3-Bet Putting in the third bet in a Betting Round. This means there has been a Bet, followed by a Raise, and then a Re-Raise. This Re-Raise is the 3-bet.
4-Bet A 4-bet is made when a player Re-Raises after a 3-bet has been made.
5-Bet A 5-bet is made when a player Re-Raises after a 4-bet has been made. Further Re-Raises can lead to a 6-bet, etc.
Ace-High (Straight/Flush)
  1. A hand with no pairs or higher, but with an Ace.
  2. A Straight with an Ace, meaning it cannot be beaten by another Straight.
  3. A Flush with an Ace, meaning it cannot be beaten by another Flush.
Act To Check, Call, Bet, Raise or Fold; “I was first to act“.
Action A player’s opportunity to Act; “The action was on me“.
Aggressive This term can be used to describe players who Raise frequently. Raises are considered Aggressive Actions.
Aggressor The player who has most-recently initiated the Betting or Raising. This initiative gives them domination over the play.
Air Slang for a Hand that is incredibly weak or has no value at all.
All-In When a player that Bets chooses to do so with all their Chips. If a player does not have sufficient chips to Call or Raise another player’s Bet, they are still permitted to go ‘All-In’.
Ante A small forced Bet made by all players in the hand who are not the Small Blind or Big Blind. Does not apply in Match Poker.
Backdoor A hand where both the Turn and the River were helpful; “A backdoor straight“. Also sometimes referred to as ‘Runner-Runner‘.
Bad Beat When a hand is the favourite to win but does not, due to bad luck. In Match Poker, a Bad Beat is unlikely to be ‘bad’.
Balancing Ensuring that you have a good balance between how often you Bluff and how often you Value Bet. Also called Range Balancing.
Belly-Buster (See Gutshot)
Bet An action a player may take during a Betting Round where they are the first to contribute Chips and raise the stakes. Players must Fold if they do not wish to Call or Raise.
Betting Round When all players are given an opportunity to commit a number of Chips into the Pot which all players must match in order to participate in the hand.
Big Blind A forced Bet made by the player to the left of the Small Blind, usually double the size of the Small Blind.
Blank A Community Card that does not appear to influence the current Hand in any way.
Blinds Forced Bets made by the two players immediately to the left of the Dealer, known as the Small Blind and Big Blind respectively.
Blocker A card that would be an Out for your opponent, but which you have in your Hand, therefore you are Blocking their chance of improving their Hand with that card.
Bluff Attempting to make an opponent fold a hand that you believe is stronger than yours via Betting or Raising.
Board All the Community Cards taken together; “The board had no Aces“.
Boat A Full House.
Brick-and-Mortar A way of referring to live, face-to-face poker (as opposed to online/app).
Broadway Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten are the Broadway cards.
Bumhunter A player who seeks out, and only plays against, weak opponents.
Bust To Bust someone is to relieve them of all their chips.
Button An icon or token used to denote who the Dealer is in a given Hand.
Buy the…
  1. In “Buy The Pot” = Betting in the hope you will not be Called so you can claim the Pot.
  2. In “Buy the Button” = Betting in an attempt to make all players between yourself and the Button fold, thus granting you the best position for the rest of the Hand.
C-Bet Shorthand for a Continuation Bet (see below).
Call An action a player may take during a Betting Round where they match the amount of another player’s Bet or Raise. (Sometimes called Seeing another player’s bet)
Calling Station An inexperienced and exploitable player who Calls too often and does not Bet or Fold often.
Case The last card of that kind in the deck; “Only The Case Jack will win it for me.”
Check An action a player may take during a Betting Round where they decline to Bet. This action is only available if no player in that Betting Round has Bet.
Check-Raise To Check, and then, after another player bets, Raise.
Chips The currency with which Bets are made or equalled. Note: In Match Poker Online™ there are no visible ‘chips’ – they are represented by numbers.
Cold Call Calling more than one bet in a single action. This happens when there has been a Bet and a Raise before a player Calls.
Community Cards Five cards that are progressively revealed to all players; 3 on the Flop, then 1 on the Turn, then 1 on the River. These cards can be used by players to make the best 5-card Hand.
Complete Hand A Straight, Full House, Flush or Straight Flush.
Connectors Two Hole Cards that have consecutive values. E.g. 9, 8. Also see Suited Connectors.
