Stud refers to collection of poker variants that have similar characteristics. Stud games don’t use hole cards but rather a selection of upcards and downcards dealt to each player. Upcards are visible to the entire table while downcards are secret (like hole cards in Hold’em). The most popular Stud variant is Seven Card Stud which involves 5-betting rounds. Stud games are typically played in fixed limit format and don’t make use of a dealer button. The action order is instead determined by the strength of players’ upcards.
Structure typically refers to the features of a poker tournament including level times, blinds, antes, and payouts. It would also refer to any additional features of the tournament such as it being a bounty tournament or a tournament that offers rebuys/addons. Structure may also refer to the distribution of card ranks within our hand. For example, imagine the following preflop hand in PLO; T876. We can describe this as a starting hand that has a gap at the top of its structure.
A string bet is a betting action in live poker games that is illegally split into multiple components. The classic example is the statement “I call your bet….and raise you another 50”. In its current form, the player will be forced to just call the bet, since this is what was announced initially. There are many other ways to string bet, such as placing one chip into the pot and then trying to place additional chips afterwards; only the first chip will count. Repeated string bets could be considered an attempt at angle shooting by the other players at the table.
A straight flush in poker is made by holding 5 cards in rank order, all of the same suit, e.g. 5,6,7,8,9 all of spades. The strength of the straight flush is determined by the card at the top of the structure with the King-high straight flush (9,T,J,Q,K) being the strongest possible straight flush. The Ace-high straight flush in poker is technically even stronger but is given the name ‘royal flush’ as opposed to straight flush. The straight flush is one of the strongest hands in poker, losing only to higher ranked straight flushes or the royal flush.
A straight in poker is made by holding 5 cards in rank order with zero gap, e.g. 5,6,7,8,9. The strength of the straight is determined by the card at the top of the structure with the Ace-high straight (T,J,Q,K,A) being the strongest possible straight in the vast majority of poker variants. A straight beats three-of-a-kind but loses to a flush.
A straddle is an optional blind payment made before any cards are dealt. It is typically twice the size of the big blind and acts as a third blind. (So we now have, small blind, big blind and bigger blind aka straddle). This type of straddle (third blind) is referred to as the classic straddle but there are other different types of straddle.
