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Texas Hold’em glossary
All-in — Betting every chip you have. No further bets can touch you, and you'll see all remaining cards.
Bankroll — The total money set aside for poker, separate from what's on the table tonight.
Big blind / small blind — The two forced bets posted before cards are dealt, rotating each hand. They're why you can't fold forever and break even.
Blocker — A card in your hand that makes certain strong hands impossible for your opponent, because you're holding a card those hands need.
Bluff — Betting a hand that would lose at showdown, to make better hands fold.
Board — The five shared face-up cards in the middle.
Bottom pair — Pairing the lowest card on the board. Almost never a hand to build a pot with.
Call — Matching the current bet to stay in.
Calling station — A player who calls nearly everything and rarely folds. Never bluff them; value bet them big.
Check — Betting nothing while staying in. Only possible when nobody has bet yet this round.
Connectors — Two hole cards of adjacent rank, like 9-8. Suited connectors share a suit as well, which is what puts them on the starting-hands chart.
Cutoff — The seat directly before the button. Second-best seat.
Dealer — Two meanings. The player holding the button, who acts last after the flop. Also the person physically dealing, who is not in the hand at all in a casino or club game.
Deep stack — More than about 30 big blinds. Enough room to call, see a flop, and still have chips to work with afterwards.
Draw — A hand that's incomplete now but becomes strong if the right card arrives.
Equity — Your mathematical share of the pot: the percentage of the time your hand wins if the hand is played to the end. A hand with 30% equity in a $100 pot is "worth" $30.
Flop — The first three board cards, dealt together, and the betting round after them.
Fold — Quitting the hand, surrendering whatever you've already put in.
Group A, B, C — The three bands of starting hands on the starting-hands chart, before any community cards exist. Group A is premium (A-A down to A-K), Group B strong, Group C speculative. Do not confuse these with Tiers, which describe finished hands.
Hijack — The seat two to the right of the button, one before the cutoff. Late-ish position: better than middle, not as good as the cutoff or button.
Hole cards — Your two private face-down cards.
Implied odds — Money you can reasonably expect to win on later rounds if your draw hits, beyond what's in the pot right now. What justifies close calls with hidden draws and deep stacks.
Key card — The specific card required to make the best hand a board allows. If you hold it, nobody has the nuts.
Kicker — Your side card, breaking ties between matching pairs. A-K versus A-8 on an ace-high board: both have a pair of aces; the King outranks the 8 and takes the pot.
Laddered — A board with three cards inside a five-rank window, which is the minimum for a straight to exist.
Middle pair — Pairing the middle card on the board. Better than bottom pair, well short of top pair.
Nuts — The best hand the board makes available to anyone. The second nuts is the next-best, and is the most expensive hand in poker to hold.
Orbit — One full circuit of the button around the table. You pay one small blind and one big blind per orbit, so a short table bills you far more often than a full one.
Outs — The specific cards left in the deck that turn your losing hand into a winner. Flush draw: 9. Open-ended straight draw: 8. One-gap straight draw: only 4.
Overpair — A pocket pair higher than every card on the board. Holding Q-Q on a board of 9-6-2.
Paired board — A board showing two or more cards of the same rank, which is the only way full houses and four of a kind become possible.
Playing the board — When the five community cards make a better hand than anything your hole cards add. Everyone in the pot has the same hand and the pot splits.
Pocket pair — Two hole cards of the same rank, like 5♣5♦.
Position — Where you sit relative to the button, which sets when you act. Early acts first (bad); late acts last (good).
Pot — All chips wagered so far. Winner takes it.
Preflop — The first betting round, before any board cards.
Rainbow — A board with no two cards of the same suit, meaning no flush can develop for at least two more cards.
Raise — Increasing the bet, forcing others to match the new total or fold.
Rake — The house's cut of pots (or of a tournament entry). At small stakes, often the difference between winning and losing play.
Range — The complete set of hands a player could plausibly hold given how they have played. Your opponent cannot see your cards; they see your range.
River — The fifth and final board card, and the last betting round.
Semi-bluff — Betting a currently losing hand that has real outs. You win if they fold now or if you improve later — two paths from one bet.
Set — Three of a kind built from your pocket pair plus one matching board card. Hidden, and therefore the biggest money-winner in the game.
Short stack — Fewer than about 10 big blinds. At this depth your only two moves are all in and fold.
Showdown — Revealing hands after the final betting round to decide the winner.
Showdown value — A hand strong enough that it might win by simply checking and being revealed — typically a modest pair. Hands with showdown value check; they don't bluff.
Stack — The chips you have in front of you. In a tournament, always count it in big blinds rather than dollars, because the blinds keep rising.
Stealing the blinds — Raising from a late seat when everyone's folded, aiming to win the forced bets without a fight.
Suited — Both hole cards share one suit (9♥8♥), adding flush potential. Marked with a small s, as in 9-8s. Of a board, "suited" is shorthand for three or more cards of one suit.
Tier 1, 2, 3 — The three bands of finished hands on the hand-rankings ladder, grouped by how often they happen. Tier 1 (two pair and below) is about 85% of hands, Tier 2 (three of a kind up to a full house) about 15%, Tier 3 (four of a kind and straight flushes) about 0.2%. Do not confuse these with Groups, which describe starting hands.
Tilt — Emotionally scrambled play after a loss. Tilted players call more and fold less — value bet them, never bluff them.
Top pair — Pairing the highest card on the board with one of your hole cards.
Turn — The fourth board card and its betting round.
Value bet — Betting a strong hand specifically because worse hands will pay you by calling. The opposite of a bluff.
Wheel — The straight A-2-3-4-5, in which the ace plays low. Easy to miss on boards showing 5-4-3 or similar.