Continuation Bet When you Raise before the Flop and then follow it up with a Bet straight after the Flop. Also called a ‘C-Bet‘.
Cooler A Cooler is a Hand that is far too strong to Fold, but ends up being the second-best Hand after Bets have been made.
Counterfeit When a Community Card is revealed that duplicates a card in your hand, thus reducing the value of your Hole Cards.
Court Cards Jack, Queen and King are the Court Cards. Also known as ‘Face Cards’.
Cowboys Slang for two kings.
Crack To beat a big Hand; “My Kings were cracked twice tonight.”
Cripple The Deck When you have the cards that someone else would want to have, given the Board.
Cutoff The name for the second-last Position around the table to Act, before the ‘Dealer‘ but after the Hijack.
Deal The Deal is the point in the Hand where all players receive their cards.
Dealer The name given to one player in the Hand for the purposes of determining the order of play. This changes after every Hand. The Dealer is the one with the Button.
Dealer Button An icon or token used to denote who the Dealer is in a given Hand. Also known as ‘Button’.
Deuce (Deuces) Another name for the ‘2’ card.
Dirty Outs Outs that help you, but may help your opponent more.
Dog Usually refers to a significant Underdog.
Donk An abbreviation of Donkey (see below).
Donk Bet Betting before the Aggressor in a subsequent Betting Round, thus denying the Aggressor the opportunity to make a C-Bet.
Donkey A weak or unskilled player. Also called a Fish. Be aware, this word can be offensive to players who are unfamiliar with this word’s specific definition in Poker.
Double-Barrel To raise an opponent on two consecutive Streets.
Double-Ended Straight Draw (See Open-Ended Straight Draw)
Double Gutter Where two different cards would each complete a Straight. E.g. if you have 67 on a flop of 9-5-4; you have a Double Gutter because a 3 or an 8 will give you a Straight. Also called a Double Belly-Buster.
Double Up To double the size of your Stack after winning when you were All-In.
Draw (Verb) To stay in a hand to get more cards.
Draw Dead When you are Drawing, but cannot win even if you get the Community Card(s) you desire.
Dry If the Board is Dry, it means there is little-to-no coordination between the cards, creating a lower number of draws across a smaller range of possible strong hands.
Duplicate Poker A form of poker conceived by Bruce Altshuler and Dan Kleinman that deals the same shuffle to multiple tables to compare players’ skill. Match Poker is an example of this form of poker, as is Match Poker Online. In the latter, however, deals are asynchronous – drawn from a database.
Equity Your mathematical share of the Pot, typically found by multiplying the Pot by the likelihood (%) that you will win the Hand.
Expected Value / EV What you can mathematically expect to win as a result of a particular play. A poker decision that is reasonably expected to win chips in the long run can be described as having a ‘positive expected value’, denoted as +EV. The opposite is -EV.
While your results on any single play will rarely conform to the Expected Value in the short term (see Variance), good poker players know that betting where you have positive EV will deliver long term results (and thus such play will often improve a player’s Rating in Match Poker Online).
Face Cards Jack, Queen and King are the Face Cards. Also known as ‘Court Cards’.
Family Pot When all (or almost all) players at a table Call before the Flop.
Fast To ‘Play Fast’ is to play aggressively, Betting and Raising frequently.
Favourite The player or Hand statistically likely to win the Pot.
Fish A weak or unskilled player. Also called a Donkey.
Flat Call / Flatting To Call when you would normally be expected to Raise. Also called a ‘Smooth Call‘.
Flop The first three Community Cards, revealed after the first Betting Round.
Flush One of the Hand combinations in poker, featuring five cards of the same Suit.
Fold An action a player may take where they refuse to participate in the Hand any longer. Any Chips they have contributed up to this point are surrendered.
Free Card Being able to see the Turn or River without paying chips because players Checked.
Free Roll When your Hand is tied with an opponent’s, but you have a chance of winning the Pot due to Outs that favour you but not them; i.e. the worst that can happen is that you split the Pot.
Full House One of the Hand combinations in poker, featuring a pair of two cards and three of a kind of other cards.
Grand Master (GM) A Match Poker Online player who has reached the highest possible Rank, with an IFMP Rating of 2,400+.
Gutshot (Straight) A Straight that was completed by Community Cards that filled in the ‘inner’ cards of the Straight. Also termed an ‘Inside Straight‘, a Gutter, or sometimes a ‘Belly Buster’.
