One has to wonder why these pros decided to switch from Holdem to Omaha. Also known as the game of nuts, Omaha is a game which lends the skill factor a much bigger importance than Holdem. These guys didn’t go after Omaha for the novelty value: they did it because each of them considered he could rustle up a long term edge easier at the PLO tables. Sure enough, while PLO worked out well for some, it proved to be a hard nut to crack for others. Isildur1 has to be the most famous and infamous victim of the game. A NL Holdem, specialist, the nosebleed stakes online poker celebrity once dropped nearly $4 million to Full Tilt Pro Brian Hastings at the PLO tables, in a single session.

Now that PLO is slowly but surely emerging as the game of the future, it’s only natural that you be interested in finding out more about it. What makes it tick and what do you have to do to become successful at it? First of all – and this is irrespective of whether or not we’re talking about NLH or PLO – sign up for an omaha rakeback deal if you haven’t already joined such a loyalty scheme. Poker prop deals may work even better. You are going to drop tons of money on the poker rake in Holdem and in Omaha too, so rakeback makes loads of sense.

Hand selection is extremely important in PLO. Because you get to take a look at a much bigger percentage of your possible showdown hand after the deal than in Holdem, starting hand selection gains bigger importance in PLO. What’s possibly even more important: exercise proper table selection. Because of the skill factor involved in it, PLO rewards good players much more generously when they play against weaker foes. When two good players duke it out though, it’s not exactly a Sunday walk in the park for either of them. Avoid good players as best you can and track down those rookies: you’ll thank yourself later.

The TAG style is probably the best approach to PLO. Don’t be shy to commit your chips when you know you have the goods (or when you know you’re likely to pick them up on later streets) and get out of the way when all you have is junk. It doesn’t get simpler than this. The game of nuts is extremely punitive towards loose-passive calling stations. In PLO, the number of possible straight draws you may hit can be as high as 20. Get used to such numbers and make sure your straight draw is as close to a 20-way one as possible when you shove those chips into the middle. If you need more information on Omaha Strategy, you can check the site PLO tips.

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The popularity of online poker has endured that it is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and you can always find someone to play against as thousands of real opponents are waiting for an online challenge. Online poker is also played with real money and thus very similar to offline poker, only with better accessibility, ease and convenience. Moreover, the amount of people playing online poker is much more impressive than in casual poker. Since the advent of online poker in 1998, player traffic in online poker rooms has increased more than thirty times with a yearly turnover being more than one billion dollars.

There is still some ambiguity on cyber laws as far as online poker is concerned. Although it is not legal to establish an online gaming company, for example in the United States, no private individual has yet been charged for playing poker online. Since establishing online gambling companies is illegal in US, all poker rooms operate outside the United States. For non-US residents, there is no such problem since gambling online is allowed in most of the European countries.

So what makes online poker so popular? First of all, it is the saying that goes: “Any two cards can win”, which means that anybody can beat everyone, in a game of poker. Along with luck, skill and speed are important contributors to winning in poker. However, when, at the World Series Of Poker (WSOP) in 2003, Chris Moneymaker, an amateur poker player, won the World Champion title, it amply proved that luck remains almost as important as player’s skill.

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Another key to success at the poker table is to look at the pot odds. You always want to think about what your odds of catching the draw are. For instance, if you have an open ended straight draw, your chance of catching the straight are 5:1. If the pot size is $10 and your opponent bets $10, making the pot $20, you would also have to put in $10 to call. Your pot odds are then 20:10, which is 2:1. Your odds of catching the straight are 5:1, which is worse than 2:1, so you should fold the hand. If the opponent were to bet $1, the odds would be 11:1 and thus your 5:1 odds of winning are much better and you should call the bet.

You may want to have a chart with all the odds of winning next to you while playing online poker, but for now, here are some odds you should remember:

• Flush draw: 4:1
• Open ended straight draw: 5:1
• Inside straight draw: 11:1
• Three of a kind drawing to full house or four of a kind: 6:1

Controlling your bets:

Now if you get a strong hand and bet preflop like I said to do earlier, that doesn’t mean that you should keep betting once the flop is down. Just because you have a strong hand or even AA for example, doesn’t mean you’re going to win the hand. If the board shows 2s7hQd, you’re probably going to think that you have a very strong hand because there aren’t any straight or flush draws. This doesn’t mean that you are guaranteed to win the hand. For example, if someone called you preflop with 77 or QQ, they are going to have trips and win the hand unless you catch an A. Those would both be good starting hands pre flop, so it is not unlikely that someone would have called you preflop with one of those hands. If there is heavy betting, it is likely that you have been beat and you should fold. On the other hand, if the other players are not betting much, you may very well have the best hand and want to bet strong.

