Poker Terms

Poker terms are half the reason a first home game feels like everyone else got a manual. Someone says the button limped and the big blind three-bet, and you nod. Here’s the vocabulary in the order you’ll meet it: the table, the betting, the hands, the stats regulars quote at each other and the maths. Every term is something you’ll actually hear, and where there’s a calculator for it, we’ve linked it.

Poker terms for the table and seats

Button (dealer). The seat that acts last after the flop, marked with a disc that moves one place left each hand. The best seat at the table. Blinds. Forced bets from the two seats left of the button: the small blind and the big blind, which is usually twice as much. They start every pot. Ante. A small forced bet from every player, common in later tournament levels. UTG (under the gun). First to act before the flop, the hardest seat. Cut-off. The seat to the button’s right. The CasinoCalcs poker positions chart names every seat.

Straddle. An optional extra blind, usually double the big blind, posted before the cards to buy last action. Popular in home games, mostly a way to build bigger pots. Rake. The house’s cut of each pot in a casino or online cash game.

Betting words

Limp. Just calling the big blind before the flop instead of raising. Open. The first raise. 3-bet. The re-raise of an open; the blind is bet one, the open is bet two. A 4-bet is the re-raise of that. C-bet (continuation bet). The pre-flop raiser bets again on the flop. Check-raise. Checking, then raising when someone bets. Donk bet. Leading into the pre-flop raiser out of position; it used to be an insult and isn’t always a mistake. Shove / jam. All in.

Hands and boards

Flop, turn, river. The three community cards, then the fourth, then the fifth. Nuts. The best possible hand on that board. Set vs trips. Both three of a kind: a set is your pocket pair plus one on the board, trips is one card plus a board pair. Kicker. Your side card when two players share a pair. Suited connectors. Consecutive cards of the same suit, like 8♥7♥. Gutshot. A straight draw needing one card in the middle, four outs. Open-ender. One needing either end, eight outs. Rainbow. A flop with three different suits. The full ranking is on the poker hand rankings page.

The stats: VPIP, PFR and friends

VPIP (voluntarily put money in pot) is the share of hands a player plays, by calling or raising before the flop. Blinds posted don’t count. A tight six-max regular sits around 20 to 25%; the player in at 60% is the one everyone wants to sit next to. PFR (pre-flop raise) is the share they raise. When VPIP and PFR are close, the player rarely limps or flat calls. AF (aggression factor) compares bets and raises with calls. WTSD is how often they go to showdown. These come from tracking software and HUDs online; at a live table you estimate them by watching.

The maths words

Outs. Cards that improve you to the likely winner. Equity. Your share of the pot if the hand were played out from here many times. Pot odds. The price you’re getting to call: £10 to win a £30 pot is 3 to 1. Implied odds. The same, counting what you expect to win later. EV. Expected value, the average result of a decision. SPR. Stack-to-pot ratio, which tells you how committed you are. ICM. The tournament model that turns chips into prize money. Each has a calculator: pot odds, implied odds, SPR and ICM.

And the slang

Tilt is playing badly because you’re upset, usually after a bad beat. A fish is a weak player, a shark a strong one, a nit someone who only plays aces. Running good means winning more than you should, and it never lasts. For the betting words outside poker, our glossary covers the rest of the casino, and the poker cheat sheet fits the essentials on one printable page.