Poker Phrases

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O

Odds : The probability of making a hand versus the probability of not making the hand.

Offsuit : Cards that are not of the same suit. The ace of clubs and the king of spades are called ace-king offsuit.

Omaha : A flop based game where each player gets dealt 4 hole cards and MUST use 2 of those cards in their final five card hand.

One-Chip Rule : A call of a previous bet using a chip of higher denomination than necessary is considered a call unless it is verbally announced as a raise.

One-Eyed Royals : The Jack of Spades, Jack of Hearts and King of Diamonds.

One Pair : Two cards in a players hand of the same rank. And no other cards of relevance.

On-Tilt : A player who is betting loosely, generally because they are playing below their normal game due to a number of possible reasons including losing to much, taking a bad beat or being out of their comfort zone for an unusual reason.

One Way Poker : A poker hand involving the player and only one other.

On The Come : To bet on a draw in anticipation of making the hand and winning a bigger pot in the process.

Open : To bet first.

Open Cards : Face up cards.

Open Pair : A face up pair.

Open Poker : A poker game where some of the cards are exposed.

Open Ended, Open Ended Straight Draw : An outside straight draw. Also "two-way straight draw". The opposite to a Gutshot or belly buster straight draw.

Openers : The cards held by a player in a game of "jackpots" entitling him to open the pot. "Splitting openers" refers to holding onto one of your openers after discarding it to prove you had the necessary cards to open should you win the pot.

Open limp : Being the first person in the pot preflop, but not raising.

Option : An optional bet or draw, such as getting an extra card facedown for 50 cents or raising on the big blind when checked all the way around. The right to raise possessed by the big blind if there have been no raises.

Outs : Any remaining card that will give you the winning hand. For example if you have the 8, 9, 10, Q in various suits, and have not seen a Jack, then you have four outs to a Straight. Generally only relevant to cards that are sure or that can be reasonably confident that will allow you to win the pot.

Outside Straight, Outside Straight Draw : See outside straight draw. Also "two-way straight draw".

Overcall : To call a bet after others have called, esp. big bets. Jim bet, Alice called, then Ted overcalled. Compare to "cold call", "flat call", "smooth call".

Overcard : A community card with a higher rank than a player's pocket pair. A higher card. Ted held two overcards to Jill's pair with two cards to come.

Overpair : In community card games such as Texas hold 'em and Omaha hold 'em, a pocket pair with a higher rank than any community card.

Over The Top : To raise a large bet.

Overs : An option to increase the stakes in limit games. Players may elect to play or not play overs; those who choose to play display some sort of token. If, at the beginning of a betting round after the first, only overs players remain in the hand, bets of twice the present limit are allowed. Most often used in home games as a compromise between aggressive and meek players.

P

Pack : A deck of cards.

Pair : Two cards of the same denomination.

Paint : A face card, Picture card.

Pass : To fold. Often incorrectly used to indicate a check.

Passive : A style of play characterized by checking and calling bets, rather than betting and raising. See also Aggressive, Loose, and Tight.

Pat, Hand : Already complete. A hand is a pat hand when, for example, a flush comes on the first five cards dealt in Draw poker.

Pat, To Stay : The act of choosing not to take any new cards on the draw.

Pay off : To call a bet when you are most likely drawing dead because the pot odds justify the call.

Peddly The nuts : Betting in a certain way as to try to get a call and maximum value when holding the nut hand.

Peek : The cheating manouver of a second dealer who looks at the top card to see if it is of use to him, if it is he then deals ‘seconds’ ( the second card ) to the other players and saves the good card for himself.

Penny ante : Frivolous, low stakes, or "for fun" only; A game where no significant stake is likely to change hands.

Perfect : The best possible cards, in a lowball hand, after those already named. For example, 7-perfect would be 7-4-3-2-A, and 8-6-perfect would be 8-6-3-2-A.

Picked Off : To get called when bluffing.

Pick-up : When the house picks up cash from the dealer after a player buys chips.

Picture : Card A face, or court card.

Pig, Calling : The act of trying to win both halves of the pot in a split-pot game. Used when players must declare what half of the pot they are going for (either high or low in High/ Low games; either spade or best hand in Chicago games) and a player decides to try both. A player who calls pig must win both halves of the pot or wins nothing at all.

Pile : A stack of chips.

Pip : The symbols on a non-face card which indicate it's rank.

Play Back : To re-raise.

Playing Behind : In certain games a player can declare (before the start of the hand) that he is playing more money than he has on the table, that player is deemed to be playing behind.

Playing Over : A player may need to leave his or her seat for a number of reasons and another player may play in that seat (not with the original players chips) until the player returns (only relevant on a cash game.)

Play the board : In games such as Texas hold 'em, where 5 community cards are dealt, if your best hand is on the board and you go to the showdown you are said to "play the board".

Players Speak : The House Rule that each individual player is responsible for identifying his or her hand. What the player calls must indeed be in that player’s hand for the call to count. A player that ’under calls’ his or her hand has identified that hand as worse than it really is. See Cards Speak.

Pocket : Another term for hole cards.

Pocket Pair : Two hole cards of the same rank.

Poker : Ladbrokes Poker.

Poker Face : Adopted by more seasoned players, the ability to hide the strength or weakness of one’s hand based on one’s ability to retain composure. A player has no poker face if that player's hand can be read by other players.

Position : A player's proximity to the dealer. A player immediately to the left of the dealer is said to be in early position, while the dealer is considered to be in last position. Late position is generally advantageous as it allows a player to see how everybody else has bet before making a decision. See Position Bet.

Position bet : A bet based on that player’s position at the table, as opposed to betting solely on the strength of one’s hand. For example, betting in late position on an earlier betting round to discourage players from betting against you on later betting rounds.