If you keep in mind all the things I have said and play smart, you will be well on your way to being a successful poker player. Remember that the best way to learn what to do in a tricky position is from experience, so play as much as you can. It would be another good idea to work on your sit and go game. Also, make sure you play at one of the best poker rooms, BodogPoker.

This article is a continuation from the article:

How to Play no Limit Texas Hold’em part 1 – preflop play

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Always have a minimum of 20 full buy-ins in your bankroll. If you don’t have that many buy-ins, you should not be playing in the limits you are and should drop down a level until you make enough money that you do have 20 full buy-ins. This may seem like a lot of buy-ins, but if you ever run into a string of bad luck and lose your buy-in time after time, you don’t want to be completely wiped out and bust your bankroll. With 20 full buy-ins, you will have enough buy-ins to cover you if this ever does happen to you.

Preflop:

If you’re doing things right, you should be folding about 80% of the time. Naturally, you’re going to fold junk hands, but you also want to fold hands that only have potential to be strong hands. By potentially strong hands, I mean hands such as 78o or A6s that are not strong preflop, but have potential to make a straight or flush. You are not likely to make the straight or flush and if you don’t, you will have lost the hand and all the money you’ve already put into it. You only want to play hands that are already strong. When you play a hand that is already strong, you have potential to make an even stronger hand and even if you don’t hit, you still have a strong hand.

When you do get a strong hand, make sure to bet it. Don’t limp in and just call the blinds because there may be other players with weaker hands that just want to see the flop because all it will cost is the blind. They may then get lucky and hit on the flop and beat you in the hand, even though you had a strong hand preflop. If you bet, you’re likely to get the players with weaker hands to fold. If you do have a strong hand, you should bet at least four big blinds plus one big blind for every person that has already called the blinds. So if you have a strong hand and three people before you called, bet seven big blinds.

Position is also key in selecting what hands to play. For instance, if you are in an early position you may want to tighten the requirements, and if you are a later position, you can loosen the requirements a little. That is because if you are one of the last players to call the blind or bet, you get to see if the other players have bet yet and if so, how much they have bet. That way you know about how strong your opponents hands are, and you know if you’re going to have to pay more than the blind to see the flop.

If you play the way I have just suggested, you will be playing a way that is called the tight-aggressive style. That means that you are tight when you have a bad hand and aggressive when you have a strong hand. It’s pretty simple, but if you can master that, you will be well on your pay to being a successful poker player.

Check the second part of this article here:

How to Play no Limit Texas Hold’em part 2 – pot odds and bet sizes

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The problem with Omaha is, that it’s the second most popular online poker game. With Texas Holdem being at the forefront of the online poker craze, Omaha has to be content with the leftovers.

Even though almost every single online poker room features the game (whole networks have it implemented in their software like iPoker), the big difference in popularity is obvious as soon as one hits the lobby and takes a look at the available tables. Funny thing is, there’s lots of money to be made in Omaha. Because of the fact that if you play it, most of the time you’ll be confronted with clueless Texas-Holdem rejects. There’s actually more money in it than in Texas Holdem. But enough of generic issues. Let’s see how you can avoid being the laughing-stock of the online Omaha community.

First thing’s first: in Omaha, you’re dealt four hole cards instead of the two most poker players are used to. It’s quite funny how beginners get confused right away. At first it seems like a great thing that here are so many hole-cards, because they figure the better the odds for them to squeeze out a reasonable hand from the flop. Not so fast though. In Omaha you can only use 2 cards from your hand. That’s right: not 3, not 4 and not 1. It has to be 2. Also, you need to use exactly three cards off the board. Again, not 4 and not 2 but exactly 3. In the end, your hand will be made up of 2 cards from your pocket and three off the board.

I know this seems elementary, but I often see people at the online Omaha table showing down a flush which is made up by three cards from their pocket and 2 off the board. Then they are absolutely puzzled that they didn’t win the high-split.

