Everything You Need To Know About Poker Lingo: Part 1

We already talked about what WTSD and WWSF mean in poker language. However, there are many more other acronyms and poker slang terms that you should be aware of while attending the tables.

While you might be familiar with the rules and strategies of poker, once you dig into the tables and contact with other players there might be some words and acronyms that you are unfamiliar with.

Beginner players might be slightly overwhelmed, as the ‘poker dinosaurs‘ seem to have developed a language of their own.

Here is an example, quoted by Pokerology of someone talking to a friend about a poker hand. Do you understand anything that is going on?

“I had pocket rockets and the flop comes Ace, two rags, rainbow giving me top set. Can you believe that donkey, Harry, goes runner, runner and cracks my set with his 23-to-1 shot flush draw? It’s just like him; he’s such a calling station”.

Even as someone who has been attending the tables for a while you might still be a bit confused with the aforementioned paragraph. There are some terms that are so specific that we need to go through them in detail.

What Poker Terms You Must Know?

So, to avoid any further lack of knowledge about poker acronyms we piled up a short glossary on the most used poker table terms. You can always come back here whenever you feel lost.

This is the first in a series of 3 articles concerning poker glossary terms.

Bookmark this article and you can mingle in a conversation with poker pros without them understanding you are a beginner.

All-in

We start with a pretty easy one that most players should know if they played poker at least once. All-in is to put all your chips in the table: the ultimate risk.

You don’t participate in any more bets if you go all-in and a side pot is created for the other players. The player who went all-in plays for the main pot. This is a move that requires extreme confidence in your hand.

Anaconda

This is a variation of poker. Each player has seven cards and they have to pass a total of three cards to the neighbors on the left or right.

Ante

The ‘ante’ is a mandatory bet. All the players have to post the bet before the deal.

If a tournament has an ante amount, players from left to right in the table should seed the pot with a number that is predetermined before.

Angle Shoot

What is angle shooting? It’s something that you should avoid at the tables, as it goes against the spirit of the game. It’s not actually cheating, because an angle shooter tries to bend the rules using loopholes, but it’s unethical.

An angle shooter tries to play using misinterpretation of the rules, for example faking that he will call or fold. Nobody likes an angle shooter.

Back Door

It is also known as a runner-runner. A back door means you can make a hand with the cards on the turn and the river (the turn is the fourth card turned and the river is the last).

Usually, this is an unintentionally lucky hand, that’s why the name back door (as a metaphor for a shortcut).

Bad Beat

This was covered already in one of Isabelle Mercier’s chronicles on CoinPoker’s blog.

Bad Beat is a poker term for a hand in which a player with very strong cards loses to an opponent who is statistically unlikely to win, but hits a lucky card (or two) and unexpectedly takes the pot.

The losing player is then said to have suffered a “bad beat”.

Bankroll

Simply the money that a player has reserved to play poker with. In CoinPoker’s terms, it means the CHP tokens you have reserved to go into the tables.

Big Slick

It’s another name for a starting hand with an Ace and a King. It’s the 5th best starting hand in poker, behind AA, KK, QQ, and JJ.

Blinds

These are the obligatory bets for the players on the left of the dealer. The player on the immediate left is in charge of the small blind (normally half the minimum bet) and the one on his left takes the big blind (minimum bet).

Bluff

A term that has already left the realms of poker and is used in many other games. It means when a player makes the others at the table believe that his hand is better than what it actually is.

In poker, the player who bluffs hopes that by raising the stakes it passes the message that he/she has a strong hand, forcing the opponents to fold.

Buy-In

It’s the number of chips that a player initially has at the beginning of a game. Once he/she is left without chips, if the tournament allows it they can purchase more chips. Some tournaments limit the number of buy-ins per player, others don’t.

Call

A very basic term of the game that means to match a bet or a raise. If nobody calls or raises, the player who has bet higher wins the pot.

Calling Station

Not a good thing to be known for at the poker table as it is a derogatory term. It means a player who calls too much. If this strategy sometimes backfires, others the ‘calling station’ may hit long-shot hands creating frustration from the other players.

Call The Clock

It’s an expression that is not often used online, because in online games there is a timer that runs out if a player takes too much time. In physical casinos, however, a player can call the clock requesting the dealer to give 60 seconds to the opponent to make a decision.

Check

You don’t ask for the check like in a restaurant: at the poker table, this means something else. To check is to not make any decision, passing the decision to the left player. It’s only possible if nobody has made a bet or raised.

Combos

This refers to the number of combinations that a player can expect, added to the holding cards.

Figuring out the combos is a very important mental exercise as a poker player, as it helps to understand if you should fold, match a bet or raise.

Dead Hand

When some infraction happened at the table, making the whole hand unplayable.

This can happen after a player called the clock or the timer ran out (as in online poker): the hand is unplayable and therefore dead. It can also happen if a player folds and then calls, a move that would be deemed illegal if reported to the dealer.

Dead Man’s Hand

Completely different from the previous one, this is a superstition among poker players that a pair of aces and a pair of eights is a sign of bad luck. However, despite some players avoiding it, it’s possible to win with this hand.

Double Barrel

What is a double-barrel? It happens when a player who takes the lead on the flop decides to make a bet on the turn.

A double barrel bet means that you follow up your previously called bet with another bet on the next street (which you see). A triple barrel is leading betting on three consecutive betting rounds.

It’s a power move that might indicate bluff or not, as the player indicates that he has a very strong hand, most times forcing the ones with poor hands to fold.

Flop

It’s the first 3 cards that are put on the table. Statistically speaking a player is more likely to win the game if he/she has a good hand during the flop and before the turn (fourth card).

Final Thoughts

Here you have some of the best terms in poker lingo from A to F. Wait for the sequel where we will continue to reveal some glossary terms for poker, so you can be aware of all the terms involved.

Most words and expressions you will learn as you play, so don’t be afraid if you enter a poker table and hear gibberish from the most experienced players. Sometimes it means nothing and eventually you will catch up with them.

Now that you already know some of the poker lingo, head to CoinPoker’s tables and join the other players!

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