Glossary of Terms for Hold'em Poker

Continued from: Beating the Game of Online Poker Before we get started I'd like to make some very basic lingo clarifications so that you can follow without any difficulty and so I don't have to continually identify terminology that you may or may not know. I guess this will be the first chart that I would recommend printing or copying for convenience and easy reference.

Hold'em Terms

TERM: MEANING

Tight: Player tendency to play selectively few hands.

Aggressive: Player tendency to make relatively large bets.

Loose: Player tendency to play too many starting hands.

Passive: Player tendency to make relatively small bets.

Fish: Poor or inexperienced player; usually loose-passive.

Open: Being the first player to raise a pot.

Enter: Playing a hand by calling or raising a bet.

NLH (or NLHE): No Limit Hold 'em

Suited Connectors: Any two cards of adjacent rank and the same suit (e.g., 9d8d)

Position: How early or late you have to act compared to the other players.

Stealing Blinds: Raising in late position when no one has called to win the blinds.

The Button: The position of the dealer.

Poker Card and Hand Abbreviations

The following is a list of card and hand abbreviations. Enough examples are given here that you should be able to identify what hands and cards I'll be referring to in future examples contained in the text.

ABBREVIATION: CARD or POKER HAND

As: ace of spades

Kd: king of diamonds

Qc: queen of clubs

Jh: jack of hearts

KdJh: king of diamonds, jack of hearts

Kd9c: king of diamonds, nine of clubs

AX: an ace with any other card, any suits

AXs: an ace with any other card of the same suit

AK: an ace and a king of any suits or suited (aka: big slick)

Td9d: ten of diamonds, nine of diamonds

T9s: ten and a nine each of the same suit

K9o: a king and a nine that are different suits (offsuit)

♣ Continued at: Starting Hand Requirements for Hold'em

♣ Back to the index of articles about online poker games.