Hand ‘Hand’ has different, contradictory meanings depending on context:

  1. A single ‘match’ of Poker, played until all-but-one players have Folded.
  2. An alternate name for a player’s Hole Cards.
  3. The best five-card combination a player has collated – from their two Hole Cards and the five Community Cards available – which decides which player is the winner after the Showdown.
Heads-Up A Pot being contested by only two players.
Hero The nickname given to the first-person storyteller of events that happened at the poker table.
Hero Call To Call a Bet in the final Betting Round with a Weak Hand because you think the Aggressor is Bluffing.
Hijack The name for the third-last Position around the table to Act, before the Cutoff.
Hit When Community Cards come out that are favourable to you, you are said to have ‘Hit‘. The opposite of this is to ‘Miss‘.
Hole Cards Two cards privately dealt to each player. These cards can be used by players in conjunction with the 5 Community Cards to make the best 5-card Hand.
IFMP The International Federation of Match Poker, the governing body for the sport of poker known as Match Poker.
Implied Odds The chance that more Chips may come into the pot, and so help you decide whether or not to Fold. [Click Here to learn more about Implied Odds]
Inside Straight A Straight that was completed by Community Cards that filled in the ‘inner’ cards of the Straight. Also termed a ‘Gutshot’ or ‘Gutshot Straight’.
In Position Acting after your opponents, which has advantages. See Position.
Jam To go All-In.
Kicker A Hole Card that was not paired, but may still determine who wins a Hand by being the best ‘next card’ where players’ other cards are equal; “We both had a pair of Kings, but I had an Ace Kicker“.
LAG A Loose, Aggressive player. Read our article on VEP and PFR to see whether you are Tight/Loose or Passive/Aggressive – to see how to improve your play.
Leaderboard A table/tally that shows how players Rank against each other.
Limp To enter the Pot by Calling the Big Blind.
Lojack The name for the Position immediately before the Hijack. In a six-player game, this is also (and more commonly) referred to as Under The Gun.
Loose Playing Loose means to play in an audacious way, taking more risks and participating in more pots than would be typical.
Luck Box A player whose success in poker can be attributed to luck more than skill.
Luck Boxes have significantly less success in Match Poker.
Maniac A player who is overly-Aggressive in their play.
Marginal Hand A Hand that is neither strong nor weak. There is a chance it may become the strongest Hand.
Match Poker A variant of Texas Hold ‘Em poker approved as a sport, wherein the influence of luck is significantly reduced. [Learn More Here!]
Match Poker Online™ A mobile app that allows players all around the world to play Match Poker against each other and compete for Ratings to establish their level of skill at poker. Download it now!
Misclick / Mistap Accidentally taking the wrong action by tapping or clicking the wrong option when playing online.
Miss When a person Misses, it means the Flop or Board did not improve their Hand. The opposite of this is to ‘Hit‘.
Monster A hugely powerful Hand.
Muck To Fold.
Nit A very Tight and very Passive player.
No-Limit Hold ’em (NLH) The style of Poker played in Match Poker, featuring two Hole Cards, five Community Cards and no rules limiting the size of a player’s Bet at any point.
Nuts The best Hand possible; “The nut flush“, or “He flopped the nuts“.
Offsuit Two Hole Cards of different suits.
One Gap / One Gapper Two Hole Cards that have values separated by one number, e.g. 4, 6.
Open (Verb) To be the first to bet.
Open-Ended Straight Draw Where a Straight can be completed with a Community Card immediately above or below a current Four-Card Straight. Also called an ‘Up-And-Down’ Straight Draw or a ‘Double-Ended’ Straight Draw.
Out A Community Card that will make you win if it comes out; “I have eleven outs“. Also see Dirty Outs.
Out-of-Position Acting before your opponents, which has disadvantages. See Position.
Outrun / Outran (Verb) To beat, usually from an underdog position. “Villain outran my trips with a full house on the river“.
Overbet To make a Bet larger than the current size of the Pot.
Overcall To Call a Bet after other players have already Called. This Call is sometimes called an Overflat.
Overcard A card higher than any on the Board, or higher than what you are focussed upon. E.g. if you have a Jack, then a Queen, King or Ace would all be Overcards.
