Guides

Poker glossary, A to Z

79 poker words explained in one plain definition each, from add-on to wrap, with the figures from Basepoker and WePlay where a word has them.

A

Add-on: An extra block of chips you may buy once, usually at the end of a rebuy period, for one more payment. WePlay's Rebuy Rush offers one add-on of 60,000 chips when the rebuy hour ends.
All In or Fold: A format in which every hand you either put all your chips in or fold. Stacks are short and a hand takes seconds. Basepoker runs All In or Fold tables.
All-in: Betting every chip you have in front of you. You cannot be forced out of a hand once you are all-in; the other players keep betting in a side pot you cannot win.
Ante: A small forced bet every player puts in before the hand, on top of the blinds, used in most tournaments once the early levels are over.

B

Bankroll: The money you have set aside for poker and nothing else. The usual guide is 30 to 50 buy-ins for cash games and 100 or more for tournaments. Our bankroll calculator turns a sum into a stake.
Big blind: The larger of the two forced bets before the flop, paid by the player two seats left of the button. Stakes are named by the blinds, so a $0.05/$0.10 game has a $0.10 big blind. Win rates are measured in big blinds per 100 hands.
Blocker: A card in your hand that cannot be in your opponent's. Holding the ace of a suit when the flush completes means they cannot have the nut flush, which makes your hand a better bluff.
Bluff: A bet or raise made with a hand that is unlikely to win at showdown, in the hope that the other players fold.
Bounty: A prize on each player's head in a bounty tournament, paid to whoever knocks them out. WePlay's Bounty Blitz is a progressive knockout, where part of each bounty you collect is added to your own.
Bubble: The point in a tournament just before the paid places begin. Playing near the bubble is where the independent chip model changes the right decisions most.
Button: The dealer position, marked by a disc that moves one seat left after each hand. The player on the button acts last after the flop, which is the best seat at the table.
Buy-in: What you pay to sit down. In a cash game it is the chips you bring to the table, often 100 big blinds; in a tournament it is the fixed entry price, sometimes written as the prize pool part plus the fee.

C

Cap: The most rake a room will take from one cash game pot. Once a pot passes the cap, the rake stops growing.
Cash game: A game with fixed blinds where chips are worth their face value and you can join or leave at any time. The room takes rake from each pot.
Check: Passing the action to the next player without betting, which you may do when nobody has bet yet in the round.
Check-raise: Checking, then raising after another player bets in the same round.
Club: A private group inside a poker room where the members set their own games. Basepoker has clubs; ours is Crypto Poker Network, club ID 881146, on the Private games page.
Combination: One specific pair of hole cards. A pocket pair is six combinations, a suited hand four and an offsuit hand twelve. Counting combinations is how you compare the hands an opponent can hold.
Continuation bet: A bet on the flop by the player who raised before the flop, whether or not the flop helped them. Often shortened to c-bet.
Cover: To have more chips than another player. You can only win a bounty from a player you cover, and only a player who covers you can knock you out.
Cutoff: The seat to the right of the button, which acts second to last after the flop. One of the two late positions.

D

Dangler: In Omaha, a card in your four that does not work with the other three. A-A-K-3 has a dangler, the three.
Double-suited: In Omaha, a starting hand with two cards of one suit and two of another, giving two flush draws. A-A-K-K double-suited is the best starting hand in Pot-Limit Omaha.
Draw: A hand that is not yet made but can become one with the right card: a flush draw needs one more of its suit, a straight draw one more in sequence.

E

Equity: Your share of the pot if the hand were played out many times, written as a percentage. A flush draw on the flop has about 35% equity against a made hand.
Expected value: What a decision earns on average over many repetitions, often shortened to EV. A call can have positive expected value and still lose most of the time.

F

Fold equity: The part of a bet's value that comes from the chance the other player folds, on top of the chance you win at showdown.
Freeroll: A tournament with no buy-in and a prize pool put up by the room or a sponsor.
Freezeout: A tournament with one buy-in and no rebuys or re-entry. When your chips are gone, you are out.

G

Guarantee: The minimum prize pool a tournament promises. If the entries do not cover it, the room adds the difference, which players call an overlay. Our rule: every tournament with a guarantee is worth your time.

H

Heads-up: Play between two players only, whether a two-player table or the last two left in a tournament.
Hijack: The seat two to the right of the button, before the cutoff.
Hole cards: The cards dealt face down to you alone: two in Hold'em, four in Omaha.

I

Implied odds: The pot odds adjusted for the money you expect to win on later streets if you hit your hand. A draw that is a small loss on pot odds alone can be a call with good implied odds.
In position: Acting after your opponent on each betting round after the flop. The button is in position against everyone.
Independent chip model: A way of turning tournament chip stacks into money given the payouts, usually shortened to ICM. It shows that chips you might lose are worth more than chips you might win. Our tournament calculator computes it.
Isolate: To raise after a limper or a short stack so that the pot is between you and that one player, with nobody else along for the ride.

K

Kicker: The unpaired card that decides a tie between two hands of the same rank. A-K against A-Q on an ace-high board wins on the king kicker.

L

Late registration: The period after a tournament starts during which you can still enter, or re-enter after busting where re-entry is allowed. WePlay's regular tournaments keep it open for well over an hour.
Limp: Entering the pot before the flop by calling the big blind rather than raising. Usually a mistake when you are the first player in.

