Glossary of Poker Terms
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Terms starting with P
Paint
A jack, king, or queen (i.e., a card with a picture on it).
Let's see some paint.
Pair
Two cards of the same rank. If you hold AAKJ3, you have a
pair. See also top pair, middle pair, bottom pair, and two
pair.
Pass
To pass is to fold.
Passive
Passive is a style of play that is characterized by
reluctance to bet and raise. This does not always mean
tight. A typical loose-passive player will call with almost
anything, but raise only with very powerful hands (see
calling station). A passive table is one with many passive
players, so that, for example, few hands are raised
pre-flop.
Pat
In draw games, a pat hand is one to which you draw no cards.
In lowball, J7542 is a pat jack, but also offers a draw to a
7.
The other day I made pat straights twice in a row.
Pay Off
To call a bet by a player you're reasonably sure has you
beat. Usually you ought to have some sort of reason to do
this, other than just generosity. Weak players pay you off
more often than other players.
I was pretty sure he had the flush, but with all that money
in the pot I figured it was worth paying him off to be sure.
Perfect
When you only have one way to make a hand, you need perfect
cards. Usually this means two cards. If you hold 8JQ, you
need two perfect cards for a straight. To catch perfect is
to hit a perfect card.
Pineapple
Any of a number of variants of hold'em in which each player
gets three cards and must discard one at some point (usually
before or after pre-flop betting, after the flop, or after
the second round of betting).
Play
To play a hand in poker means to make it past the initial
round of betting. In seven card stud, this usually means
calling the bring-in, while in hold'em, this means calling
the big blind. If someone says they haven't played a hand in
hours, they're not usually telling you that they've been
walking, they're whining that they haven't had cards good
enough to play. Don't encourage them.
To make a play, or put a play on (someone), means to present
a pattern of behavior inconsistent with your cards, that
will mislead your opponent and cause them to make a mistake.
Often this means bluffing them out of a pot, but it can also
mean getting them to call when you have a strong hand, or
more generally anything calculated to guide their behavior.
Play Back (at)
To play back at someone is to raise their opening bet.
Play the Board
In flop games like hold'em, if your best five card hand uses
the five community cards, you're playing the board. The best
you can do in this situation is split the pot with anyone
who calls. Nevertheless, betting can be a good idea if you
don't think anyone else can improve on the board either. For
example, if the board is ThJhQdKdAd, someone would have to
have two diamonds not to be playing the board.
Pocket
The two cards dealt to you face down in hold'em, or the
first two face down in seven card stud are your pocket
cards, or hole cards. Hold'em players tend to call them
pocket cards, stud players tend to call them hole cards. See
also pocket pair.
Pocket Pair
Two pocket cards of the same rank.
Poker
Poker isn't just a card game - it's many card games. While
no definition is going to satisfy everyone, the majority of
poker games do share some common features, especially
betting in rounds and the ranking of hands. Poker is
commonly played in card rooms (often within casinos) and in
private home games (illegally in many states). The games
played in card rooms seem to divide into stud games, draw
games, and flop games. In home games, however, anything
goes, including games that seem to have no reason to be
called poker. The varieties played in home games probably
number in the hundreds, or even the thousands. Some common
cardroom games include Texas Hold'em, Seven Card Stud,
Omaha, Razz, Lowball, Pineapple, and Anaconda. (Okay, just
kidding about the anaconda.)
Position
Position refers to your place at the table, especially with
respect to the order of betting within a particular betting
round. The first few players to act are said to be in early
position, the next few in middle position, and the last few
in late position. Late position is almost always best, since
you have the advantage of knowing what your opponents have
done. For this reason, many players are more liberal about
the hands they will play from later positions. In some games
(most flop and draw games), position is fixed from one round
of betting to the next, and the dealer (or the player on the
button) is always in last position.
More generally, to have position on someone is to be in a
position to bet after them, either during a particular hand
or in general. You have position on anyone sitting
immediately to your right, since you will far more often
than not be able to act after them.
I didn't think he could've made the straight because he
would've had to be playing 65 in early position. Shows what
I know.
Position Bet
A position bet is a bet made more on the strength of one's
position than on the strength of one's hand. A player on the
button in hold'em is in good position to steal the pot if no
one else opens.
Post
To post a bet is to place your chips in the pot (or,
commonly, out in front of you, so that your bet can be
counted). In poker, posting usually means a forced bet, such
as a blind.
Pot
All the money in the middle of the poker table that goes to
the winner of the hand is the pot. Any player who has not
yet folded is said to be "in the pot." A player who has
called an initial bet is said to have entered the pot.
Pot-Limit
Any game in which the maximum bet or raise is the size of
the pot. For raises, the size of the pot includes the call,
so if the pot is $100 and player A bets $100, player B can
throw $400 out for a maximum raise (calling the $100 and
then raising the size of the $300 pot).
Pot Odds
The ratio of the amount of money in the pot to the amount of
money it will cost you to call a bet. The greater the pot
odds, the more likely you should be to call (all else being
equal), because you will have to win fewer times (in the
long run) to make the bet positive expectation.
I knew it was a long shot, but with all that money in the
pot and a draw to the nuts, I had no choice but to call.
Presto
A nickname for pocket 5's, usually in hold'em. This nickname
comes from the internet newsgroup rec.gambling (now
rec.gambling.poker), and is sometimes used among the
readership of that newsgroup to identify other members.
Prop
Short for proposition player.
Proposition Player
A proposition player, or "prop," is a player who is paid by
a cardroom to play poker, usually in order to keep games
going when they get shorthanded, or to get games started.
Props are paid a salary, but they gamble with their own
money. Props either learn how to play pretty solid poker or
they run out of money. See also shill.
Protect
To protect a hand is to bet so as to reduce the chances of
anyone outdrawing you (by getting them to fold). A hand that
needs protection is one that is almost certainly best, but
that is vulnerable to being outdrawn. Large pots make it
difficult to protect hands, since players will be willing to
chase more long shots. The structure of a game has a large
impact on how easy it is to protect a hand, as do the
personalities of the players at the table. It's easiest to
protect a hand in no-limit play, where you can potentially
make it as expensive as you like for someone to draw.
To protect your cards is to place a chip or some other small
object (players often have particular artifacts they like to
use) on top of them so that they don't accidentally get
mucked by the dealer, mixed with another player's discards,
or otherwise become dead when you'd like to play them.
Provider
A provider is a poker player who makes the game profitable
for the other players at the table. Similar in meaning to
fish, although provider has a somehow less negative
connotation. A provider might be a decent player who just
happens to be playing out of his/her league. A fish is
usually someone who's probably out of any league.
Push
What the dealer does with the pot when he or she figures out
who the winner is. Because of the nature of poker tables,
the dealer can almost always orient him- or herself so as to
be facing the winner of the pot. From this position, pushing
the pot (literally, the chips in the pot) will result in the
movement of the pot towards the winner of the hand, so that
the player can add the chips to his or her stacks. Aren't
you glad you asked?
Pushka
A pushka is an arrangement between two or more players to
share part of the pots they win, or more precisely, the
container into which the shared chips are placed. Typically
pushka partners will place as much as $10 from each pot won
into a container, and split the container's contents later.
I've only heard this term in Maryland, although apparently
it's due to the Polish word for box, via Yiddish. Of course
removing chips from the table is illegal in table stakes
games. See also scoot.
Put On
To put someone on a hand (or on a draw) is to guess that
that is what they are holding.
When she re-raised the flop, I tentatively put her on two
pair.
When she flat called the re-raise, I put her on the flush
draw.
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