Streets and table
- Preflop
- The first betting round, with your two private cards (hole cards) and before any community card is dealt.
- Flop
- The first three community cards, dealt at once. Second betting round.
- Turn
- The fourth community card. Third betting round.
- River
- The fifth and last community card. Last betting round before the showdown.
- Showdown
- The final moment when the players still in the hand show their cards and the best one wins.
- Board
- The community cards on the table.
- Hole cards
- Your two private cards.
- Pot
- The chips accumulated in the hand, which go to the winner.
- Blinds
- Forced bets before the deal: the small blind (SB) and the big blind (BB). The table's blinds set the stakes (e.g. NL2 = $0.01/$0.02).
- bb
- Big blind. In cash games it's the unit for measuring stacks and winnings (100 bb = standard stack).
- Stack
- The chips a player has in front of them.
- Effective stack
- The smallest of the stacks among the players involved: the most that can be won or lost in the hand.
- Rake
- The fee the site takes from each pot. It makes some marginal hands unprofitable.
- 6-max
- A table of up to 6 players. You play more hands and wider ranges than in full ring (9 players).
- Full ring (9-max)
- A 9-player table. With more opponents left to act behind you, you open tighter, especially from early position, and 3-bets tend to be stronger.
- NL
- No Limit: you can bet your whole stack at any time.
Positions
- Position
- Your seat relative to the button. Acting last (in position, IP) is a big advantage; acting first (out of position, OOP) is a disadvantage.
- UTG (Under The Gun)
- First to act preflop. The earliest position: tightest range.
- UTG+1 / UTG+2
- In full ring, the two positions that act right after UTG. Still early: tight range.
- LJ (Lojack)
- In full ring, the position before the HJ. It opens like UTG at 6-max: it has the same five players behind it.
- HJ (Hijack)
- Middle position, to the right of the cutoff.
- CO (Cutoff)
- To the right of the button. Late position: you open a wide range.
- BTN (Button)
- Last to act after the flop on every street. The most profitable position.
- SB (Small Blind)
- Acts first postflop: usually loses money in the long run.
- BB (Big Blind)
- Last to act preflop, but out of position afterwards. Almost always loses money; the key is to lose as little as possible.
- EP / MP / LP
- Early, middle and late position.
- IP / OOP
- In position (you act after your opponent) / out of position (you act before).
Actions
- Fold
- Give up the hand by throwing away your cards.
- Check
- Pass without betting when nobody has bet on the street yet.
- Call
- Match your opponent's bet.
- Bet
- The first bet on a street.
- Raise
- Increase a previous bet.
- All-in
- Bet all your chips.
- Limp
- Enter preflop by just calling the big blind instead of raising. If you're the first in, it's called an open-limp and is almost always a mistake in cash games. Full page on Limp
- Open raise / RFI
- Raise First In: being the first to enter the pot, with a raise.
- 3-bet
- A preflop re-raise over an open (the blind counts as the 1st bet and the open as the 2nd). Full page on 3-bet
- 4-bet / 5-bet
- A re-raise over a 3-bet / over a 4-bet.
- Cold call
- Calling a raise without having put money in the hand before (e.g. calling a 3-bet from the BTN).
- Squeeze
- A 3-bet when there's already an open and one or more calls: it takes advantage of the bigger pot.
- Isolation raise (iso)
- Raising after a limp to play alone against the limper, who is usually weak.
- Steal
- An open from the CO, BTN or SB intended to pick up the blinds.
- Check-raise
- Checking and then raising when your opponent bets.
- Donk bet
- Betting out of position into the player who had the initiative on the previous street.
- Overbet
- A bet bigger than the pot.
- Shove / jam
- Going all-in.
Postflop
- Double / triple barrel
- Continuing to bet on the turn / on the turn and river after the c-bet.
- Float
- Calling a bet in position with a weak hand to steal the pot on later streets.
- Probe bet
- Betting the turn out of position when the aggressor didn't c-bet the flop.
- Delayed c-bet
- Checking the flop and betting the turn as the preflop aggressor.
- Value bet
- A bet meant to get called by a worse hand.
- Thin value
- A value bet with a hand only slightly better than your opponent's calling range.
- Bluff
- A bet meant to make a better hand fold.
- Semi-bluff
- A bluff with a draw: if you get called, you can still hit the best hand.
- Bluff catcher
- A hand that only beats bluffs: you call to catch them, not for value.
- Pot control
- Playing a medium hand passively so the pot doesn't get too big.
- Slow play
- Playing a very strong hand passively to disguise it.
- Blocker
- A card of yours that reduces your opponent's strong combinations (e.g. the A♠ on a spade board).
Hands and board
- Suited (s) / offsuit (o)
- Same suit (AKs) / different suits (AKo).
- Pocket pair
- A pair in your hand (e.g. 77).