Second basic Omaha concept: this game is a game of nuts. Most of the time, he who holds the nuts, wins. If you’re going for the low, make sure you can read the board and you have a pocket hand that “cooperates” with the board.

It often happens that your pocket cards are counterfeited by the board: take 2367 in the pocket, and 23478 on the board. What do we have here? You have 237 from your pocket hand counterfeited. That means the only card you can use for the low is 6. that way you’ll make a 23467.

You have to be able to tell whether you have the nuts or not. A2345 make the best possible low hand in Omaha. Compare everything to that and you’ll see where you are. A2 makes the best low in the case of a 456JQ.

The importance of starting hands in Omaha: In Omaha, a good starting hand selection can make a huge difference. While useful in Texas Holdem too, in Omaha, starting hand selection is an integral part of good play. This is because Omaha is a game of big edges. Texas Holdem is a game where one needs to systematically exploit small edges, Omaha on the other hand, is a game where only huge edges can be properly exploited.

This big difference between two seemingly related games is another trap, scores of rookies fall into.

The same factor makes schooling a lot less threatening on Omaha than in TH. In TH, when several bad players make bad calls, they actually stand a chance to beat the good player who made all the right choices.

In Omaha, schooling works the other way: the favorite enjoys the advantage not the schooling fish.

Autor: James Jackson

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Usually, sit-n-gos have only one table, from two to ten participants. They start as soon as the last player joins, so you can find tables 24h a day.

Let me tell you why you should be playing sit-and-gos:

• Easy money management. Let’s say it has a $5 buy-in. That’s it, even if you play really bad, you only lose the buy-in. In cash games you could lose a lot more, from putting more money in every time you are knocked out.
• Good payouts. In multi-table tournaments, only 10-15% of players finish in the money. In Sit-n-gos, pay-out goes to 30-50% of players. Most of the time, a ten players table pays for 3 players, and a six-handed table pays for 2.
• Faster games. While in multitable tournaments you can play for two, three or even six hours (sometimes getting no prize in return), in sit-and-gos, the full tournament can be finished in 30 to 90 minutes.

Bonus tip: You can find some rooms (Titan Poker, for example) that have six-players tables paying for 3 players. It can be good for practice, but the third place usually get a prize equal or slightly higher than the buy-in.

But how should you play the sit-n-gos? What should be your strategy? Take a look at the following errors that are made very often in these games, and try to avoid them at all costs.

Loose playing. Sit and Go tables usually have very loose players, specially early in the tourney, and in lower buy-ins (up to $22). So, if you play the right way (tight aggressive), you have a much better chance of finishing in the money. But be aware that, sometimes, the loose player may actually have a good hand, so avoid calling their big raises unless you have something good. You have to control your desire to knock-out players that raise a lot.

Virtual money madness. People that play sit-n-gos with lower buy-ins sometimes get a disease called “Virtual money madness”. After they pay the buy-in, they feel like there is no real money involved, only virtual chips, so they forget about the rules, the strategy and good manners. The main symptoms are: (a) bluffing with crap hands; (b) cursing in the chat box; (c) limping in every hand hoping to get lucky; (d) and committing most of their pots to bad draws (like a gut-shot draw); (e) going all-in pre-flop with hands like AQo or small pairs. This “disease” is very contagious, so avoid talking to them, but the good news is – they are the ones donating money to the good players; you just have to know they exist, to avoid making the same mistakes.

Now you know how Sit-and-gos work, so sign-up to a poker room, join a low buy-in sitngo, and try this strategy. You will be in a much better shape than most of your opponents.

Foot Notes

- Be careful when you choose your sit’n'go table, because there are some types called FAST or TURBO. These games increase the blinds faster than usual, increasing the luck factor of the game. Let me explain: since the blinds go up faster, if you get too tight, you will lose most of your chips before getting a good hand. In this kind of sit-and-go, you have to be a little more loose, limping in to see extra flops, but you should do it when you are in a good position.

- There are a handful of softwares that can help during the tournament, providing tips and statistical information. A personal favorite is Sit-And-Go Shark. This piece of software provides real time text information about the actions you should take. With sitngo shark, you get to know if you should seek a draw or fold right away, or if you should be raising for value, for example. I think it is a great addition to your poker arsenal, and it has helped me a lot. For more information, check their website here. For a more detailed analysis of poker softwares, check the article: The truth about poker cheats, poker bots and other softwares.