Overflat If there has been a Bet, followed by a Call (or Limp), then an Overflat is another Call after this.
Overlimp When a player Calls the Big Blind after another player has already Limped, this is called an Overlimp. See Limp.
Overpair A Pocket Pair higher than any pair that you are focussed upon.
Passive This term can be used to describe players who do not Raise frequently. Calls are considered Passive Actions.
Pay Off (Verb) When you Call a player to see if they have a better hand than yours.
PFR “Pre-Flop Raise” – A statistic used in determining whether you are a Tight/Loose or Passive/Aggressive player. Read our article on VEP and PFR – to see how controlling your PFR can improve your play.
Play The Board When a player’s best five-card combination is made from the five Community Cards.
Pocket Pair Your Pocket cards are your Hole Cards. If these are a pair, then you have a Pocket Pair.
Preflop Events that occur in the Betting Round before the Flop.
Position Your place in the order of Actions around the table.
Generally, acting later than your opponents has advantages.
[Click Here to learn more about how your play should change based on your position]
Postflop Events that occur in the Betting Round after the Flop.
Pot A collection of all the chips wagered in a single Hand. It is awarded to the winner of the Hand (or split evenly in the event of a tie). Also see Split Pot and Side Pot.
A Pot can also refer to a single Hand (match) of poker.
Pot Odds A ratio, comparing the amount in the Pot to the amount you will Bet. [Click Here to learn more about Pot Odds]
Price The Pot Odds you are getting for a Call or for certain Outs.
Protect / Protection Bet To invest more chips into a Pot that you have already invested in (or more than you might normally have bet) – so as to defend it from others.
Push To go All-In.
Quads Four of a kind.
Rabbit Hunting Peeking at the remaining Community Card(s) after the hand is finished, usually because a player is curious to see if they would have hit, had they not already folded. Many poker institutions prohibit this.
Rag A meaningless Community Card or one that is unlikely to have helped any player in the hand.
Ragged When the Board does not appear to be of much use to anybody.
Rainbow Three or four Community Cards where no two cards are of the same Suit.
Raise An action a player may take during a Betting round where they are the first to contribute Chips and Raise the stakes. Players must Fold if they cannot Call or Raise.
Range A set of hands that a player may hold. Rather than attempting to discern what two cards an opponent has, skilled poker players often try to determine what Range of Hole Cards an opponent might have.
Ranges are often visualised on a grid, such as our Pre-Flop Ranges for 8-Max Play table, which helps players determine which hands to Open with in an 8-person-per-table tournament.
Rank
  1. The numerical value of a card; “Ace has the highest rank“.
  2. The calibre of players you belong to in Match Poker Online, defined by your Rating being within a certain band.
Rating (See IFMP Rating)
Rec A recreational, infrequent or casual player.
Reg A regular or frequent player. It is often implied that they are therefore better than average.
It is very common to subdivide the category of ‘Regs’, i.e. “Bad Regs do this, Good Regs don’t.”
Represent To play as if you have specific Hole Cards, whether you actually do or not.
Re-Raise To Raise after another player has already Raised.
River The fifth and final Community Card, revealed after the third Betting Round.
River Rat A player with a reputation for getting lucky cards on the River to win the Pot.
Rock A conservative or uncreative player, sometimes predictably so.
Rounder An experienced player; one who earns their living at the poker table.
Royal Flush The best Hand combination in poker, featuring five consecutive cards of the same Suit from Ten to Ace.
Run (Noun) A series of Hands that share a characteristic. “I had a bad run last night“.
Runner-Runner A hand where both the Turn and the River were helpful; “A runner-runner straight“. Also sometimes referred to as ‘Backdoor’.
Scare Card A Community Card that could make the best hand bad.
See To See a player (or their bet) means to Call them.
Semi-Bluff A Bluff that you hope will not be Called because you don’t think it is the strongest Hand, but which could still be, or improve to, the strongest Hand.
Set Three of a Kind made from your two Hole Cards and one Community Card.
Shark A skilled player.
Shove To go All-In.
Showdown The Betting round immediately following the River.
Side Pot A pot sometimes created when a player goes All-In, where two or more other players are still in the Hand and continue Betting against each other. This can create a segregated Pot that cannot be won by the All-In player.
In Match Poker, where stacks reset after each hand, Side Pots would not exist.
Sizing The size of a Bet, an important strategic consideration.
