888poker Team

Protection refers to the act of betting a hand specifically to prevent our opponent from being able to see extra cards with 100% frequency. A protection bet is generally made with a hand that is likely to be best but is vulnerable to being outdrawn. Protection is an important part of poker strategy that is commonly misunderstood by the average player.

Traditionally, a probe in poker, is a small bet which is made in order to try and gather information on our opponent’s range. In more recent times, the term probe is slowly changing meaning. Many professional players use the term probe to indicate a “bet vs missed cbet while out of position”. For example, imagine the button open raises in Hold’em and gets one caller. Instead of firing a continuation bet on the flop, the button checks back. If the out of position cold-caller leads the turn, this is referred to as a turn probe bet.

Price in poker means how much we are risking compare to what is already in the middle.The term prices shares many similarities with pot odds.A “good price” typically means we are investing only a small percentage of the total pot with a bet/raise/call while a “bad price” means that our bet/raise/call will a relatively large chunk of the new pot size. Price can also just mean the absolute amount of chips need to make a call when facing a bet.

Pot odds is a way of expressing how much we can potentially win compared to what we are risking.Pot odds are traditionally expressed in a ratio format (eg. 2:1 two to one) but it’s becoming increasingly common for professional players to express pot odds as a percentage. If there is $100 in the middle and our opponent bets $50, we are getting 25% (or 3:1 three to one) pot odds on a call.Pot odds can be compared to our pot equity to determine if we have a profitable call (at least, assuming there is no further action after we make the call. If there is further action, an implied odds calculation is more useful).

Play the board essentially means to not make use of our hole cards when playing a hand. The first way this occurs is when the 5 community cards on the board make the strongest possible hand for us, so we don’t actually use our hole cards as part of our final hand. Imagine a TJQKA board in Hold’em, with no possible flush. Both players will play the board in this case. The second idea behind playing the board is that a player bases his decisions solely on the board texture and does not take into account his hole cards (presumably because they haven’t connected with the board in any meaningful way).

Overcall is a call made after there has already been a call on the current betting round. This means there has already been a bet or raise on the current street and at least one other player has called that bet or raise.