Poker glossary
The words the lessons use, defined in the same voice. Each term links to a guide or a course if you want more than a paragraph.
- 8-or-better qualifier
- No qualifying low means the high takes the whole pot. A-2-3-4-5 is the nut low (and a wheel for high). Pairs do not count in a low. The Labs Omaha hi-lo tool checks this so you stop guessing at the table.Learn more →
- Badugi
- A-2-3-4 rainbow is the nuts. A pair or a duplicated suit throws a card out, leaving a three-card hand that loses to any four-card badugi. Do not keep the extra spade.Learn more →
- Bankroll
- Cash: often 20–40 buy-ins, more for PLO. MTTs: often 100+. Move down at a floor, not after a feeling. A bankroll is not 'what you can afford to lose' — that sentence is how people play with rent.Learn more →
- Blinds
- Posted by the two seats left of the button. In tournaments they escalate on a clock; in cash they stay put. Defending them is necessary and miserable — you are out of position for the rest of the hand.Learn more →
- Bluff
- Bluffs need fold equity and a plan for later streets. Semi-bluffs have outs if called (flush draws). Pure bluffs do not. Bluffing people who cannot fold is not 'aggressive' — it is paying them.Learn more →
- Board / community cards
- Flop (3), turn (1), river (1). In stud there is no shared board — each player has their own upcards. 'Playing the board' means your best five are the five community cards, so you chop with anyone else who does the same.Learn more →
- Bring-in
- In 7-card stud high, the lowest door card brings it in. In Razz, the highest door card does, because high is bad. Completing the bring-in to a full bet is the first real decision of the hand.Learn more →
- Continuation bet (c-bet)
- You raised before the flop, they called, you bet again. It works because you represent a range that still has the aces and kings. It fails when you do it every time on wet boards against callers who never fold. Frequency depends on board, position and opponent.Learn more →
- Cooler
- Set over set, nut flush vs second nut, aces vs kings preflop. You will lose these sometimes if you play well. The leak is calling them off when the line is no longer a cooler — when they only raise the one hand that beats you.Learn more →
- Counterfeit
- You hold A-2 for low, the board pairs a 2, and your low is now A-2-with-a-pair — not a low. A-2-3 survives that. Counterfeits are why backup side cards are not optional in hi-lo.Learn more →
- Door card
- Everyone can see it. It decides the bring-in and starts the story of the board. Remembering door cards that fold is how you know whether your pair is live.Learn more →
- Double-suited
- A-A-x-x double-suited can make two nut-flush draws. Rainbow aces cannot. Suit structure is a first-class part of Omaha starting-hand value, not a tie-break. Triple-suited is usually worse than double — you duplicate a suit.Learn more →
- Draw
- Flush draws, straight draws, wraps in Omaha. Price them with pot odds. Prefer nut draws. Combo draws (flush plus straight) can bet as made hands. Drawing to second-best is how pretty hands go broke.Learn more →
- Equity
- Equity is a percentage against a hand or a range. Aces vs a random hand are ~85% preflop; the same aces vs a set on a dry flop are ~20%. Compare equity to pot odds to decide a call. The Labs equity calculator Monte-Carlos hero vs villain.Learn more →
- Fixed-limit
- Limit Hold'em, Limit Omaha 8, most stud. You cannot 'put them in'. Value comes from getting one extra bet in, many times. Bluffing is cheaper and also less frightening, so people call more.Learn more →
- Fold equity
- A shove with 30% pot equity can still be profitable if they fold often enough. Fold equity is why short-stack tournament play is not 'wait for aces'. It is also why bluffing a calling station has none.Learn more →
- GTO
- Solver output is a baseline, not a religion. Real opponents deviate — they overfold, overcall, never bluff rivers. Exploiting those deviations prints more than mimicking a solver against them. PokerGrad teaches the baseline once the arithmetic is automatic.Learn more →
- Hole cards
- Two in Hold'em and Short Deck, three in Pineapple, four in Omaha, five or six in PLO5/PLO6. In Omaha you must use exactly two at showdown. In Hold'em you may use two, one, or none.Learn more →
- ICM
- Chip-EV and dollar-EV diverge near bubbles and pay jumps. A call that is fine in a cash game can be a disaster with 18bb on the bubble. The NLH Tournament and PLO Tournament tracks exist because of this.Learn more →
- Implied odds
- You can call a bit worse than pot odds when the pot will grow after you get there. Nut draws against stacks that will pay have implied odds. Second-nut draws against players who only pay the nuts have reverse implied odds — you hit and still lose a stack.Learn more →
- Kicker
- Ace-king and ace-five both pair the ace; the king kicker usually wins. On paired boards kickers get counterfeited when the board is already higher than your side card. This is why ace-rag is a trap.Learn more →
- Live / dead cards
- Stud and mixed games reward memory. Two of your flush suit already up in other hands means the draw is dead. Hold'em players under-count this because the board is shared; in stud it is not.Learn more →
- Multiway
