poker glossary
Every term a CPT broadcast throws at you, defined in one sentence. Jump straight to a definition or read the lot.
Tournament play
- Final table
- The final table is the last table of a poker tournament, reached when the field narrows to the last nine players. Everyone who makes it is guaranteed a payout, and play continues until one player holds every chip.
- Buy-in
- The buy-in is the amount a player pays to enter a tournament. Most of it goes into the prize pool; a smaller fee covers the cost of running the event.
- Prize pool
- The prize pool is the total money paid out to a tournament's finishers, built from every player's buy-in and any added guarantee. It is split across the paid places, with the largest share to the winner.
- The bubble
- The bubble is the point in a tournament just before the money, when one more elimination is needed for the remaining players to be paid. The player knocked out at that moment finishes on the bubble and wins nothing.
Betting
- Blinds
- Blinds are forced bets posted by the two players to the dealer's left before any cards are dealt. They create something to compete for, and they rise on a schedule during a tournament to keep the action moving.
- Ante
- An ante is a small forced bet contributed by every player at the table before a hand begins. It grows the pot and gives players a reason to fight for it rather than fold indefinitely.
- All-in
- Going all-in means betting every chip you have left on a single hand. A player who is all-in cannot be forced to fold and cannot bet again, but can only win the portion of the pot they matched.
- Pot odds
- Pot odds are the ratio between the size of the pot and the cost of calling a bet. Comparing them to the chance of completing a hand tells a player whether a call is profitable over the long run.
- Check-raise
- A check-raise is checking first, then raising after an opponent bets into you. It is used to build a pot with a strong hand or to pressure an opponent who was betting on weakness.
Hands
- Royal flush
- A royal flush is ten, jack, queen, king and ace all of the same suit, the best possible hand in poker. It cannot be beaten, only tied by another royal flush.
- Full house
- A full house is three cards of one rank plus two of another, such as three kings and two sevens. It beats a flush and loses to four of a kind.
- Pocket pair
- A pocket pair is two hole cards of the same rank, such as two aces. It is already a made pair before any community cards arrive.
- The nuts
- The nuts is the best possible hand given the community cards on the table. A player holding it cannot lose the hand, only split it with someone holding the same combination.
- Bad beat
- A bad beat is losing a hand you were heavily favoured to win, usually to a card that arrives on the last street. It is the most common source of viral poker moments.
Table talk
- Bluff
- A bluff is betting or raising with a weak hand to make opponents fold better ones. It works on the story the betting tells, not on the cards themselves.
- Tell
- A tell is an unconscious habit that leaks information about a player's hand, such as a change in breathing, posture or chip handling. Reading tells is far more reliable in live poker than online.
- Tilt
- Tilt is playing badly because of frustration, usually after a bad beat. A player on tilt makes looser, more aggressive decisions than their strategy calls for.
- Slow roll
- A slow roll is deliberately taking a long time to reveal a winning hand at showdown, letting an opponent believe they have won. It is legal but widely considered poor etiquette.