M

Minimum defence frequency: The share of your range you must continue with against a bet so that a bluff does not show an automatic profit: the pot divided by the pot plus the bet. Against a pot-size bet it is 50%.
Multiplier: In a Spin, the number drawn before the first hand that sets the prize pool as a multiple of the buy-in. Most draws land on the smallest multiplier; the jackpot is rare.
Multiway: A pot with three or more players in it. Bluffs work less and one pair is rarely good by the river.

N

No flop, no drop: A rule many rooms use: a pot that ends before the flop pays no rake.
Nuts: The best possible hand given the cards on the board. The second nuts is the second best, and in Omaha it is the hand that loses stacks.

O

Offsuit: Two hole cards of different suits. An offsuit hand has twelve combinations.
Out: A card still unseen that would make your hand the best. A flush draw has nine outs. The rule of four and two turns outs into a rough percentage.
Overlay: The money a room adds to a tournament when the entries do not cover the guarantee. Extra prize money for the players who showed up.

P

Pot odds: What you have to call compared with what you can win, written as odds or as the share of the time you need to win. Calling $20 to win $100 needs you to win more than one time in six. Our pot odds calculator does the arithmetic.
Pot-limit: A betting rule where the most you can bet or raise is the size of the pot after your call. Pot-Limit Omaha is the common pot-limit game.
Push or fold: The way to play a short stack, usually ten big blinds or fewer: every hand is either all-in before the flop or a fold.

R

Rake: The room's fee: a percentage of each cash game pot up to a cap, or a fee on top of a tournament buy-in. Our guide on how rake works has the figures.
Rakeback: A share of the rake you paid, given back to you. Basepoker pays 32% on poker as you play; WePlay pays 30% every Monday. The rakeback page has both.
Range: The set of all hands a player could hold given how they have played the hand so far. Good players think about ranges rather than guessing one hand.
Range advantage: Having more equity with your whole range than your opponent has with theirs on a given board. The raiser usually has it on a board of high cards.
Rebuy: Buying more chips during a tournament's rebuy period, usually the first hour. WePlay's Rebuy Rush allows unlimited rebuys of 10,000 chips in the first hour.
Re-entry: Buying in again as a fresh player after busting, while late registration is open. WePlay's regular tournaments allow it and have no rebuys.
River: The fifth and last community card, and the betting round that follows it.

S

Satellite: A tournament whose prizes are tickets to a bigger tournament rather than money. Everyone who finishes in the paid places gets the same ticket.
Semi-bluff: A bet or raise with a hand that is not the best now but can improve, such as a flush draw. It wins when the other player folds and it can still win when called.
Set: Three of a kind made with a pocket pair and one card on the board.
Showdown: The end of the hand when the remaining players show their cards and the best hand wins the pot.
Side pot: A second pot made when a player is all-in and the others keep betting. The all-in player can win only the main pot they contributed to; the side pot goes to the best hand among the others.
Sit and go: A tournament that starts as soon as its seats are full rather than at a set time. A Spin is a three-player sit and go with a random prize pool.
Small blind: The smaller forced bet before the flop, paid by the player to the left of the button, usually half the big blind.
Spin: A three-player game with a short stack, fast blinds and a prize pool drawn at random before the first hand, from a small multiple of the buy-in up to a jackpot. WePlay calls them Spins; Basepoker's version is Spin & Cash.
Stack-to-pot ratio: The shorter stack divided by the pot on the flop, shortened to SPR. Under 3, top pair is good enough to play for stacks; over 10, you want two pair or better.
Standard deviation: A measure of how far results swing from the average. For six-handed no-limit Hold'em cash games it is typically 80 to 100 big blinds per 100 hands. Our variance calculator uses it.
Straddle: A voluntary blind bet of twice the big blind, posted before the cards are dealt, usually by the player left of the big blind. It raises the stakes of that hand.
Suited: Two hole cards of the same suit. A suited hand has four combinations and about two to three percentage points more equity than the same hand offsuit.

T

Table stakes: The rule that you can only bet the chips you have on the table. Nobody can be bet out of a hand for more than their stack, which is why side pots exist.
Three-bet: The first re-raise before the flop. The blinds count as the first bet and the open raise as the second.
Tilt: Playing worse than you know how to because of anger, frustration or fatigue. The cure is to stop for the day.
Turn: The fourth community card, and the betting round that follows it. In no-limit games it is where most of the money is decided.

U

Under the gun: The seat to the left of the big blind, which acts first before the flop. The tightest seat at the table.
USDT: A dollar on a blockchain, also called Tether. Basepoker and WePlay both take it, and from 4 November 2026 Basepoker swaps every deposit into it. Our guide on poker with USDT explains the networks.

V

Value bet: A bet made with a hand you expect to be the best, sized so that worse hands call it.
Variance: The swing in results that has nothing to do with how well you play. A winning player at 5 big blinds per 100 hands is still behind after 10,000 hands about one time in four.

W

Wrap: In Omaha, a straight draw with more outs than an open-ended draw in Hold'em: thirteen, seventeen or twenty cards can complete it.

A word missing? Ask in our Telegram group and we add it. The fundamentals page explains the ideas behind the words.