Poker Glossary

The term free card refers to a situation where we or our opponent get to see another card without putting additional chips into the pot. A free card can either be a positive or negative thing depending on who the free card benefits the most. In situations where a free card might benefit our opponent we try and avoid giving the free card. In a situations where a free card benefits us, we might deliberately look to take the free card by checking.

Four-bet or 4bet refers to the fourth bet (or third raise) in a sequence of bets. In games such as Hold’em an Omaha, it’s important to remember that the first bet on the preflop round is actually the mandatory big blind post. An open raise is hence called a 2bet, a re-raise is called a 3bet and the following re-raise is 4-bet.

Fold in poker means to give up on the hand when facing a bet. When folding we no longer get to see if our hand wins at showdown, but we don’t have to invest any additional chips into the pot either. Folding is an extremely important part of the game. A common mistake that new players make is that they don’t fold as much as they should.

A flush is a five-card hand where all cards are all of the same suit. The strength of a flush is determined by its highest card. If two players both have a flush with the same high card, the second highest card is checked (and so on). In the majority of poker formats, a flush beats a straight, but loses to a full house.

Good starting hands combine with the community cards to make the best hands, on average. The flop is a major determining factor in who wins. Discover why.

Float means to call a bet without a strong holding, hoping to turn the hand into a bluff on the later streets. In more recent times the term float bet has come into common usage. It means to “bet in position after our opponent skips a continuation bet”. The term float bet is often shortened to float leaving us two different situations which are both described as floating. It’s not as complicated as it sounds however, the context usually makes clear what is meant by floating.

Five-bet or 5bet refers to the fifth bet (or fourth raise) in a betting sequence. 5bets most commonly occur on the preflop betting round in games such as Hold’em and Omaha. It’s important to remember that the first preflop bet in Hold’em and Omaha is the mandatory blind post, not the open-raise. The open-raise is actually the second bet in sequence and is therefore a referred to as a 2bet. Preflop 5bets in Hold’em and Omaha are usually all-in, although not always.

Fish is a term used to describe a weak poker player at the table. It’s important to be careful when using this term at the poker table, since many imagine the word to be rude and offensive. Most professional players have now adopted the term fish as a technical term to describe a ‘weak regular’at the table, but many sources still avoid using the term fish in favour of phrases such as “recreational player”or “fun player”.

Favourite means we are likely to win in a certain situation. It can refer to an individual hand of pokeror an entire event such as a tournament or cash game. In a heads up hand of poker, a hand is favourite if it has above 50% pot equity. In an event such as a cash game or tournament, a player is said to be favourite if they are believed to have a skill advantage over their opponents. In a tournament setting, a player might also be described as favourite if they have the largest chip stack when drawing close to the end of the event.

Fastplay means to play a strong value hand by aggressively betting and raising (often for large bet sizings). It’s the opposite term to slowplay, which means to play a strong made hand in deceptive, passive way (hoping to get a big payout on the later streets). Fastplaying big hands is usually the most profitable thing to do. Slowplaying in the wrong spots is a common mistake many players make.

A family pot is a pot where most or all of the players at the table see a flop (or whatever the second betting round is in other variants). In high level Hold’em games, the majority of flop situations are either heads up or 3-way. To see 5+ players on the flop, i.e a family pot,is not something that happens often. It’s either an extremely rare run of cards or it’s (more likely) an indication that the table is populated by weak players who are entering the pot with too many hands on the first betting round.

Expectation 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 expected value. A poker decision that is expected to make money in the long run can be described as a decision with a ‘positive expectation’. Although our results will rarely conform to our expectation in the short term, good poker players realise that the expectation of a decision is far more important than short term results.

An equity calculator is a tool that is used to analyse poker hands by calculating their pot equity. Equity calculators allow uses to input data such as hands, ranges, and community cards and see how much equity each hand or range has. Many equity calculators also offer additional features such as the ability to save ranges for later use, count hand combinations, and see the impact of various cards on the later streets. Most professional players will make use of at least one of the several commercially available equity calculators.

Find the meaning of the term "Downswing" in poker. Find out what we should expect, and how to deal with downswings.

Door card is a Stud term used to describe a player’s upcard on third street (the first betting round). In the initial Stud deal, players are dealt three cards – two face down (downcards) and one face up (upcard) which is visible to the entire table. The upcard gives clues regarding the strength of a player’s overall holding and is referred to as the door card or simply the door.The door card also determines who acts first in regular Stud games; the player with the lowest ranked door card acts first on third street.