Whether you’re learning how to play poker, levelling up your game or struggling to understand certain terms and references in poker conversations or videos, it’s helpful to have a simple, no-nonsense guide to the most useful key words and phrases.
For detailed explanations of every poker term around check out our extensive poker glossary, but for now here are 12 useful terms relating to betting, all explained in plain English.
Block bet: A leading bet designed to keep the pot cheap to play.
Let’s say you’re out of position, with a hand you’re unsure about and which you don’t think can call a large bet from your opponent. You make a small bet — a block bet — in the hopes that they’ll either fold or call, but either way the hand won’t cost you too many chips.
Cold call: To call when there’s already been a bet and a raise in front of you.
Donk bet: Leading out with a bet when you’d usually be expected to check to an aggressive opponent.
If someone behind you has been betting, and you’ve been calling, and then on a later street you take the betting lead, that’s a donk bet. It's a bet out of flow.
Flat call: To simply call in a spot where a raise would often seem like a good option.
Float: To call a bet without a strong hand — often on the flop — with a plan to push your opponent off the pot on a later street.
Geometric growth: A series of bets across multiple streets, each of the same percentage of the pot, designed so the final bet is all-in.
Let’s say you’re heads-up on the flop, with $10 already in the pot and $16 in your stack. You bet $3, 30% of the pot, and get called. On the turn there is $16 in the pot and you bet another 30%, $5, getting called again. On the river there is $26 in the pot and you bet your final $8 — again, 30% of the pot. Do this with a good hand, as the consistent sizing in relation to the pot should mean your opponent is more likely to call.
Jedi mind tricked: When you bet small, in relation to the pot, in the hopes of making your opponent raise too small.
The idea is that you ‘trick’ them into sizing their raise in relation to your bet, rather than the size of the pot, keeping the price low.
Misclick: A f*ckup. When you accidentally take the wrong action, either by announcing the wrong amount or even the wrong move completely, for example putting out calling chips and saying ‘raise’, or raising to an amount that's too small because you didn't notice a raise ahead of you.
It’s called a misclick because mistakenly clicking the wrong button is so easy to do online, but it also refers to live poker.
Nit roll: To spend an overly long time considering a call, when it’s very likely you have the best hand, because you’re a tight player (also known as a ‘nit’).
Protect: To aggressively bet with a good, but vulnerable, hand in order to stop drawing hands from hitting their outs without paying too much for the privilege.
Snap: An action taken instantly, from a ‘snap-fold’ to a ‘snap-call’ to a ‘snap-shove’.
String bet: When you bet it needs to be immediately clear the amount that you’re betting. Saying ‘I see your $20… and raise $100’ might sound good in cowboy movies, but it’s not allowed in modern poker games.
This is to prevent you from adjusting your bet sizes after seeing an opponent’s reaction, for example by sliding out piles of chips one after another until you sense the bet is big enough for your opponent to fold. This illegal move is known as a ‘string bet’.
Visit the PokerOrg poker glossary for a detailed explanation of every poker term you'll ever need to know.
