Poker Glossary

What is a combo draw in poker? Explore how combining flush and straight draws can elevate your equity. Learn how to play effective combo draw poker.

Collusion describes the act of working together with other players at the table in order to gain an unfair advantage. Poker is a solo game, any collaboration with other players is against the rules and can result in a permanent ban from the game in question. There are various different forms of collusion, such as soft playing, chip dumping, and sharing hole card (or other) information.

A coldcall is a call that’s made as our very first action in the hand. It’s generally a call made when facing an open-raise, since if there is no open raiser a call is generally referred to as a ‘limp’.Cold callscan also be made when facing preflop 3bets and 4bets, provided the call is the very first action we take in the hand.

In poker a check raise is where a player raises after already checking on the current betting round. It is often considered a deceptive play because it involves a passive action (checking) followed by an aggressive action (raising). A check raise is really just two actions strung together, a check followed by a raise.

A check means that the action passes to the player on our left without us making any wager. Checking is only possible when no-one has made a bet on the current street. Say, for instance, a bet has been made before us on the current street, our options are to call, raise or fold. In this scenario, checking is not an option, because we must always at least match the bet on the current street.

To play our C-Game means that we don’t feel we are performing at our best at the tables. We feel that we are making a number of mistakes that we usually manage to avoid on a better day. The term C-game also has close ties with our mental state when playing. Playing C-game could indicate that we are getting emotionally affected by our short term results and making bad decisions as a result of frustration or ‘tilt’. Other letters may also be used to describe the quality of our game, A-game, B-game, D-Game, etc. The further up the alphabet we go, the better our game gets – with A-game being the best.

A cash game is a type of poker game where all players are free to buy-in and leave at any point. If a player loses chips he is free to buy additional chips at any point (while not in a hand). Cash games are generally the preferred game for professional players since the swings are smaller and the gains are more consistent relative to tournaments.

Find the meaning of the term "Case" in poker. See examples where hitting a “case” card is required to win.

A calling station is a type of poker player who rarely folds when facing bets or raises. Calling stations are generally losing poker players because they are constantly paying out when their opponent has better. Calling stations are constantly worried about being bluffed off the best hand and find themselves constantly calling because they just “have to know” whether their opponent has it or not.

To call in poker simply means to match the existing bet on the current betting round. For example, if our opponent makes a bet of $10 on the flop in Hold’em, calling means that we match the $10 bet exactly. Once a player has called with everything in their chip stack, they are guaranteed to reach a showdown even if the opponent had more chips in his stack.

The button is the most profitable seat at the poker table. It's to the right of the small blind (SB) and to the left of the cutoff (CO).

The buy-in is the amount we pay to join a certain poker game. In tournaments the buy-in amount is typically fixed while in cash games there are a range of different buy-in sizings we can use. In cash games, buy-ins are often used a measurement of profit and losses (usually where 1 buy-in = 100 big blinds).

The term busted means that a draw did not hit even after the final card was dealt. For example, we might have a flush draw on the turn in Hold’em, but as soon as our flush draw misses on the river we can now refer to the hand as a busted flush draw. The term busted is also used to describe a player who is knocked out of a tournament once all of his chips our gone. Knocking out another player is often called ‘busting’ them.

The term burn means to discard the top card from the deck rather than deal it to the table. For example, in live Hold’em games, it’s common for the dealer to burn cards before dealing on every street. This is done to protect against cheating, or in case the value of the top card had been accidentally revealed to any player at the table.

The bubble is the situation in a poker tournament right before the prize pool is reached. Every player knows that if he busts out of the tournament right now, he’ll walk away with nothing. This creates a dynamic where a large number of the shorter stacks are simply trying to ‘hold on’ until that last player busts. Although the largest bubble is always right before reaching the prize pool, miniature bubbles can be created any time there is a considerable jump in payout.