Post Oak Bluff : A Very small bet into a large pot in the hope that others will have nothing and fold.

Pot : The accumulated amount of money in the centre of the table; awarded to the winner of the game.

Pot-committed : More often in the context of a no limit game; the situation where you can no longer fold because the size of the pot is so large compared to the size of your stack.

Pot Limit : A game in which the maximum bet is equal to the size of the pot.

Pot Odds : A means to assess the value of an investment into a hand. Pot odds calculate the amount of money in the pot against the player's chances of winning the hand.

Pregnant Threes : An overdone Draw game where Threes, Sixes, and Nines are all wild.

Pre-flop : On flop games refers to the time when players already have their pocket cards but no flop has been dealt yet. It's also the first round of bets.

Probe bet : A bet after the flop by a player who did not take the lead in betting before the flop (and when the player that did take the lead in betting before the flop declined to act). Compare to "continuation bet".

Prom Night : Pocket cards 6 9 suited.

Proposition player, Prop : A player that gets paid an hourly rate to start poker games or to help them stay active. Prop players play with their own money, which distinguishes them from shills, who play with the casino's money.

Protect Your Cards : To protect your cards is to place a chip or some other small object on top of them so that they don't accidentally get mucked by the dealer, mixed with another player's discards, or otherwise become dead when you'd like to play them.

Put Down : To fold.

Put on : To put someone on a hand is to deduce what hand they have based on their actions and your knowledge of their gameplay.

Q

Quads : A Four-of-a-Kind.

Qualifier : In Draw, a given criteria that must be met by a player in order to either open the first betting round or win the pot. It is usually a specific ranked hand; i.e. in the game ’Jacks or Better, Trips to Win’, a pair of Jacks is the qualifier to open the first betting round, and a Three-of-a-Kind is the qualifier to win the pot.

Quarter, to be quartered : To win a quarter of a pot, usually by tying the low or high hand of a high-low split game. Generally, this is an unwanted outcome, as a player is often putting in a third of the pot in the hope of winning a quarter of the pot back.

Quarter Chip : A $25 casino chip.

R

Rabbit hunt : After a hand is over, a rabbit hunt means to reveal the last card that would have come up in a community card game with a fixed number of cards. Such activity is usually prohibited in casinos. Also "fox hunt".

Rack : 1) A collection of 100 chips of the same denomination, usually arranged in 5 stacks in a plastic tray. 2) A plastic tray used for storing a rack of chips

Rag : In Stud poker, when a player is dealt a card that does not help the hand at all. For example, being one card away from a Flush and being dealt a card of a different suit that does not even pair up with any cards currently held.

Rail : The rail is the sideline at a poker table - the (often imaginary) rail separating spectators from the field of play. Watching from the rail means watching a poker game as a spectator. People on the rail are sometimes called railbirds. "Going to the rail" usually means "Losing all one's money".

Railbird : A one-time player, now a broke spectator.

Railroad Bible : A deck of cards.

Rainbow : A hand containing at least one card of all four suits. The nemesis of a Flush.

Raise (or Bump) : The act of matching all of the bets that have been previously made, and then adding yet another bet for all other players to have to match.

Rake : The commission on a pot taken by the house.

Rake Race : A rake race is a competition to generate more rake than any other players in the same time period.

Rank : The number or hierarchy of a single card. For example, in "Queen of Spades", ’Spades’ makes reference to the suit, while ’Queen’ makes reference to the rank.

Rap : To knock the table to indicate a check.

Razz : 7 Card Stud low only.

Read : To read a player means to look for physical tendencies or beyond their Poker Face to discern whether their hand is true to what they are representing.

Re-Buy : To re-enter a tournament for an additional entry fee.

Redeal : To deal a hand again, possibly after a misdeal.

Redraw : To make one hand and have a draw for a better hand. Ted made a straight on the turn with a redraw for a flush on the river.. Second or later draws in a draw game with multiple draws.

Red : The color of poker chip most often used to represent the middle denomination of money, typically two times the table’s ante and/or minimum bet.

Representing : Based on evidence that other players can see (face-up cards in Stud, community cards in Hold .Em), a player is said to .represent. a certain hand based on the way he is betting. He may or may not actually have the hand that he is representing.

Re-raise : The act of adding another raise to an already raised bet.

Riffle : To shuffle one.s chips. River (i) In Hold .Em, the last community card turned face-up; (ii) more loosely in Stud, the last card dealt face-down to each player.

Right Price : When you are getting exactly the right pot odds on the money you have put in the pot or exactly the right odds on the money you may have to invest.

River card : The last community card in a flop game of fifth street in 5 card stud and seventh street in 7 card stud.

Rivered, To be : A player who loses a hand to another player who completed a better hand on the last card of the round (the River) is said to have been "rivered".

Rock : An extremely tight player.

Roll : To turn a card face up.

Rolled-up trips : In seven-card stud, three of a kind dealt in the first three cards.

Rounder : An expert player who travels around to seek out high-stakes games

Royal cards : Royal card are also known as face cards. These cards consist of the Jack, Queen, and King of any suit.

Runner-runner : A hand made by hitting two consecutive cards on the turn and river. Also "backdoor". Compare to "bad beat" and "suck out".

Royal Flush : A-K-Q-J-10 of the same suit. The best possible hand in all non-wild card games.

Run : 1) A straight. 2) A streak of good cards.

Running Bad : On a losing streak

Running Good : On a winning streak.

Running Pair : When the last two cards on the board come of the same rank.

Rush : A player who is playing against the odds due to a streak of good cards is said to be "on a rush".