Poker Glossary

Face or picture cards (Jack, Queen and King).

Two cards of the same face or number value.

To fold.

A style of play that is characterized by a reluctance to bet and raise.

To call a bet when the bettor is representing a hand that you cannot beat but the pot is sufficiently large to justify a call. For example, "he played it exactly like he made the flush, but I had top-set so I paid him off".

Face cards (Jack, Queen and King).

To raise or re-raise another player's bet.

In flop games when your best five card hand is all five of the community cards.

A variation of Texas Hold'em, where players receive three cards each and are forced to discard one of them after the flop is dealt, thus reverting to Hold'em.

The down cards or hole cards.

A starting hand with two cards of the same rank, making a pair.

Pocket Aces.

A face not showing any emotion or change in expression.

A poker tournament is a tournament at which the winners are decided by playing poker, usually a particular style of poker.

Contrast this to a ring game, where the game is ongoing with no formal structure to determine a single winner in a certain length of time.

Where you sit at the poker table. The dealer has the best position because he bets last and therefore has a better understanding of what other people have in their hand. The small blindhas the worst position because he bets first.

A "position bet" is a bet made more on the strength of one's position at the table than on the strength of one's hand.

When you post a bet, youplace your chips in the pot. (You must post the Blinds.)

The money or chips in the center of a table that players try to win.

A state where you are essentially forced to call the rest of your stack because of the size of the pot and your remaining chips.

A version of poker in which a player may bet up to the amount of money in the pot whenever it is his turn to act.

A mathematical solution used to calculate whether or not a particular situation is worth a call. It is 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 should call.

The stage of a hold'em game when you have two cards in your hand and there are no cards on the board yet

Prop is short for proposition player. This is someone who is paid by the house to play poker. However, the player plays with his own money; the house merely pays him or her an hourly wage to play poker in order to keep the games going. The difference between a prop and a shill is that a shill plays poker with the house money. Props are generally considered okay and a decent way to earn a few extra dollars. However, shills are looked down upon, and it is unheard of for a casino to employ shills.

(1) To keep your hand or a chip on your cards. This prevents them from being fouled by a discarded hand, or accidentally "mucked" by the dealer. (2) To protect a hand is to bet/raise in an effort to make more people fold, thus reducing the chances of anyone outdrawing you.

(1)When the dealer pushes the chips to the winning player at the end of a hand. (2)When dealers rotate to other tables. (3) To push someone out of a pot.

To mentally assign a hand to a player for thepurposes of playing out your hand. Example: "He raised on the flop, but I put him on a draw, so I re-raised and then bet the turn."