Glossary · Daily 300

There is not much poker vocabulary in these texts, but some is unavoidable. Here it is in order: first how a hand works, then how decisions are measured, then the money.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.