The language of poker can seem like a foreign one, an English dialect unheard anywhere else but at a poker table. To the uninitiated, it seems totally undecipherable, but listen carefully and learn a few of the terms set out here, and you will begin to understand the jargon.
In any poker street, the player has just a few decisions to make: to fold, to answer a bet, or to call. Here is where it gets a little hairy, in a call, which is relative to an obligatory bet on the preflop, also termed a limp or limp in, in which the player is called a limper, and should a player call a raise while not having placed his own bet, he has made what is termed a cold call. Got it?
Next comes the check – this is the action of not placing a bet where no bets were previously placed. To make the first bet is known as “to bet,” except in no-limit poker where unique terms apply to different sorts of bets: continuation bet – a common bet that is about the same size as the bank; the pot-bet, which is the same as the continuation bet, and the overbet – a bet much larger than the bank. If the player wishes to raise another player’s bet, it is simply called a raise unless the bet has been raised by another player before him, then the bet is called a re-raise or a 3-bet. If a bet was placed before your re-raise, then the fourth bet allowed is referred to as a cap and the player has “capped 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 monster is a strong hand, usually from full-house and upwards. The strongest current hand is the nuts. A player with the strongest current hand is said to have 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 True Poker. To sign up for a Rakeback account of your own visit Rakeback Solution.