The world of poker has its own terms from ante to zoo. This list defines the words from "E" to "Z" that you might hear on a poker table. A precursor to poker with terms from "A" to "D" is also available.
- Family Pot: when many players are in a hand
- Fill Up: to catch a card that makes a full-house; the last card fills the house
- Fish: a weak player
- Flop: in hold’em and Omaha – the first three community cards placed on the board
- Floor: any supervisor in a poker room
- Fold: to stop playing a hand and give up
- Free Card: when there is no bet during a round and the players get to see the next card for free
- Freeroll: tournament where previous action or play gets a no-cost entry; during a poker hand when a player has the best hand but has a chance to make an even better hand. Example: holding a straight but also four cards to a flush – thus on a freeroll to make the flush
- Freezeout: play continues until one player has all the chips
Gutshot: four-card straight that needs to be filled by a card in-between the others such as when the player holds 5-6 and a 8-9 and needs a 7 in the gut to make a straight - Heads Up: only two players involved in a pot; when a tournament gets down to just two players
- Hi/Lo: any poker game where pots are split evenly between a high hand and a low hand
- Kicker: next highest card that determines a winner; A-x is a hold’em hand with an ace and any other card, the x is the kicker
- Laydown: to fold a big hand
- Limp: to just call with a hand that might have been strong enough to raise with
- Muck: the discards; to fold and toss your cards into the muck
- No Limit: a game where the bets have no limit; all chips may be bet at any time
- Nuts, the: a hand that can’t be beat by any other player
- Outs: the number of cards that will make a hand; if a player needs one of four sevens in the deck to win, they have four outs
- Overcard: cards higher than your own cards; if you hold a pair of nines and a ten, jack, queen, king or ace hits the board, it is an overcard
- Over the top: a re-raise, usually an all-in re-raise of
- Paint: face card; the jack, queen and king have color on them and are paint cards
- Play the board: using the community cards only as a hand; when you hold no clubs but there are five clubs on the board you play the flush that is showing
- Post: to put up a blind bet
- Quads: four of a kind
- Rainbow: a mixture of suits with no two matching
- Rake: money taken from each pot by the house to pay expenses;
- Rebuy: to purchase more chips in a live game or a tournament
- Riffle: to shuffle the cards or chips
- River: final card in any game
- Rock: a very tight player; one who plays very few hands; the rock threw nickels around like manhole covers
- Runner-runner: catching the last two cards to make a winning hand
- Satellite: an inexpensive tournament where the prize is an entry to a more expensive tournament
- Set: three of a kind
- Scoop: in a hi/low split game when one player wins the whole pot
- Shark: a strong player looking for fish
- Shootout: single table tournament, usually with one winner
- Straddle: a bet made prior to seeing the starting cards when the better is not in the blind
- Suckout: a winning hand made on a small-odds or lucky card against a stronger hand
- String bet: bet made by putting chips in the pot and going back for more chips to bet – not allowed unless the player announces their intention and amount first
- Table Stakes: only the chips and cash on the table can be used and bet
- Texas Hold'em: poker game when players start with two personal down card and compete to make the best five-card hand using any combination of their cards and five community cards
- Tight: a player who plays very few hands
- Tilt/On Tilt: a player who is not playing their best game, usually because of a string of bad luck or bad beats
- Trips: three of a kind
- Toke: money or chips given to the dealer
- Turn: hold’em or Omaha – after the flop of three cards comes the turn; the fourth community card
- Undercard: a card of value below a card or cards held in a Hold’em or Omaha hand
- Under the gun: first to act pre-flop; the first spot after the big blind
- Value bet: bet made on the river by a player with a hand that is probably just a slight favorite to win
- Wheel: (bike) five card hand of ace-2-3-4-5
- Wild/Wild Cards: a card that can be used as any card; in deuces wild, a hand of ace-ace-2-5-9 is three aces, since the 2 is wild; a player who is playing in a crazy, hard to predict manner
- Zoo table: a game with many wild players
If you are new to poker, start by learning what beats what at the poker table!
