Poker Glossary
Master the language of poker with our comprehensive glossary. From GTO concepts to strategic terminology.
B
Blinds
Blinds are two forced bets posted before the cards are dealt: the small blind and the big blind, put in by the two players left of the dealer button.
Blocker
A card in your hand that removes specific combinations from your opponent's range, influencing bluffing and calling decisions.
Bluff
A bet or raise with a hand that has little showdown value, aimed at making opponents fold better hands to win the pot uncontested.
Bluff Catching
Calling a bet with a hand that only beats bluffs, relying on the opponent's bluffing frequency to make the call profitable.
Board Texture
The characteristics of community cards -- rank, suit, and connectivity -- that determine which player has range advantage and how to bet optimally.
Button
The dealer position in poker, acting last on all postflop streets, making it the most profitable and strategically advantageous seat at the table.
C
Check-Raise
Checking then raising after an opponent bets, used both for value with strong hands and as a bluff to seize initiative from out of position.
Condensed Range
A range composed mostly of medium-strength hands, lacking both the strongest and weakest holdings, typically formed after strong hands 3-bet and weak hands fold.
Continuation Bet
A flop bet made by the preflop aggressor, continuing the initiative with a range and fold equity advantage on most board textures.
E
Equity
Your percentage share of the pot based on the probability of your hand winning at showdown, calculated across all possible remaining board cards.
Equity Realization
The percentage of a hand's raw equity that is actually captured in practice, influenced by position, hand playability, and postflop skill.
Expected Value (EV)
The average amount you expect to win or lose from a poker decision over the long run, calculated by weighing each possible outcome by its probability.
Exploitative Play
A strategy that deliberately deviates from GTO to target and profit from specific weaknesses in an opponent's play.
G
Game Tree
A branching diagram representing every possible sequence of actions and outcomes in a poker hand, used by solvers to compute optimal strategies.
Geometric Sizing
A bet sizing strategy that calculates equal pot-percentage bets across remaining streets to precisely commit your entire stack by the river.
GTO (Game Theory Optimal)
A mathematically unexploitable poker strategy based on Nash equilibrium where no player can improve their expected value by changing their approach.
Gutshot vs Open-Ended Straight Draw
A gutshot is an inside straight draw with 4 outs that needs one specific rank in the middle. An open-ended straight draw has 8 outs and completes on either end.
I
ICM (Independent Chip Model)
A mathematical model that converts tournament chip stacks into real-money equity based on prize structure, revealing the diminishing marginal value of chips.
Implied Odds
The expected future winnings beyond the current pot that justify calling a bet with a drawing hand, accounting for money you will win on later streets.
Indifference
A state where a player's EV from calling equals their EV from folding, making both actions mathematically equivalent in a balanced strategy.
M
MDF (Minimum Defense Frequency)
The minimum percentage of your range you must continue with (call or raise) to prevent an opponent from profiting with pure bluffs against any bet size.
Merged Range
A betting range composed of hands with similar, relatively strong values, lacking both pure bluffs and the strongest nut hands.
Mixed Strategy
A strategy that randomizes between different actions (bet, check, raise, fold) at specified frequencies with the same hand to remain unexploitable.
N
Nash Equilibrium
A strategy profile where no player can improve their expected outcome by unilaterally changing their strategy, forming the theoretical basis of GTO poker.
Node Locking
Fixing an opponent's strategy at a specific decision point in a solver to compute the maximally exploitative counter-strategy against that tendency.
Nut Advantage
Having a higher concentration of very strong hands (nuts or near-nuts) in your range compared to your opponent on a given board texture.
O
Outs
Outs are the unseen cards left in the deck that would improve your hand to the likely winner. Counting outs lets you estimate your chance of hitting.
Overpair
An overpair is a pocket pair higher than every card on the board, such as QQ on a J-7-2 flop. It beats any single pair made with a board card.
P
Polarized Range
A betting range composed of very strong value hands and bluffs with few medium-strength hands, typically used with larger bet sizes.
Position
Your seat relative to the dealer button determining when you act in each betting round, with later positions providing a significant strategic advantage.
Pot Odds
The ratio of the current pot to the cost of a call, expressed as a percentage, used to determine whether calling a bet is mathematically profitable.
R
Range
The complete set of hands a player could hold in a given situation, used to analyze strategy at a range level rather than hand-by-hand.
Range Advantage
A situation where one player's overall range is stronger than their opponent's on a given board, guiding betting frequency and sizing decisions.
Reverse Implied Odds
The potential to lose additional chips on future streets when you complete a draw to what turns out to be the second-best hand.
S
Semi-Bluff
A bet or raise with a drawing hand that is not currently the best but has significant potential to improve, combining fold equity with draw equity.
Set vs Trips
A set and trips are both three of a kind. A set is a pocket pair that matches one board card. Trips is one hole card plus a pair already on the board.
Solver
Software that computes GTO strategies by iterating through game trees to find Nash equilibrium solutions, producing unexploitable poker strategies.
Squeeze
A 3-bet made after an initial raise and one or more callers, exploiting dead money and massive fold equity from the multiway dynamics.
Stack-to-Pot Ratio (SPR)
The ratio of the effective stack to the pot size, guiding which hands should commit for stacks and how to plan multi-street betting strategies.
T
The Nuts
The nuts is the best possible hand at a given moment given the community cards. No other hand can beat it, though the nuts can change as new cards appear.
The Streets: Flop, Turn and River
The streets are poker's four betting rounds: preflop, the flop, the turn, and the river. Each round after preflop reveals community cards shared by all players.
Thin Value
A bet for value with a hand that beats only a narrow portion of the opponent's calling range, requiring precise range reading to be profitable.
Three-Bet
A re-raise over an initial preflop raise, used to build pots with strong hands and generate fold equity with bluffs as part of a balanced strategy.
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