888poker Team
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The wheel is the nickname given to the Ace to Five straight. It has special significance in split pot and lowball games. Not only is the wheel the nuts in many lowball variants, but it also has enough firepower to potentially win the high pot in split pot variants.
In poker, the term ‘up the ante’ may refer to the increase in antes that happens on each level of a tournament. In many cases however, ‘up the ante’ is a more general expression which means to increase the stakes or wager. In other words, it’s a term that originated with poker, but has become an expression used in every day speech.
Street poker is essentially an unwritten agreement that two players are going to play loose aggressive poker with overly wide ranges. One player could easily counter the other by tightening up significantly, but so long as both players continue to play overly wide ranges, the game can be considered fair.
To steam in poker means to be exceptionally angry or tilted. So angry that we might imagine literal steam coming off the head of the affected player. Steaming is never a great idea since playing while angry can result in some significant strategy errors.
Stab is simply another term for ‘bet’ in poker. It’s especially used in scenarios where lack of interest has been shown in the pot by other players at the table i.e. no-one seemed interested in the pot so we took a stab. It may also refer to a single attempt to pick up the pot without giving much thought to further action. However, usage varies quite widely and players may use the term stab to describe a bet without meeting any of the above criteria.
Sick is a slang term that originated from outside of the poker world. It generally applies to extreme situations, whether good or bad. For example, the term ‘sick upswing’ would refer to an upswing that was way bigger than average. A ‘sick beat’ would be a bad beat that it significantly worse than normal. Its usage is not especially different in a poker context compared to general slang use in the world outside poker.