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In the book “Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players” (see below) , David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth divide the starting hands in groups, in a simple but effective way, and we will show our version below.

Before that, let’s remember some poker glossary:

Card codes:
T = 10
s = suited
o = off-suit
x = any small number

So, JTs = a Jack and a 10 of the same suit. AQo means an Ace and a Queen, with different suits. Axs = an Ace and a small card, like 5 for example, both of the same suit. Pairs are always off-suit, since we only use one deck in Texas Hold’em.
Connectors = consecutive cards, like 8 and 7, which makes it easier to do a straight. Suited connectors are even better, since they also increase the chances of a flush.

Now let’s see the groups. You already know, or will learn right now, that position is tremendously important in Texas Hold’em. The key to success in this game is to be patient, and choose well your starting hands. In early position*, you are so vulnerable that you should play only the best hands, like the ones in groups one to four. In late position, you could play cards from the last groups, but with caution, and probably only if no one raised before your turn. The small-blind (sb) could play any of these hands if it only takes half a bet to limp in. The big-blind (BB) could just check, and hope for a good flop (if no one raised).

Group 1: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs

Group 2: TT, AQs, AJs, KQs, AKo

Group 3: 99, JTs, QJs, KJs, ATs, AQo

Group 4: T9s, KQo, 88, QTs, 98s, J9s, AJo, KTs

Group 5: 77, 87s, Q9s, T8s, KJo, QJo, JTo, 76s, 97s, Axs

Group 6: 66, ATo, 55, 86s, KTo, QTo, 54s, K9s, J8s, 75s

Group 7: 44, J9o, 64s, T9o, 53s, 33, 98o, 43s, 22, Kxs, T7s, Q8s

Group 8: 87o, A9o, Q9o, 76o, 42s, 32s, 96s, 85s, J8o, J7s, 65o, 54o, 74s, K9o, T8o

After reading this article, you should be able to identify, and avoid, newbie and beginner hand selection errors like these:

TOP FIVE hand selection errors:

- Playing hands with one Ace and one small card, off-suit, (like A5o) hoping for an Ace in the flop, for a pair. You would have a pair with a really bad kicker.

- Playing A2o, hoping for a straight or Ace pair. The only cards that could help you would be a 3, AND a 4, AND a 5, not an easy feat. You could pair your ace, but the kicker…

- Play small pocket pairs aggressively. If you have 44 in early position, you should probably fold. 44 lose to a lot of things. Remember: small pocket pairs want to hit a set (three of a kind) on the flop, or be folded.

- Call raises with bad cards. You are in late position with 43s, a group 6 hand, which could be playable in some situations. You want to see the flop, and someone raises from early position. Calling a raise with such a hand would be a big mistake.

- Bluffing with terrible hands and terrible position. You are dealt 72o in early position and decide to bluff, raising 3xBB (three times the big blind). Especially if you are in a low-stakes game, there will be callers, and you can be sure: they have a better hand.

Of course you should be aware of situations in which you could mix it up a little bit, entering pots with marginal hands. For example: in a tight table, with every player folding, you could raise for the button with moderate hands and get the blinds right away. This move, called “blind stealing” is best in tournaments, at the mid or end levels.

Foot notes:

* Early position: The first players to the left of the blinds, the first ones to act before the flop. Late position: the players at the right side of the blinds. The button, or dealer position, is the best place to be.
** Hand selection is one of the main strategies to develop. If you are beginning, we recommend two softwares called Texas Calculatem and Texas Calculatem Pro. You can check more information on the article The Truth about Poker Cheats, Poker Bots and other Softwares.

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Let’s go through a hand of Texas Hold’em. Each hand has some steps, or rounds, when cards are dealt and bets are made. It

Setup: It’s a Texas Holdem game, and the blinds are $1/$2 (*confused? Take a look at our poker glossary if you need). Players are at a table, each one with his chips (the stacks). One player has a button in his front – he will be in the dealer position for this hand (in a home game, he would be the one shuffling and handling the cards, but not in a professional game, where there would be a professional to do this). The player at his left is on the “Small Blind” position. He will have to bet $1 for this hand, independent of his first cards. Left to him, one other player is on the “Big Blind” position. He will have to bet $2 for this hand.

