Understanding the Language at the Poker Table

• Author: David Patron
• Filed under: Casinos
• Date: Feb 10,2010

Unless properly introduced into the world of poker, you will undoubtedly be under the impression that poker jargon is an English dialect decipherable by the few who speak it.

No matter what the street (how many cards have been dealt = street) a player makes any one of the following decisions: to fold, to answer a bet, and to call. If a player responds to an obligatory bet on a preflop, that bet is known as a limp or limp in, the player himself is referred to as the limper. A player who calls a raise having placed no bet himself, that bet is referred to as a cold call.

To check – to place no bet if no bets were placed before you; to make the first bet is \”to bet\” (in no-limit poker special terms refer to different types of bets: continuation bet – a standard bet approximately the size of the bank, pot-bet – a bet approximately the size of the bank, and overbet – a bet significantly larger than the bank); to raise another player\’s bet (if the bet has already been raised, than your raise may be called a re-raise or a 3-bet; if you were preceded by a re-raise, than the fourth allowed bet is called a cap and player is said to \”cap the betting\”).

The bank or pot are chips which have been placed by the players and which comprise the main prize of the game. The chips of each player at the table are the stack. A bankroll is the overall sum of money available to the player for any given game. If a player bets his entire stack he is said to be all-in. Going all-in, a player is usually seen pushing a stack of chips towards the center of the table. The term \”push\” implies an all-in bet. If the game continues after a player\’s all-in, the bank is split into the main pot and the side pot.

When at the river (end of the game) two players or more have placed equal bets, it is known as a showdown. The winner of the showdown is the player with the strongest 5-card combination (aka hand). Rating the hands from strongest to lowest goes like this: royal flush, straight flush, quad (four of a kind), full-house, flush, straight, three of a kind (a set when a third card is added to a pocket pair), two pairs (a doper), pair or overpair which is stronger than the strongest single card on the table; in the flop, the cards are ranked as top, middle, and small pairs, and winding up the rear is the high card which is the card higher than the highest card on the table and is referred to as the overcard.

A strong hand is referred to as a monster and is usually considered such if it ranks from the full-house on up. The current strongest hand is known as the nuts and the player holding said hand \”has the nuts.\”

Finally, in the event of even hands, the difference is distinguished by the highest rated card of the five best cards, but not one that is part of any of the above rated combinations. And that card is referred to as the kicker. When players have the same combinations, you have what is known as a split bank.

The author is a full time online poker player and makes the majority of his income from his online play and rakeback at Action Poker. To sign up for a Rakeback account of your own visit Rakeback Solution.