Poker glossary

This glossary explains more than 120 words you will hear at a Texas Hold’em table, from check and call to gutshot and slow roll, in a sentence or two each. Terms are grouped by topic: the deal, betting, hands, odds, positions, player types and table talk. Type in the box to filter them, and follow the links for the full guides.

Where our tables do something their own way — no ante, no rake, hands shown automatically at the showdown — the entry says so. The buttons in the game read Fold, Check, Call, Bet, Raise to and All-in, so those words are the first ones worth learning.

• Texas Hold’em — the game at our poker tables: two private cards each, five shared cards, four betting rounds. Step by step in Texas Hold’em rules.
• No-Limit — any bet up to your whole stack is allowed at any time. All our tables are No-Limit.
• Hole cards (pocket cards) — your two private cards, dealt face down.
• Board (community cards) — the five shared cards in the middle that every player can use.
• Preflop — the first betting round, after the hole cards are dealt and before the flop.
• Flop — the first three board cards, dealt together, and the betting round after them.
• Turn — the fourth board card, also called fourth street.
• River — the fifth and last board card, followed by the final betting round.
• Street — any of the four betting rounds: preflop, flop, turn or river.
• Burn card — a card discarded face down before the flop, the turn and the river. Our engine burns one each time, just like a live dealer.
• Button (dealer button) — the disc that marks the nominal dealer. It moves one seat clockwise every hand, and its owner acts last after the flop.
• Blinds — forced bets posted before the cards are dealt: the small blind left of the button, the big blind next to it. At the Scribes’ Table they are 50 and 100.
• Ante — a small forced bet from every player, common in tournaments. Our tables have no ante.
• Pot — all the chips bet in the current hand.
• Side pot — a separate pot for chips that an all-in player cannot match; only those who paid into it can win it. See all-in and side pots.
• Showdown — after the last bet, the remaining players reveal their hands and the best one wins. At our tables every hand still in is turned over automatically.
• Muck — to throw your hand away unseen; also the pile of discarded cards. Our tables never muck a hand that reaches the showdown.
• Stack — the chips in front of you at the table.
• Buy-in — the chips you bring to a table. Ours allow 10 to 200 big blinds: 1,000 to 20,000 debens at the Scribes’ Table.
• Rebuy (top-up) — buying more chips at the table after losing some or all of them.
• Cash game — chips stand for money (at our tables, free debens) and you can leave at any time, unlike a tournament.
• Heads-up — a hand or a match between just two players.
• Short-handed / full ring — a table of up to six players versus a full nine-seat table. Ours come with 5 or 9 seats.
• Rake — the cut a real-money card room takes from each pot. There is no rake at our tables: every chip goes to the winners.
• Timer — you have 15 seconds per move at our tables. If time runs out the game checks or folds for you; three timeouts in a row and you are marked as away.
• Sit out — step away without giving up your seat. At our tables the “Step away” button does it, and the game checks or folds your hands meanwhile.

• Check — pass without betting. Possible only when nobody has bet on this street.
• Bet — the first wager on a street.
• Call — match the current bet.
• Raise — increase the current bet. In No-Limit a raise must be at least as big as the previous bet or raise on the street; our button says “Raise to” and shows the total.
• Re-raise — a raise after someone has already raised.
• 3-bet, 4-bet — the third and fourth bets in a sequence. Preflop the big blind counts as the first bet and the opening raise as the second, so the first re-raise is a 3-bet.
• Fold — give up your cards and any claim to the pot.
• All-in (shove, jam) — put every chip you have left into the pot.
• Limp — just call the big blind preflop instead of raising. A player who does it is a limper.
• Open (open-raise) — the first raise of the hand preflop.
• Min-raise — the smallest legal raise. Our tables have a “Min” button for it.
• Pot-size bet — a bet equal to the pot. The raise presets at our tables are Min, ½ pot, ¾, Pot and Max.
• Overbet — a bet bigger than the pot.
• Check-raise — check, then raise after an opponent bets on the same street.
• Continuation bet (c-bet) — a flop bet by the player who raised preflop.
• Donk bet — a bet into the previous street’s aggressor by a player acting before them, instead of checking to them.
• Value bet — a bet you make because worse hands will call it.
• Slow play (trapping) — playing a very strong hand passively to hide its strength.
• Cold call — calling a raise when you have put no chips in voluntarily on that street yet.
• Squeeze — a preflop re-raise after one player has raised and at least one other has called.
• Check behind — to check as the last player to act, which ends the betting on that street.
• Straddle — an optional extra blind posted by the player left of the big blind. A live-game custom; our tables do not use it.

