Glossary

How a hand works

Блайнды

Two forced bets posted before anyone sees a card – the small blind and the big blind. Without them nobody would have to put money in and there would be nothing to play for. At NL100 the big blind is a dollar and the small blind fifty cents.

Позиции за столом

Six seats, and they are not equal: the later you act, the more you know by the time you decide. Clockwise from the dealer they run button, small blind, big blind, and then the three seats counted by order of action: under the gun (UTG), middle position (MP, also the hijack) and the cutoff (CO). Before the flop UTG acts first and the button last; after the flop the small blind acts first and the button, again, last. That makes the button the most profitable seat at the table and UTG the hardest: he opens blind, and five players speak after him already knowing what he did.

Баттон

The dealer's seat, marked by a disc that moves one player to the left after every hand. Whoever holds it acts last after the flop – every decision made having already seen everyone else's. It is the most valuable edge in poker, and it explains almost all of the difference in results between seats.

Стек

The money a player has on the table right now. Only that money is in play – you cannot add to it mid-hand, and it caps every bet, yours and his.

Банк

All the money bet in a hand. It is the prize and it also sets the price of every decision: a half-pot bet asks the opponent to be right one time in four, a pot-sized bet one time in three.

Префлоп

The first betting round, when each player has only his two cards and nothing is on the board yet. This is where you decide whether to play the hand at all.

Флоп

The first three shared cards, dealt face up for everyone at once. Before them each player sees only his own two; after them five of the seven cards that make a hand are known. Most of the betting starts here.

Тёрн

The fourth shared card. By now the pot is usually large and only one more card is coming, so the price of a mistake rises sharply.

Ривер

The fifth and final shared card. Nothing else is coming: every hand is now what it is, and all that remains is how much to bet and whether to pay. Almost every contested decision in these analyses happens here.

Вскрытие

The moment the remaining players show their cards and the pot goes to the best hand. Most hands never get there: usually everyone but one folds earlier and no cards are seen. That is why most won hands say nothing about what the opponent was holding.

Moves

Чек

Passing the action without betting. Possible only if nobody has bet before you; otherwise the choice is call, raise or fold.

Колл

Matching the opponent's bet: adding exactly what he bet and staying in the hand.

3-бет

A raise over someone else's raise: the blind is the first bet, the open is the second, the re-raise is the third. Hence the name.

Конт-бет

A flop bet by the player who raised before the flop: the story continues whether or not the flop hit his cards.

Чек-рейз

Two moves: first a check, then, once the opponent has bet, a raise. It works because the opponent has already put money into the pot you are about to take.

Донк-бет

A flop bet by the player who only called before the flop, made before the action reaches the raiser. A move out of turn: the bet was not his to make.

Ва-банк

A bet of your entire remaining stack. There is nothing left to bet: either the opponent calls and the hand runs to the end, or the pot is yours immediately.

Run It Twice

After an all-in the remaining cards are dealt twice, and half the pot is played out on each run-out. The expectation does not change; the spread shrinks.

How decisions are measured

Набор рук

Not one specific holding but every hand the opponent could have arrived here with. His cards are rarely visible, so the arithmetic runs against the set: how many hands in it beat mine and how many do not. Most percentages in these analyses come from here – and so do most of the mistakes, when the wrong set is used.

Эквити

The share of the pot a hand owns by its odds: a hand that wins 80 times in 100 owns 80% of the pot before the cards are turned over. Counted by enumerating every run-out, it says what the hand is worth on average, not what actually happened.

Ауты

The cards still to come that would make your hand the best one. They are counted one by one: nine for a flush draw, eight for an open-ended straight draw.

Дро

An unfinished hand: four cards to a flush or a straight, one short. Right now the hand is worth nothing, but every next card can complete it.

Оверпара

A pocket pair higher than every card on the board: aces on K♠ T♦ 4♠. No single card in the opponent's hand beats it, only two together.

Шансы банка

The price of a call: what you must add, divided by what the pot will hold after the call. A half-pot bet costs 25%, a full-pot bet 33%.

Велью-бет

A bet with a hand that is, by the count, stronger than what the opponent will pay with. The opposite of a bluff: here you want a call, not a fold.

Блеф

A bet with a hand that would lose at showdown: the point is not the cards but the fold. It works if the opponent folds often enough – and “often enough” is calculated rather than guessed: a half-pot bet pays for itself at a third of folds.

EV

What a hand would have been worth on a fair run of the cards. If I go all in with aces against kings I win 82% of the time, and EV counts that share rather than how the cards actually fell. The gap between actual and EV is pure luck, in either direction.

Дисперсия

The spread of results around their expectation: how far one session's result can differ from EV purely because of the deck. Over a short distance it is bigger than the result itself.

Тильт

A state in which decisions are made by the stress response rather than the arithmetic. Usually after a loss. There are three forms, and only one of them is noticeable.

Money

bb/100

Big blinds won per hundred hands – the way to compare results across stakes and sample sizes. At NL100 one big blind is a dollar.

Рейк

The room's commission on every pot played. Invisible in the moment and very visible over distance: across an hour and a half it is comparable to the day's result.

Джекпот-фи

A deduction from the pot into the room's prize pool, on top of rake. Not covered by rakeback; counted as a separate line in the sessions.

Рейкбек

A refund of part of the rake – 60% in my case. It applies to the rake only, never to the jackpot fee, which is why the two are never merged into one figure.

Rush & Cash

Fast poker: fold and you are instantly moved to a new table with new opponents. That is why 300 hands take half an hour rather than three.