Making Sense Out of the Poker Jargon Heard Around the Table
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.
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.
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, also called the pot, consists of chips which have been placed by all the players of the game and makes up the prize and purpose of the game. Each player around the player has bought chips which are his \”stack.\” The bank roll is the total of the money accessible to the players for that game. If the player bets his whole stack, he is said to be all-in, and you will normally observe a player pushing his stack toward the table\’s center. \”Push\” is an implication of an all-in bet. A game that continues post a player\’s all-in, the bank becomes two parts, the main pot and the side pot. Sensible, yes?
If at the conclusion of the game (i.e., the river) two or more players make equal bets, a showdown occurs. Whichever player has the strongest 5-card combination, or hand, wins. A hand is rated thusly, from highest to lowest: royal flush, straight flush, quad (four of a kind), full-house, flush, straight, three of a kind (aka a set should a third card be added to your pocket pair), two pairs, aka a doper, the basic pair (an overpair refers to a pair being stronger than the strongest single card on the table); in a flop, the cards are considered top, middle, and small pairs and are rated accordingly; and lastly (and most lowly) comes the high card. If this high card is higher than any card on the table it is referred to as an overcard. Bear with me, it\’s almost over….
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.\”
In the case of even hands, what makes the difference is the highest card of the five best cards, but one which is not part of any of the above combinations. This card is called the kicker. A split bank occurs when players have similar combinations.
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