Poker Lingo for the Newbie

• Author: Tom Kearns
• Filed under: Poker
• Date: Feb 3,2010

It is only natural for a novice poker player to enter an online poker room, begin a game and find the players communicating in an almost alien language. After a while you begin to suspect that these are neither typos nor a plot against the newcomer, but terms and abbreviations which are obvious to any decent poker amateur. The game is full of poker-specific words and concepts. This article might be of some help to those of you who occasionally have trouble understanding some of the chat messages in online poker rooms or forums.

Let\’s begin with some of the more obvious things. Probably the most popular game is Texas Holdem. It can be a limit, pot-limit, and no-limit game. From 2 to 10 players can participate in a Texas Holdem session. The person dealing the cards is called the dealer; his position at the table is marked by a special \”button\” and may be referred to as \”the button.\” Do not confuse the dealer with the casino representative who deals the cards to the players but never participates in the game.

In back of the dealer are two players who make bets blindly. Only the table limit keeps the lid on their bets. They cannot bet over the particular table\’s limit. The first blind bet is for half of the table limit and is termed the small blind, the second player places a bet for the full table limit, the big blind. So, if the table limit $2/$4, the small blind will be for $2 and the big blind for $4. You often see abbreviations which designate the player\’s position. SB stands for small blind and BB denotes the big blind. Of course this seems too easy and it is. SB can also mean small bet and BB big bet, having nothing to do with blind. Be aware of this and distinguish between them while engaged in play.

The small blind player is always the first to make the move. His position is therefore counted as the first position, while the button (the dealer\’s) position is the last. The third player, the one immediately after the big blind, is in the early position and is said to be \”under the gun\” or UTG. The next two positions are likewise \”early positions\” and are abbreviated as UTG + 1 and UTG + 2.

Okay, lets continue. The next three players are in the middle positions: MP1, MP2, and MP3. Following these is the \”late\” position which is the player directly before the button. His position is known as the cutoff or CO. Lastly, the button himself plays.

The above names are for the positions in a Texas hold\’em game of ten players. If a game has fewer players, some of the position names are simply dropped.

With that out of the way, lets begin the play. The first step is the preflop, where each player is dealt two pocket cards. The next steps in the game are referred to as streets and are the flop, the turn (fourth street) and the river (fifth street). While this is going on, cards are laid on the table (AKA, the board). These cards are known as the relevant streets, first three flop cards, then one turn and one river card. The flop cards in different suits are referred to as a rainbow.

This is a bare beginning in the argot of online poker, but it should whet your appetite to learn more terms and gain more understanding of the games in the online poker rooms. So, good luck and enjoy the game and the education you are giving yourself.

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