Everything You Need To Know About Poker Lingo: Part 2

The first part of our poker lingo series of articles covered the likes of ante, bad beat, and flop. In this second article, we will continue to go through the alphabet, up to M, to share more poker-related words that you need to know about.

Learning the most commonly used words in this card game will help you to feel more confident when playing. There is no need to feel confused and out of your depth when you hear experienced players using jargon.

If you’ve already read our first article, you should be feeling ready to learn some more words and expand your poker knowledge even further.

What Are The Most Important Poker Terms?

We can’t gather together every single poker term in just three articles, so we have chosen the most important words so that you can keep coming back whenever you feel like it to improve your knowledge.

Bookmark our poker glossary and you will always know where to head to when you need to understand anything that you read or hear at the poker table.

We finished the first part of this series with ‘flop’, so let’s get going again with an easy one.

Flush

Most people already know that a flush is a strong poker hand where there are five cards all from the same suit. There are a few types of flush hands to know.

A flush is when you have five cards of the same suit but these are not necessarily in order.

A royal flush contains 10, J, Q, K, and A of the same suit, making it the strongest possible hand in poker. A straight flush is the second best hand, where the cards are in a sequence such as 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Fold

Folding is the action of giving up on your current hand and leaving the game. This is typically done when you think that your hand isn’t good enough to win and you decide not to risk putting any more money into the game.

You can show that you want to fold by placing your cards face down with the other discarded cards, or else by handing them to the dealer. Once you have folded, there is no way of getting back in to play the rest of the hand, so it is a decision to take after some careful thought.

Four of a Kind

Another of the strongest poker hands is four of a kind. This is where four of your five cards have the same value. This is the third strongest type of card combination in poker, behind a royal flush and a straight flush.

If two players have four of a kind, the winner is the one with the highest card in their set of 4, meaning that 10, 9, 8, 7 beats 6, 5, 4, 3. If two players have the same values in their group of cards, the best hand is the one with the highest-value kicker, which is the fifth card.

Full House

Another strong hand, this is where you have three of a kind together with a pair. It comes after four of a kind as the fourth best combination of cards you can get in Poker. A full house could be made up of three 7s plus a couple of 10s, or whatever other combination gives you a set of three and two other matching cards.

You might also see it called a full boat. To decide which full house wins when there is more than one around the table, we need to look to see the highest-ranked trio of cards. If this doesn’t help us declare a winner, we need to go by the value of the pair. 

Gutshot

Also known as an inside straight draw, a gutshot is when you are just one card away from completing a straight flush. You have four of the cards you need from your pocket cards and the flop, such as 2, 3, 5, 6.

Since the suit of the card doesn’t matter, there are four cards that could complete the straight in this example above – any of the 4s, no matter the suit. A gunshot is more difficult to complete than an open-ended straight, where you can complete it with a card from either end (like 3, 4, 5, 6 which needs either a 2 or a 7).

Hand

A hand is simply the name used for the set of five cards that each player holds. This is what you need to work with as you attempt to put together one of the strong combinations that we have looked at elsewhere in this poker glossary.

Over 2.5 million different combinations of hands can be dealt from a 52-card deck of cards.

Heads-Up

This term refers to a game that is played between just two people. It is something that can occur in several different situations, with one of the most common being at tournaments where two players face each other to see who progresses or who claims the top prize.

Heads-up poker can also occur when just a couple of players are left from a bigger game that has broken up, or when the first players to arrive start playing while they wait for others to get there. This type of poker is often played more aggressively, as each player knows that there is a high chance that they have a winning hand. 

High Card

The high card is the highest-value card that you have in your hand, which may be enough for you to win, even if you have five totally different cards that don’t give you any sort of combination such as a straight or a flush.

In these cases, your hand may be considered quite poor, but if the other players all have similar poor hands, you may still be able to win just by having a stronger high card. If your high card is better than what other players have, you will win.

A high card is the lowest possible winning hand in poker.

Hole Cards

These are the cards that are given to you face-down by the dealer. Only you can see these cards and they give you the starting point for building a strong hand.

The number of hole cards dealt depends upon the exact variant of poker you are playing. For instance, in Texas Hold’em you get 2 hole cards, while in Omaha there are 4 hole cards given.

Implied Odds

You will want to work out how much you could win in a game if you receive the right cards. This is where the implied odds come into play, as you calculate whether it is worthwhile calling.

There is no way of doing this exactly, as there are so many factors to take into account. However, you will find plenty of online guides telling you how to work out the implied odds as accurately as possible in just a few steps.

Kicker

This is the card that completes your hand but isn’t part of a combination, so it is the odd one out when you have four of a kind or two pairs.

It is important in the situation where you and another player have the same hand, as this will be the card that determines who wins. Let’s imagine that you each have the same four of a kind, but you also have an ace and your rival has a 10. In that case, you win. 

Late Position

If you are in a late position within a game, you are in a position where your turn to act comes after the majority of the other players have had theirs. It typically refers to the last two people at the table, known as the cut-off and the button.

This may be an advantageous position to be in, as it lets you see what everyone else has done before it’s your turn to swing into action. The first players to have to take action on a betting round are said to be in an early position, while the rest are in a middle position.

Live Blind

This is the bet that you are obliged to make before any of the cards have been dealt. The player who makes this wager can then raise, even if no one else has raised before them. It is known as the live blind for this reason, compared to the dead blind where the player who makes it doesn’t have the option of raising. You will come across live blinds more often, but it is still important to know the difference between these two approaches

Muck

The pile of discarded and burned cards is known as the muck. If you fold, then you may hear the word mucking used, as you are adding your cards to the muck.

Mucking is sometimes used as a term to describe some form of cheating by hiding cards, but this is much more common in other card games than it is in poker.

Final Thoughts

We hope that this second part of the poker lingo glossary helps you to understand the game better and enjoy it more. In the next part, our glossary will reach the end of the alphabet, so be sure to look out for it.

Of course, there are some less-common words and phrases that you will come across as you play. However, what we have covered here are the most useful terms that we think will help you to get to grips with poker.

You should now feel confident enough to try one of CoinPoker’s tables and start playing for real!

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