Poker Glossary

Downcard is the term used to describe hole cards in Stud. In seven card Stud, players are dealt 4 upcards and 3 downcards. Although all seven cards belong exclusively to us, the 4 upcards are visible to the table and give our opponents a clue regarding our possible hand strength. The 3 downcards are known only to us and are used in conjunction with the 4 upcards to make a 5-card hand.

Draw is the term used to describe a hand that can improve to a strong holding if the right cards fall. The two most common types of draws are straight draws and flush draws. Straight draw means we are waiting on one card to complete a straight while flush draw means we are waiting on one card to complete a flush. The term Draw also applies to a selection of poker variants that involve drawing cards from the deck before each betting round. The most widely known Draw variant is five-card Draw, although 2-7 triple Draw and Badugi are also popular types of Draw poker.

To cripple the deck means that our hand is so strong that it is virtually impossible for our opponent outdraw us. Imagine flopping Quads in Hold’em; we might say that we “have the deck crippled”. The term crippled is also used to describe a situation where we become hopelessly shorts tacked in a poker tournament. We are technically still alive in the tournament, but it’s extremely unlikely we’ll make a comeback given our stack is so small.

A continuation bet is any bet made after taking the last aggressive action on the previous betting round. In Hold’em it is most commonly used for describing a bet on the flop after open-raising or 3betting preflop – however it can be used for any scenario where we follow up on previous aggression. For example, after firing a continuation bet on the flop, a second bet on the turn is referred to as a turn continuation bet.

Chinese poker is simply a type of poker game, although it’s quite different from some of the form of poker we might be familiar with. For a start, players don’t make use of chips like in common poker variants such as Hold’em and Omaha. Instead, players play for points or units. The objective is to arrange our cards into three rows where points are awarded for rows that beat our opponent’s corresponding row. Like Stud games, there are many different versions of Chinese Poker so it’s definitely a good idea to recap on the exact rules before playing for real money.

A bluff in poker means to represent that we hold a strong hand when we don’t. We make bets and raises in the hope that our opponent gives us credit for having a legitimate hand and folds the best hand as a result. Bluffing is an important part of poker and in many cases what makes the game so appealing to first time players. Without the aspect of bluffing, poker would simply be a game where players try to make the strongest hand.

Expected value refers to the amount of money we can expect to win/lose on average after making a certain decision at the poker tables. It has the exact same meaning as expectation. A poker decision that is expected to make money in the long run can be described as a decision with a ‘positive expected value’ or “plus-EV” (+EV) for short. Although our results will rarely conform to our expected value in the short term, good poker players realise that the expected value of a decision is far more important than short term results.

Equity is our percentage chance to win a hand of poker assuming we are all-in. For example, in Hold’em, AA has 81.94% equity against KK. In practice, equity does not tell us the whole picture regarding how often we’ll win, because either we or our opponent could end up folding some of the time. Having a rough idea of our equity is still helpful however and will help us to increase the quality of our decisions at the table.

The term combination refers to one instance of particular holding in poker. For example, there are six different ways to be dealt pocket Aces preflop in Hold’em so we can say that there are six possible combinations of pocket Aces. There are also 12 different combinations of each off suit hand and 4 combinations of each suited hand. In most discussions, the term combinations is abbreviated to combos.

Ring Game is a term used to describe a cash game in poker (as opposed to tournament format). Since not all poker games are played with real cash, the term ring game might make more sense when describing such a format. In most cases however, ring game is used interchangeably with cash game; although cash game is used more commonly to describe this format (even for play money games).

Represent means that a certain action indicates a certain type of holding. For example, we might have a very weak hand but try to represent that we have a legitimate holding by making big bets. The term is also used when discussing the meaning of our opponent’s actions. For example, if our opponent is making a small bet on the river we might say something along the lines of ‘villain is representing a mid-strength value-hand’.

Rebuy means to purchase more chips to add to our stack. Rebuying is most commonly performed in cash games, but also makes an appearance in specific tournament formats. Rebuy tournaments allow players to purchase (rebuy) a new chip stack after running out of chips, but only while the rebuy period is still active.

A redraw is a type of draw that is formed after another draw has already completed (whether we hold that completed draw or not). For example, a possible flush might complete on the turn in Hold’em. However, that turn card gives us the one-card Ace-high flush draw. Even if our opponent had completed a flush draw on the turn, it’s less of a problem since we have the redraw to the higher flush.

Read in poker is often used interchangeably with the word “tell”. It’s an indication that our opponent has a certain type of hand based on how he is acting and what we know about him so far. The term read can also be used in a more general sense to refer to looking at the available cards to determine what type of hand we have. The term hand reading refers to the act of putting our opponent on a range of holdings and narrowing that range as the hand progresses.

Ratholing is the act of cashing out chips from a cash game table then rebuying with a smaller amount of chips. It is considered unethical behaviour, and against the rules in many cash games. Interestingly,ratholing confers no specific advantage to the ratholer and no disadvantage to the other players at the table. In other words, there is no decent reason why ratholing should be considered unethical. It’s simply a case of players feeling bad that they can no longer win back the chips they lost to a certain villain.