The language of the poker table can be thoroughly confusing. Full of jumbled jargon and vexing verbs, poker terms can leave a newcomer feeling flummoxed. Ridiculous nicknames for hands and strange, technical terminology can leave a beginner baffled. If you’re dipping your toe into the poker pond for the first time, cast a glance at our series on “Poker Patter”, the first of which covers some of the more basic, but still vitally important, poker terminology.
Raise: You may think this is obvious, but so many people get this wrong. A raise is not the same as a bet. The first person to put chips into an unraised pot is making a bet. If anyone increases the stakes behind them, that is a raise.
Playing The Board: If your two hole cards can’t improve on the hand made by the five board cards in Texas Hold’em, then you are said to be “playing the board”. Not a good situation.
Draw: Two meanings here, depending on context. It is a style of poker where cards are exchanged, as in “five card draw”, or it refers to an unmade hand. Someone holding four to a flush would have a “drawing hand”, or a “draw”.
Ring Game: A poker game that isn’t in a tournament format. A cash game.
Cold Call: Calling a bet is when you pay the same amount as your opponent to continue playing, but a Cold Call is more than that, as it describes a call of a bet and a raise. If a player bets a flop and an opponent raises, someone calling behind them would be “calling cold”.
On The Come / Come Hand: This is simply another way of referring to a draw. If a player had four diamonds and is looking for another to make a flush, he has a “come hand” and if he bets out, he’s “betting on the come”.
Rag: Simply a term for a poor card, or one unimportant in the recalling of a poker hand. For example: “I flopped the nuts and the turn and river were rags, so I won the hand”.
Dominated: This is when two players share a card, but one hand is stronger than the other. Let’s say two players are all-in pre-flop. Player A has QJ and player B has QT. Player B is “dominated”, as only one card is live.
Muck: The “muck” is the pile of dead cards by the dealer. If a player tosses his cards into the muck, they too become dead. This is known as “mucking”.
Under The Gun: The player first to act after the blinds have been posted.
Cut-Off /Cutoff: The seat to the right of the button.
Hopefully, that will have cleared a few things up and some of the more common poker terms will now seem familiar. Next week, we’ll take a look at hand nicknames.
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