- Bluffs work less, nutted hands go up, drawing hands need a better price, and 'I had top pair' is not a reason to stack off. PLO is multiway by default. Hold'em cash at a passive table is too.Learn more →
- No-limit
- NLH cash and most MTTs. All-in is always legal. That makes stack depth (how many big blinds you have) a first-class input: 12bb is a shove/fold game; 200bb is a postflop game.Learn more →
- Outs
- A flush draw has nine outs if thirteen of the suit exist and four are already visible. Dirty outs make a hand that still loses (the fourth heart that also pairs the board for their boat). Count clean outs, then convert with the rule of 2 and 4.Learn more →
- Pat hand
- In 2-7 triple draw a pat 8 is often enough; a pat 9 is a decision. In Badugi a pat four-card 7 is strong. Standing pat also represents that strength, which is why people pat-bluff. Believe it less against maniacs, more against rocks.Learn more →
- Pineapple
- Regular Pineapple discards before the flop. Crazy Pineapple discards after the flop, which makes flopped two-pair and wrap-like shapes more common. It is still 'use the Hold'em ranking', with more ways to connect.Learn more →
- Position
- The button acts last after the flop in Hold'em and Omaha and is the most profitable seat. Blinds act last preflop and first after, which is why they lose money. Play more hands in position, fewer out of it.Learn more →
- Pot odds
- Pot odds are amount-to-call divided by (pot plus call). A $25 call into a $100 pot is 25/125 = 20%. If your equity is higher than that, calling is profitable before implied odds. Drill it in Labs; the theory lives in Poker Math.Learn more →
- Pot-limit
- PLO and PLO8 use this. You cannot shove a 200bb stack on a 4bb pot. Money goes in across streets. Learning to compute the pot-limit raise is Kindergarten; learning when to use the maximum is the rest of the course.Learn more →
- Quartered
- If you put in a third of a three-way pot and get quartered, you lost money with 'the nuts'. Usually nut high chopping the low with another A-2. Backup lows and knowing when to stop raising are the medicine.Learn more →
- Range
- You never know their exact cards. You know the cluster: strong pairs and broadways, or missed draws and air, depending on the line. Play against the cluster. 'They might have a set' is a reason to be careful, not a reason to fold 38% equity.Learn more →
- Reverse implied odds
- The obvious flush, the bottom end of a straight, the underfull: hands that make something strong-looking and still lose. These need a better price than pot odds, or a fold. PLO and PLO8 are full of them.Learn more →
- Rule of 2 and 4
- On the flop, outs × 4 ≈ percent to hit by the river. On the turn, outs × 2 ≈ percent to hit the river. Nine outs: ~36% and ~18%. Slightly optimistic, and it assumes the outs are clean and that you will see the card.Learn more →
- Scoop
- The object of PLO8 and Stud Hi-Lo. A scooping hand (wheel, or nut high plus nut low) is how you get paid. High-only or low-only hands are often just fighting over half, which is a different and smaller game.Learn more →
- Set / trips
- In Hold'em, flopping a set with a pocket pair is disguised and strong. Trips using one hole card and a pair on board are obvious and often dominated by a bigger kicker or a full house. In Omaha, sets are common and often not enough.Learn more →
- Short Deck (6+)
- Straights and pairs hit more. Many rooms rank flushes above full houses. Ace-6-7-8-9 is a straight; wheels with 2-5 do not exist. Confirm the ranking placard before you sit.Learn more →
- Showdown
- If everyone checks the river, or if a bet is called, cards come over. Last aggressor usually shows first. If a player folds, they do not have to show. Winning without showdown (everyone folded) is still a win — pots are pots.Learn more →
- Stack off
- Correct with nutted hands and with draws that have the right equity plus fold equity. Incorrect with one-pair in multiway pots and with second-nut flushes against people who only raise the nuts. PLO stack-offs are a subject, not a moment of bravery.Learn more →
- The nuts
- On a four-flush board the nut flush is the nuts. In PLO the flopped nuts are often not the river nuts. In PLO8 you can hold nut high and still get quartered. 'I had the nuts' is the start of a story, not the end of one.Learn more →
- Tilt
- Usually after a bad beat, a cooler, or a session that was supposed to go differently. The tell is departing from your ranges: hero-calling, revenge-bluffing, moving up stakes. Stop-losses and time limits exist because willpower is not a strategy.Learn more →
- Value bet
- The opposite of a bluff. Thin value is betting when only a few worse hands call; thick value is betting when many do. If better hands call and worse fold, it was not a value bet — it was a donation with extra steps.Learn more →
- Variance
- A winning player can lose for a month. A losing player can win for a week. Bankroll, sample size, and not rewriting your strategy after 400 hands are how you live with it. PLO variance is larger than NLH; MTTs larger still.Learn more →
- Wrap
- Because you have four hole cards, straight draws in PLO are huge. A wrap plus a flush draw can have thirty-plus outs. That is why flopped sets get stacked. If you cannot count a wrap, you are not ready to stack off on a connected flop.Learn more →