Slow Play To have a strong Hand but play weakly or passively.
Small Blind A forced Bet made by the player to the left of the Dealer.
Smooth Call To Call when you would be expected to Raise. Also called a ‘Flat Call‘ or ‘Flatting‘.
Split Pot When multiple players have hands of equal value after the Showdown. The Pot is distributed evenly between them.
Split Two Pair When you pair both of your Hole Cards on the Board.
Squeeze Play When a player has Raised, Preflop, and they were followed by a Call, a Squeeze Play would then be to Re-Raise, usually as a Bluff.
Stack The total amount of Chips a player has remaining.
Straddle A Straddle Bet (Straddling, or Playing the Straddle), is an optional and voluntary Blind Bet a player can make after the Small and Big Blinds have been posted, but before cards are dealt. Typically found only in cash games played with fixed blind structures. Not permitted in Match Poker.
Straight Flush One of the Hand combinations in poker, featuring five consecutive cards of the same Suit.
Street The Flop is the first Street, the Turn is the second Street, and the River is the third Street.
Strong A Strong Hand is a Hand that is likely to win.
Suit An attribute of every card, being either a Spade, Heart, Diamond or Club.
Suited An adjective to describe cards that have the same Suit.
Suited Connectors Two Hole Cards that have consecutive values and are of the same Suit.
TAG A Tight, Aggressive player. Read our article on VEP and PFR to see whether you are Tight/Loose or Passive/Aggressive – to see how to improve your play.
Tell A clue a player may give about their Hand, often via body/facial language. It can be involuntary, or deliberate in order to deceive.
Texture The relationship between visible Community Cards – how they interact with each other.
Tight Playing Tight means to play conservatively, taking fewer risks than would be typical.
Tilt Going on Tilt is when a player plays wildly or recklessly, usually due to anger or frustration.
Top and Bottom Two pair, made from your Hole Cards pairing the highest and lowest cards on the Board.
Top Pair A pair made with the highest card on the Board. (See Second Pair).
Top Set Trips made with the highest card on the Board.
Top Two Two pair, made from pairing each of your Hole Cards with the two highest cards on the Board.
Trap To play a Hand weakly in the hope that another player Bluffs, Calls, or Raises.
Trips Three of a kind made from one Hole Card and two Community Cards.
True Rating A Match Poker Online Rating that reflects a player’s actual skill level in poker. All players will eventually find it hard to increase their Rating beyond a certain point because the Match Poker Online algorithm will have collected enough data and identified that that Rating truly reflects the player’s current level of skill. If this has happened to you, make sure to check out our ‘How to Improve Your IFMP Rating‘ article to learn how to increase your True Rating!
Turn The fourth Community Card, revealed after the second Betting Round.
Under The Gun (UTG) The name given to the player first to Act, sitting to the left of the Big Blind.
Underdog The player or hand that is not the Favourite to win the Pot. Sometimes called ‘Dog’.
Up-And-Down Straight Draw Where a Straight can be completed with a Community Card immediately above or below a current Four-Card Straight. Also called an ‘Open-Ended’ Straight Draw.
Value Bet Betting with the desire of being Called, often because you expect to win the Hand. A ‘Thin‘ Value Bet is when the expectation of winning is barely above 50%.
Variance When a player’s results differ from the mathematically likely result (see EV). For example, KK should beat 44 in Heads-Up 4 out of every 5 times. If you have experienced better or worse results than this, then it is the result of Variance.
Villain The nickname for an opponent, usually in a story told by ‘the Hero‘.
VEP “Voluntarily Put money/chips Into Pot” – A statistic used in determining whether you are a Tight/Loose or Passive/Aggressive player. Read our article on VEP and PFR – to see how controlling your VEP can improve your play.
Weak A Weak Hand is a Hand that is likely to win. A Weak player is one who plays conservatively or is reticent to take risks.
Wet If the Board is Wet, it means there is strong coordination between the cards, creating a higher number of draws across a wider range of possible strong hands.
Whale An unskilled player who is wealthy or has a carefree attitude towards their Chips.
X When a player is recounting a poker story, they may choose to use X to represent an insignificant card; “Villain had King-X”.

Let us know more!

Poker terminology is always changing and evolving. Help us stay on top of it by emailing us with poker terms and slang that you have encountered in your play! Email us at community@matchpoker.com