Poker Glossary

Overlay is extra money added to a tournament prizepool so that the room meets its guarantee on that tournament. If, for example, a poker room advertises a $5,000 guarantee tournament, it’s making a promise that there will be at least $5,000 in the prize pool. If only 400 players pay a buyin of $100, it means total buyins only amount to $4,000 (ignoring any fees) and there would be an overlay of $1,000 which the poker room must add to the prizepool. Tournaments with overlay are more profitable because we battle through less players for a big prize.

Find the meaning of the term "overbet" in poker along with a brief rundown of when overbets should be used in game.

Omaha is a poker variant similar to Hold’em. The key difference is that we get dealt 4 cards on the first betting round (preflop) instead of 2. We must then use exactly 2 of our hole cards in conjunction with community cards to make the best 5 card hand. Similar to Hold’em, Omaha has 4 betting rounds (preflop, flop, turn and river) followed by showdown. Omaha is typically played with a pot limit betting structure.

Monotone means that a selection of cards are all of the same suit. It is most commonly used in Hold’em to describe flop textures. For example, if the flop comes down 789 all of diamonds, we might refer to the texture as ‘789 monotone’. Monotone can also be used to describe other scenarios such as four preflop cards of the same suit in Omaha, or fourupcards of the same suit in Stud.

Lowball is the name given to the range of poker variants that make use of a low hand ranking system. Examples include Razz (the lowball version of Stud) and Deuce to Seven Triple Draw (a drawing game which uses a low hand ranking system). Some games such as Omaha Hi/Lo and Stud Hi/Lo make use of both a high and low hand ranking system and award half of the pot to the winning hand from each category.

Leverage refers to an effect that chips can have on the action despite not being directly in play. Generally, our opponent needs to fold more of his mid-strength hands against our bets we have lots of chips behind. This is because he has to worry about us continuing with large bets on the following streets making it harder for him to reach showdown. Assuming our stack is shallow, villain would be able to call much wider since he has guaranteed equity realization.

Mental Game refers to the mental state of a player when playing poker. Having a good mental game means that we are psychologically strong and can continue to perform at a high level despite dealing with adversity. Players with a strong mental game go on tilt less and are not as heavily affected by downswings. Many professional players dedicate time to specifically working on their mental game, even hiring a mental game coach in some circumstances.

Levelling refers to an attempt to adjust to an opponent’s thought process while they are simultaneously trying to adjust to ours. He thinks, that I think, that he thinks, that I think etc…..Ending up on the right level is often based on an intuitive understanding of human psychology – it is not necessarily a precise science.

Laydown is simply another word for folding in poker. Although laydown can be used to describe any fold, it is commonly used in situations where the fold itself is quite tough due to having a reasonably strong holding.

Implied odds in poker is a type of pot odds calculation that takes into account chips that we can potentially win on the later streets. A standard pot odds calculation only looks at what is currently in the pot, which doesn’t tell the whole picture when there are additional chips still to play for. For example, in Hold’em, we might not get the direct pot odds to continue with a flush draw facing a continuation bet, but if there are lots of chips left behind we have an easy call due to implied odds.

Hold’em is currently the most popular variant of poker. It is usually played with a no-limit betting structure which means players can bet or raise to any amount at any given time.Hold’em is what’s known as a ‘community card’ game. All players are dealt 2 hole cards which they can use in conjunction with community cards in order to make a 5 card hand. Community cards are cards dealt face-up in the centre of the table which all players can make use of. Once the four betting rounds in hold’em are complete, the strongest hand wins all the chips in the middle.

ICM stands for independent chip model. It’s a way of assigning a monetary value to our chip stack in a poker tournament. The fundamental idea is here is that doubling our tournament stack doesn’t necessarily double our average tournament payout. ICM needs to be used to determine how wide it’s correct to commit our chips – and it all depends on our current situation in the tournament.

Effective stacks is a term used to describe amount of chips that are effectively in play. In a heads up battle, the effective stack is always the shorter of the two stack sizes. This is because the deeper stack can’t bet all of his chips even if he wants to. The most he can bet at any given point is the size of the smaller stack. Once the smaller stack is all-in, betting is over and we reach showdown.

Drawing dead means that we have zero chance of winning in a certain situation. For example, imagine we have a straight draw, but our opponent has already made the full house. No matter which cards we catch on the later streets, our opponent is guaranteed to win the pot; we are drawing dead.

Dry is generally used to describe board textures in community card games where the cards don’t co-ordinate well with each other. For example, in Hold’em, imaginethe flop is King, Eight, Three (K83) all of different suits. There is no possible flush or straight draw, so we can refer to this as being a dry flop texture. At the other end of the spectrum, he terms ‘wet’ and ‘drawy’ are used to describe a texture where there is lots of co-ordination between cards.