Name: The more unusual terms used when discussing poker.
Age: Around 200 years old — as old as poker itself.
Appearance: Words that convey specific information in the context of poker, but that leave many non-poker nerds baffled and asking blunt questions.
What are you talking about? See? Just like that one. Poker is a game with a rich, deep vocabulary that’s used to drill down into its finer aspects.
Check, call, fold, raise. Do I need to know anything else? To play? No, and that’s really the beauty of it. But to consider, discuss or describe the way poker is played, there is an entire lexicon of terms, words and phrases that bring particular elements to life.
I know the difference between trips and a set; does it get more complex than that? It can, and that’s why PokerOrg has an entire glossary of poker terms and phrases where you can look up anything you might overhear at the table that doesn’t make sense.
So in the spirit of self-improvement for the New Year, here are 10 poker phrases you may not be familiar with, but can break out at your next home game to look educated. Check out our poker dictionary for even more.
Alley-oop: A raise given extra force by an unexpected bet in front of it. Taken from the basketball term and first described by Andrew Brokos and Carlos Welch in their Thinking Poker podcast.
Indifference: In game theory, a state where there is no EV difference between two choices. A perfectly balanced betting strategy puts an opponent in a situation where they are indifferent between calling and folding, because both have the same EV.
Minimim Defence Frequency (MDF): A measurement that tells you how often you need to call to make your opponent’s zero-equity hands indifferent between bluffing and giving up.
Mississippi Straddle: A form of straddle in which players may straddle from any position at the table.
Mixed Strategy: Any solver strategy that entails two or more choices at the same node, or decision point. For example, it may check 40% of the time and bet half the pot the other 60%. In some cases, the solver may mix across 3-4 different bet sizes, plus checking.
Node-lock: To force a solver to take a particular action at a node, rather than allowing it to find the equilibrium solution. This enables solver users to model non-equilibrium human behavior, or recreate a specific scenario.
Reciprocality: The idea — as first discussed by Tommy Angelo — that theoretical money moves between two players when they play an identical situation differently.
Resulting: The act of interpreting poker actions based on the outcome of the hand, rather than how sound the decision actually was.
Up-stuck: The state of being ahead in a game, session, or tournament, but below your high-water mark. If you let this tilt you, it can lead to being just plain ol’ stuck.
Value panic: A situation in which an out-of-position player reaches the river with a strong hand, having played passively up to that point. Realizing that this is their last chance to get value for their hand, and fearful that the in-position player will check back, they fire out a value bet, ignoring the option of checking which would allow the in-position player to bet a worse hand.
For more poker explanations, examples and esoterica, check out the PokerOrg guide to poker terms.
