Poker: Glossary
Opener: The player who made the first voluntary bet.
Opener Button: A button used to indicate who opened a particular pot in a draw game.
Openers: In jacks-or-better draw, the cards held by the player who opens the pot that show the hand qualifies to be opened. Example: You are first to bet and have a pair of kings; the kings are called your openers.
Option: The choice to raise a bet given to a player with a blind.
Overblind: Also called oversize blind. A blind used in some pots that is bigger than the regular big blind, and usually increases the stakes proportionally.
Pass: Decline to bet. In a pass-and-out game, this differs from a check, because a player who passes must fold. Decline to call a wager, at which point you must discard your hand and have no further interest in the pot.
Pat: Not drawing any cards in a draw game.
Play Behind: Have chips in play that are not in front of you (allowed only when waiting for chips that are already purchased). This differs from table stakes.
Play the Board: Using all five community cards for your hand in Hold’em.
Position: The relation of a player’s seat to the blinds or the button. The order of acting on a betting round or deal.
Pot-Limit: The betting structure of a game in which you are allowed to bet up to the amount of the pot.
Potting Out: Agreeing with another player to take money out of a pot, often to buy food, cigarettes, or drinks, or to make side bets.
Push: When a new dealer replaces an existing dealer at a particular table.
Pushing Bets: The situation in which two or more players make an agreement to return bets to each other when one of them wins a pot in which the other or others play. Also called saving bets.
Raise: To increase the amount of a previous wager. This increase must meet certain specifications, depending on the game, to reopen the betting and count toward a limit on the number of raises allowed.
Reraise: To raise someone’s raise.
Saving Bets: Same as pushing bets.
Scoop: To win both the high and the low portions of a pot in a split-pot game.
Scramble: A facedown mixing of the cards.
Setup: Two suited decks, each with different colored backs, to replace the current decks in a game.
Side Pot: A separate pot formed when one or more players are all in.
Short Buy: A buy-in that is less than the required minimum buy-in.
Showdown: The final act of determining the winner of the pot after all betting has been completed.
Shuffle: The act of mixing the cards before a hand.
Small Blind: In a game with multiple blind bets, the smallest blind.
Splitting Blinds: When no one else has entered the pot, an agreement between the big blind and small blind to each take back their blind bets instead of playing the deal (chopping).
Splitting Openers: In high draw jacks-or-better poker, dividing openers in hopes of making a different type of hand. Example: You open the pot with a pair of aces. One of your aces is a spade, as are the three other cards in the hand. If you throw away the non-spade ace to go for the flush, you announce to the table, "Splitting openers".
Stack: Chips in front of a player.
Straddle: An additional blind bet placed after the forced blinds, usually double the big blind in size or in lowball, a multiple blind game.
Straight: Five cards in consecutive rank.
Straight Flush: Five cards in consecutive rank of the same suit.
Street: Cards dealt on a particular round in stud games. For instance, the fourth card in a player’s hand is often known as fourth street, the sixth card as sixth street, and so on.
String Raise: A bet made in more than one motion, without the declaration of a raise (not allowed).
Stub: The portion of the deck which has not been dealt.
Table Stakes: The amount of money you have on the table. This is the maximum amount that you can lose or that anyone can win from you on any one hand. The requirement that players can wager only the money in front of them at the start of a hand, and can only buy more chips between hands.
Turncard: The fourth street card in Hold'em or Omaha.
Under the Gun: The position that has to act first in a round of betting.
Upcards: Cards that are dealt faceup for opponents to see in stud games.
Wager: To bet or raise. The chips used for betting or raising.