Every time the action gets to a player, he has a choice to make, between the following options:

• Fold. When you fold, you give up the hand, and your cards go to the muck (the discard pile). Looks ugly, doesn’t it? But mark these words: the best players fold a lot**. They only play the best hands, statistically speaking.
• Bet. If you are the first one to act, and want to bet the minimum amount, this is your option. In a $1/$2 blinds game, it would mean putting $2 in the middle (in the pot). Betting or calling an initial bet is also called “limping in”.
• Call. If someone bet before you, you have to equal their bet to keep in the hand (or raise – see below). This would be a call.
• Raise. If you wanna bet an amount higher than the current bet, it’s a raise. It is another powerful weapon of the good player.
• Check. If you have already bet the necessary amount, you could just check. For example, if you are in the big blind position (we will call it “the big blind” or “BB” from now on), you have already bet even before the cards were dealt. If no one has raised, you could just check.

Read the options again if you are in doubt.

1st Step: 2 hidden cards (hole cards): Each player receive two hidden cards. This is the moment when knowing some starting hands strategy helps. Starting from the player at the left side of the Big Blind player, everyone will have to look at their cards and decide their actions. This is a $1/$2 blinds game, so to bet you would have to put $2 in the pot. If no one raises, the player in the small blind (we will call it “sb” from now on) could pay another $1 dollar to enter the pot. The player in the BB could check, if no one raised before. But what happens if someone raises? Well the action keep going, and the players that have bet before, would have to equal the raise to keep playing the hand. We only go to the next step when every player still in the game have bet the same amount.

2st Step: The Flop. Now three cards are dealt in the middle of the table, with their faces up. These will be the community cards. Every player still in the game can use those cards to make the best possible 5 card hand. After the flop was dealt, the action start rolling again, starting from the player closer to the dealer button, from the left. It means that the player closer to the button, from the right side, would be the last one to act. (If the player in the button is still in the hand, he would be the last to act). Again, players have the options above. When bets are eqaul, or if everyone checked, we will pass to the next step.

3rd Step: The turn. Now one more card is added to the community cards, face up. Another round of betting occurs, just like in the step above.

4th Step: The River (or 5th street). The last card is added to the community cards, face up. Another round of betting occurs, just like in the step above. Now its the showdown. People start showing their hole cards, and we find out who was the winner.

Final tips:

• In any step above, if everyone but one player folded, the action stops, and the remaining player is the winner of the hand. So you could win the hand even before the Flop.
• In some games you have an “ante”: It means that everyone have to put a small amount in the pot, even if he/she decides to fold the hole cards. So if you see a tournament which the blinds are $200/$400/$25, it means blinds of $200 and $400, and a $25 ante.
• Check the game type before entering. The three common types are: Limit, Pot-Limit, and No-Limit Texas Holdem. We will talk about the differences in the future. Newbies should start in the “Limit” games. In fact, internet poker newbies should start playing with “play money” before depositing their cash. All online softwares have this option.

Footnotes:

* About the Blinds above ($1/$2): You can find games with blinds as low as $0.01/$0.02, or as high as $10,000/$20,000 (or even higher, in some casinos). In a tournament, usually the blinds go up after some pre-determined time has passed – you can find that info in the tournament description.

** In his book Poker – The Real Deal, Phil Gordon call the “Fold” the screwdriver of the poker player toolbox, the tool you should use most often. Checking and calling? the weakest tools.

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# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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72o. The (in)famous! The hilarious! The bomb! The perfect starting hand… (for the loser). Seven-two off-suit is considered the worst possible starting hand in Texas Hold’em.

A

All-In. The most powerful move in Texas Hold’em games. When you go All-In, you bet all your remaining chips. To call your bet, the other players have to bet the same amount of chips you have, or their whole stack, whichever is lower. For example: You have 5000 chips and you go All-In. A player that has 7000 chips can call your bet by putting 5000 chips in the Pot. If you win, you get all the chips in the pot, and the losing player would still have 2000 chips. Another example: You go All-In with 5000 chips. A player that has 3000 calls your bet, by putting all his chips in the middle. If you win this hand, you get all the pot, as usual. But, if the opponent wins, he only gets 3000 of your 5000 chips, because he cannot get more than double his chips from each player.

B

BB. Big Blind. In some texts it may represent the Big bet, so read carefully.

Big bet. In Limit Texas Hold’em games, this is the minimum bet after the turn and the river. Its value is double the Small bet. For example, in a $1/$2 limit table, the Big bet would be $2. Do not be confused: this is not the same as the Big Blind.

