picking up another draw. For example, if you hold 4h5h and the flop comes Kh2d3h, you have a flush draw. If the turn is the 2h, you have made your flush and picked up a straight flush redraw.
Re-raise A second raise after the initial raise in a round. This occurs when a player raises after a raise by another player.
River The fifth/final community card dealt in flop games, or the last card dealt in non-flop games.
Round A betting round 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. Each round of betting is followed either by further dealing or by a showdown. In Texas Hold'em, there are four betting rounds (pre-flop, post flop, after the turn, and after the river).
A round of hands is one full rotation around the table, so, each player would hold the dealer button once, or be the dealer if no pitcher were present.
Royal A Royal flush is the highest possible hand. It comprises the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and 10 of the same suit.
Scare Card A high card that, when it appears, brings forth a possibility for a better hand. In Texas 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, because that lends the idea of a pair of aces beating that pair of kings. Scare cards will often make it difficult for the best hand to bet, and offer an opportunity for bluffing.
7-Card Stud A popular game commonly played in public card rooms. In seven-card 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. 7-Card Stud is usually played with a small ante and a forced bring-in on Third Street. In limit games, the bet size typically increases on Fifth Street.
Showdown The showdown occurs at the end of a hand, to determine the winner, if there is more than one player left. You can either show your cards, or, if you aren't a winner, you can muck them in most situations.
Shuffle The mixing and rearranging of the cards before each hand so that the cards occur randomly. This is done by the dealer.
Sit In Joining a game that has already started.
Split Pot In a game that isn't high-low split, a tie between at least two players. This happens when both players show the same hand. This is common in Texas Hold'em for straights especially when both players are playing the board. In a high-low split game, of course, almost every hand results in a split pot.
Spread Limit A structure in which betting limits have a fixed minimum and maximum bet for each betting round. Any amount in between these limits may be bet.
Straddle Raising before looking at your pocket cards when you are under the gun. There is no sound reason for doing this, other than trying to liven up a tight table, or for advertising value.
Straight A straight is five cards of any suit in consecutive order. The ace can be either high or low.
Straight Flush A hand consisting of five cards of consecutive ranks of the same suit.
Structure The rules of a particular game regarding betting, including antes, blinds, and the amount that may be bet on any round. In card rooms, games are typically posted along with shorthand for the limits. For example, Texas 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. Games with more complicated structures sometimes spell it out like this: 5-10-10-15. In connection with tournaments, structure can also mean anything having to do with the amount of money in tournament chips players can get, the re-buy and add-on rules, and the way in which the blinds increase.
Stud Poker A game of poker where the cards are dealt some being face down and some being face up.
Table Stakes Table stakes is a rule saying that a player may only wager money they have on the table at the beginning of a hand, in other words, they can't put their car keys down as a bet. It also implies that money may not be removed from the table at any time, although money may be added to one's stacks between hands.
Tell A gesture or signal unintentionally done by a player that gives other players information about the player's hand. For example, a player who twitches when they are bluffing.
Three of a Kind Three cards of the same value. Also known as trips
Top Pair If you have a pair with one of your pocket cards and the highest card on the board, you have top pair.
Tournament In a poker tournament, each player sits down with the same number of chips, and eventually only one player has any chips left. The winner of a tournament (the last player to bust ) as well as several of the other top place finishers are usually awarded prize money according to a predetermined schedule. |