- Broadway
- Cards from T to A. An A-K-Q-J-T straight is also called broadway.
- Suited connectors
- Consecutive cards of the same suit (e.g. 87s). They play well in multiway, deep pots.
- Gapper
- Cards with a gap between them (e.g. 97s is a one-gapper).
- Kicker
- The side card that decides between hands of the same rank (AK beats AQ with an ace on the board).
- Top pair / overpair
- A pair with the highest card on the board / a pocket pair higher than any card on the board.
- Set / trips
- Three of a kind with a pocket pair (set) or with one of your cards and a pair on the board (trips).
- Draw
- A hand that needs to improve: a flush draw or a straight draw.
- OESD / gutshot
- Open-ended straight draw (8 outs) / inside straight draw (4 outs).
- Nuts
- The best possible hand on that board.
- Cooler
- A spot where you lose a lot with a very strong hand against an even better one: not a mistake.
- Bad beat
- Losing as a big favorite once all the money was already in.
- Dry / wet board
- Dry: few draw combinations (K72 rainbow). Wet: lots of draws (JT9 with two of a suit).
- Rainbow / monotone
- A flop with three different suits / a single suit.
Math
- Outs
- Cards that improve your hand to the one you think is winning.
- Equity
- Your share of the pot according to your chances of winning if it went to showdown.
- Pot odds
- The ratio between what you call and the final pot. If you call 50 into a pot of 100, you need to win 50 / (100 + 50) = 33% of the time.
- Implied odds
- What you expect to win on later streets if you hit your draw.
- EV (expected value)
- What a decision wins or loses on average if it were repeated infinitely.
- Rule of 2 and 4
- Outs × 4 on the flop (two cards to come) or outs × 2 with one card: it approximates your equity.
- Fold equity
- The extra value from the chance that your opponent folds to your bet.
- SPR
- Stack-to-pot ratio: effective stack / pot on the flop. With a low SPR it's easy to go all-in with top pair.
- MDF
- Minimum defense frequency: the least you must defend against a bet so your opponent doesn't win automatically with any bluff.
- Combos
- Card combinations: a pair has 6, a suited hand 4 and an offsuit hand 12 (1,326 in total).
- Variance
- Short-term swings in results due to luck. It takes tens of thousands of hands to know your real winrate.
- bb/100
- Average winnings in big blinds per 100 hands: the standard measure of winrate in cash games. Full page on bb/100
Strategy
- Range
- The set of hands a player takes an action with. You think in ranges, not single hands.
- GTO
- Game Theory Optimal: a balanced strategy that can't be exploited. It's calculated with solvers.
- Exploitative
- Deviating from GTO to take advantage of an opponent's specific mistakes.
- Solver
- A program that calculates the GTO strategy for a spot (e.g. GTO Wizard, PioSolver).
- Polarized range
- Made of very strong hands and bluffs, with no medium hands. Typical when betting big.
- Linear / merged range
- The best hands in order, with no gaps (e.g. a 3-bet with TT+, AQ+, KQs...).
- Capped range
- A range without the strongest hands: your opponent knows you don't have the nuts.
- Initiative
- The advantage of being the last aggressor: you can win the pot by betting even if you miss.
- Range / nut advantage
- Having more overall equity / more very strong hands than your opponent on a board.
- Multiway
- A pot with three or more players. You bluff less and need stronger hands.
- Leak
- A repeated mistake in your game that costs you money in the long run.
- Tilt
- Playing worse out of frustration or emotion after losing (or winning) pots.
- Bankroll
- The money set aside for poker. Common rule in cash games: at least 30-50 buy-ins for your stakes.
Stats (HUD)
- VPIP
- Voluntarily Put money In Pot: % of hands in which you voluntarily put money in preflop. Full page on VPIP
- PFR
- Pre-Flop Raise: % of hands in which you raise preflop. The gap with VPIP shows passivity. Full page on PFR
- ATS
- Attempt To Steal: % of opens from the CO, BTN and SB when it's folded to you.
- WTSD
- Went To ShowDown: % of times you reach showdown after seeing the flop. Full page on WTSD
- Red line / blue line
- Non-showdown winnings (red) and showdown winnings (blue). A very negative red line = not enough aggression.
Player types
- TAG
- Tight-aggressive: few hands, played aggressively. The most common winning profile.
- LAG
- Loose-aggressive: lots of hands and lots of aggression. Profitable but hard to play well.
- Nit
- Extremely tight: plays only premium hands. Easy to read and to steal from.
- Calling station
- Calls almost everything and rarely raises: don't bluff them, value bet them.
- Maniac
- Hyper-aggressive with any hand: widen your calling range against them.
- Fish
- A weak, recreational player.
- Reg
- A regular: a player who's always at the tables, usually with a good level.