Poker Terminology
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I
Ignorant End: The low end straight.
Implied Odds: The amount of money you expect to win if you make your hand versus the amount of money it will cost you to continue playing.
In: A player is "in" if he or she has called all bets.
In the Air: When the tournament director instructs the dealers to get the cards in the air, it means to start dealing.
In The Dark: To check or bet blind, without looking at your cards.
Inside Straight: Four cards requiring one in the middle to fill a straight.
Insurance: Selling the actual outcome of the hand for its mathematical equity.
Isolate: To raise with the intention of reaching a heads up between yourself and a single other player.
J
Jackpot Poker: A form of poker in which the cardroom offers a jackpot for particularly bad beats. Typically you must have aces full or better.
Jacks Or Better: A form of draw poker in which a player needs at least a pair of Jacks to start the betting.
Jam: To bet or raise the maximum.
Jammed Pot: The pot has been raised the maximum number of times, and may also be multi-way.
Joker: The fifty-third card in the deck, used as a wild card or a bug.
K
Kansas City Lowball: A form of lowball poker played for a deuce to seven low.
Keep Honest: To call an opponent on the river, even though you believe he has a better hand than you do.
Key Card: The one card that will make your hand.
Key Hand: In a tournament, the hand that proves to be a turning point, for better or worse.
Kibitzer: A non-playing spectator; a railbird.
Kick It: To raise.
Kicker: The highest unpaired side card.
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.
Knave: A Jack.
L
Late Position: A position on a round of betting in which you act after most of the other players have acted.
Lay Down: To reveal one's hand in a showdown.
Lay Down Your Hand: To fold.
Lay The Odds: To wager more money on a proposition than you hope to win.
Lead: To be the first to enter the pot after the blind.
Leak: To lose back part or all of one's winnings through other gambling habits.
Legitimate Hand: A strong hand that is not a bluff.
Limit Poker: A game with fixed minimum and maximum betting intervals.
Limp In: To enter the round by calling a bet rather than raising.
Limper: A player who enters the pot for the minimum bet.
Live Blind: When the player is allowed to raise even if no one else raises first; straddle.
Live Card: In stud games, a card that has not yet been seen in an opponent's hand and is presumed likely to be still in play.
Live Hand: A hand that is still eligible to win the pot.
Live One: An inexperienced, bad or loose player who apparently has plenty of money to lose; a rich sucker.
Lock: A hand that cannot lose; a cinch hand.
Long Odds: The odds for an event that has a relatively small chance of occurring.
Look: To call the final bet (before the showdown).
Loose: Playing more hands than the norm.
Loose Game: A game with a lot of players in most pots.
Lowball: A form of poker in which the lowest hand wins.
M
Main Pot: When a player goes all-in, that player is only eligible to win the main pot - the pot consisting of the bets they were able to match. Additional bets are placed in a side pot and are contested among the remaining players.
Make: To make the deck is to shuffle.
Make A Move: To try a bluff.
Maniac: A very aggressive player who plays hands that more conservative players would probably not consider.
Mark: A sucker.
Marker: An IOU.
Mechanic: A cheat who manipulates the deck.
Meet: To call.
Middle Pair: In flop games, a middle pair is made by pairing with the middle card on the flop.
Middle Position: A position on a round of betting somewhere in the middle.
Miss: To be unable to make your drawing hand when the final cards are dealt.
Monster: A hand that is almost certain to win.
Move In: To go all-in.
Muck: To discard a hand; also the discard pile in which all cards are dead.
POKER RULES
Texas Holdem is a Poker game in which players with fully or partially-concealed cards make wagers into a communal pot during the course of a hand, after which the pot is awarded to the player or players with the best combination of cards... read more »
COMMUNITY POKER
Community card poker is a type or variant of poker that uses cards that are dealt face up to the center of the table and shared by all players. In these games, each player is dealt privately an incomplete hand ("hole cards")... read more »
WSOP
The original World Series of Poker was started by Tom Morehead of the Riverside establishment in Reno and was an invitational event. The set of tournaments the World Series of Poker (WSOP) would evolve to was the brainchild of Las Vegas legend... read more »
WPT
The World Poker Tour is a collection of poker tournaments featuring most of the world's professional players. The tour had its debut season in the latter part of 2002 and early part of 2003, climaxing with the WPT Championship in April 2003 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada... read more »
ETIQUETTE
In poker play, there seems to be a slightly different set of rules existing across every casino... read more »
DICTIONARY
Consult our online poker dictionary to enhance your knowledge about common poker terms... read more »
CHIPS
These serve as the currency of the game. Most games are played with chips or coin-shaped tokens of uniform size and weight... read more »