• Royal flush — A-K-Q-J-10 of one suit, the best hand in poker. Odds and examples for every hand are in hand rankings.
• Straight flush — five cards in a row of one suit.
• Four of a kind (quads) — four cards of one rank.
• Full house (boat) — three of a kind plus a pair, named “kings full of sevens” and so on.
• Flush — five cards of one suit.
• Straight — five cards in a row of mixed suits.
• Three of a kind — three cards of one rank. Our tables use this name for both a set and trips.
• Set — three of a kind made with a pocket pair and one matching board card. Well hidden, so it often wins big pots.
• Trips — three of a kind made with one card in hand and a pair on the board. Easier to spot, and the kicker matters more.
• Two pair — two different pairs plus a kicker.
• Pair — two cards of one rank.
• High card — no combination at all; the hand is read from its top card down.
• Kicker — the side card that breaks a tie between equal combinations. More in kicker and split pots.
• Wheel — the straight 5-4-3-2-A, the lowest one: the ace plays as a one.
• Broadway — the straight A-K-Q-J-10; also any card from ten to ace (“broadway cards”).
• Nuts — the best possible hand on the current board. “Second nuts” is the next best.
• Pocket pair — two hole cards of the same rank, like 7♠ 7♦.
• Overpair — a pocket pair higher than every card on the board.
• Top pair — a pair made with the highest card on the board.
• Suited / offsuit — hole cards of the same suit or of different suits; written AKs and AKo.
• Connectors — hole cards next to each other in rank, like 9-8; suited connectors are the same plus one suit. A gapper has one rank missing, like 9-7.
• Big Slick — ace-king in the hole. Pocket aces are “pocket rockets”, kings “cowboys”, queens “ladies”.
• Counterfeit — when the board duplicates part of your hand so it loses value: 8-7 on 8-7-3 is two pair, but after K-K comes it is kings and eights, and any 8 with a better kicker wins.
• Play the board — your best five cards are all on the board, so you can at best split.
• Split pot (chop) — equal hands divide the pot.
• Odd chip — the chip left over when a pot does not divide evenly. At our tables it goes to the first winner clockwise from the button.

• Out — an unseen card that would give you the best hand. A flush draw has nine outs. All of it in outs and pot odds.
• Draw — a hand that needs more cards to become strong; “drawing dead” means no card can save it.
• Flush draw — four cards of one suit, waiting for a fifth.
• Open-ended straight draw — four cards in a row that complete at either end, like 9-8-7-6: eight outs.
• Gutshot — a straight draw missing one inside card, like 9-8-6-5 needing a seven: four outs.
• Backdoor draw — a draw that needs both the turn and the river, such as three hearts on the flop.
• Combo draw — two draws at once, for example a flush draw plus a straight draw, with 12 to 15 outs.
• Pot odds — the price of a call compared with what you can win. Calling 50 into a pot of 150 means risking 50 to win 200: you need to win at least 25% of the time.
• Implied odds — the extra chips you expect to win on later streets if your draw comes in.
• Equity — your share of the pot on average if the hand were played out many times. Check yours with the odds calculator.
• EV (expected value) — what a decision wins or loses on average over many repetitions.
• Rule of 2 and 4 — a quick estimate: outs × 4 for two cards to come, outs × 2 for one. Nine outs on the flop give about 36% (exactly 35.0%).
• Coin flip (race) — a pair against two higher cards, close to 50/50: Q-Q against A-K is 57% to 43%.
• Dominated hand — a hand that shares a card with a stronger one, like A-Q against A-K: only 26% equity.
• Runner-runner — a hand completed by both the turn and the river.
• Variance — the swings of luck around your expected result. Even correct play loses for days at a time.

• Position — your seat relative to the button. Acting later means seeing what others do first, which is an advantage. Diagrams in positions.
• In position / out of position — acting after or before your opponent on the flop, turn and river.
• Early position (UTG) — the first seats to act preflop. UTG, “under the gun”, is the seat right after the big blind.
• Middle position — the seats between early position and the cutoff; the last of them is the hijack.
• Cutoff — the seat to the right of the button, second-best position at the table.
• Late position — the cutoff and the button, where you can play the widest range of hands.

• Tight / loose — playing few hands or many.
• Aggressive / passive — betting and raising, or mostly checking and calling.
• TAG (tight-aggressive) — few hands, played hard; the standard winning style for beginners.
• LAG (loose-aggressive) — many hands, lots of pressure. Hard to play well.
• Nit — a very tight player who waits for premium hands.
• Calling station — a player who calls far too often and rarely folds. Do not bluff them.
• Maniac — a player who bets and raises almost every hand.
• Fish — a weak player who loses chips; the opposite is a shark.
• Reg (regular) — someone who plays the same tables often and usually knows what they are doing.
• Tilt — playing badly out of frustration, usually after a bad beat.
• Tell — a habit that gives away the strength of a hand. Online that means timing and bet sizes; see bluffing.
• Range — the set of hands a player could have, given what they have done so far.
• Read — your guess about an opponent’s hand or habits.
• Image — how the table sees you: if you have been caught bluffing, expect more calls.

• Bluff — a bet or raise with a weak hand to make better hands fold.
• Semi-bluff — a bluff with a draw: if they call, you can still hit.
• Hero call — a call with a modest hand because you believe the opponent is bluffing.
• Float — calling a bet with little, planning to take the pot later with a bet.
• Bad beat — losing with a hand that was a big favourite until the last card.
• Cooler — two very strong hands collide, so big losses are unavoidable: kings against aces, a set against a higher set.
• Suckout — winning with the worse hand thanks to a lucky card.
• Slow roll — making a beaten opponent wait before you show the winning hand. Rude everywhere; see etiquette.
• Angle shooting — using the rules’ grey areas to mislead opponents, short of outright cheating.
• Collusion — players secretly working together against the others at the table. Forbidden in our terms of use.
• Chip dumping — losing chips to another player on purpose. A form of collusion.
• GG, NH, GL, TY — chat shorthand for “good game”, “nice hand”, “good luck”, “thank you”.
• Bankroll — the total you set aside for poker. Ours is in debens, which are free and cannot be cashed out.