Understanding The Language At The Poker 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.
To check – to place no bet if no bets were placed before you; to make the first bet is “to bet” (in no-limit poker special terms refer to different types of bets: continuation bet – a standard bet approximately the size of the bank, pot-bet – a bet approximately the size of the bank, and overbet – a bet significantly larger than the bank); to raise another player’s bet (if the bet has already been raised, than your raise may be called a re-raise or a 3-bet; if you were preceded by a re-raise, than the fourth allowed bet is called a cap and player is said to “cap the betting”).
The bank is interchangeable with the pot and consists of chips which have been put in by the players and make up the major prize (and major purpose) of the game. The “stack” is each player’s pile of chips. The bankroll is the total sum of the money available to a player in any one game. A player goes “all-in” should he bet his whole stack. When a player does go all-in, he can usually be seen pushing his chips toward the table’s center. By the way, “push” itself implies an all-in bet. A game continuing on after an all-in requires the bank to be divided into two parts: the main pot and the side pot.
When at the end of the game (that is, the river) two or more players have equal bets, a showdown takes place. That player wins the showdown who has the strongest 5-card combination, or hand. Hands are rated as follows (from strongest to weakest): royal flush, straight flush, quad (also four of a kind), full-house, flush, straight, three of a kind – also a set (when a third card is added to your pocket pair) or trips (when your pocket card is combined with a pair), two pairs or doper, pair (an overpair is a pair which is stronger than the strongest single card on the table; in a flop, cards are rated as top, middle, and small pairs), and finally the high card (a card higher than the highest card on the table is called an overcard).
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.
The author of this article plays online poker and gets Rakeback at Poker Nordica where they offer the highest Poker Nordica Rakeback.
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