Big Blind (BB). This is the position at the left side of the Small-Blind Position. If you are in this position, you always have to pay the minimum bet in the hand, even before you are dealt any cards. The BB is the last one to act before the flop.

Big Slick. Nickname for Ace-King, one of the best hands in poker.

Blinds. Blinds are the mandatory bets made by some players before the first cards are dealt. Usually, one player bets the big blind, and one other player bets the small blind (half a big blind). If you are playing a Cash Game, you usually have to post a Big blind when you sit down, at your first hand, before getting your Hole Cards. You can find games with blinds as low as $0.01/$0.02, or as high as $10,000/$20,000 (or even higher, in some casinos). In a tournament, usually the blinds go up after some pre-determined time has passed – you can find that info in the tournament description.

Button. The button is a disk that represents the Dealer Position.

C

Card Codes. Codes commonly used to represent card names in articles. A = ace, K = King, Q = Queen, J = Jack, T = 10, s = suited, o = off-suited, x = any small number. Examples: so, JTs = a Jack and a 10 of the same suit. AQo means an Ace and a Queen, with different suits. Axs = an Ace and a small card, like 5 for example, both of the same suit. Pairs are always off-suit, since we only use one deck in Texas Hold’em.

Cash Game. This is a game in which everyone has a different amount of money, that can be used in the bets. This is different from tournament games, where each player starts with the same amount of chips. You can find cash games with blinds as low as $0.01/$0.02, or as high as $10,000/$20,000 (or even higher, in some casinos).

Connectors. Consecutive cards, like 8 and 7, which makes it easier to do a straight. Suited connectors (connectors of the same suit) are even better, since they also increase the chances of a flush.

Cutoff Position. The seat just right to the Button.

D

Dealer Position. The best position in the game, located just to the right of the blinds. It’s represented by a Button. The dealer acts just before the blinds after the hole cards are dealt, and it is the last to act after the flop.

E

Early Position. The first two or three players to the left of the blinds, the first ones to act before the flop. Not a good position.

F

Flush. Five cards of the same suit, not in sequence, like: AJT93s.

Full-House. Three-of-a-kind plus a pocket pair. For example, 33377, or AAATT. We would call the first one “threes over sevens”, and the second one, “aces over tens”.

G

H

Heads-Up. When there are only two players in a hand, or in a table.

Hole Cards. The first two cards that are dealt in a Texas Hold’em hand. The cards that are dealt face down – “hidden” cards.

I

J

K

Kicker. The second card in the hole cards that is not used to make your final hand, but can be used to break a tie. For example, if I have AT as my hole cards, and my opponent has A9, if our final hands become AA plus other cards, I would win because of a higher kicker (T versus 9).

L

Late Position. The players at the right side of the blinds. They act after the players in early and middle positions.
bullet3 Limit Texas Hold’em. A form of Texas Hold’em in which you have limits to your bets: if you want to raise, you can only add a bet, to the limit of 4 bets. For example: it’s a $1/$2 limit game, before the flop. A player bets ($1), you raise ($2), the player after you re-raises ($3), and the other player “caps” the bet, by re-raising to $4, the maximum bet for this round. After the turn card is dealt, Big bets are the minimum bets allowed (see Big bet definition). A player bets (one Big bet, $2), the other raises ($4), and so on, to the maximum of $8. Newbies should try Limit games first, before tasting the adrenalin of No-Limit games.

Limp In. To enter a pot before the flop without raising.

M

Maniac. A player that plays very aggressively, raising most of the hands, is called a “maniac”.

N

No-Limit Texas Hold’em. A form of Texas Hold’em without limits to your raises. At any round, you can go All-In, betting all of your chips. It’s the most commonly played game of Texas Hold’em, and the most intense. Newbies should try Limit games first, before tasting the adrenalin of No-Limit games.

O

Off-suit (o). Cards with different suits. Example: A9o means an Ace and a 9, with different suits.

P

Pocket Pair. Two matched cards in your starting hand. For example, 99.

Pot. The chips in the middle of the table, the chips already in play. The winner of the hand get the pot.

Q

R

Royal Flush. The best possible five card hand, an Ace to 10 sequence, all cards of the same suit: AKQJTs.

S

Satellite. A tournament that give, as prizes, one or more free entries into a bigger tournament. For example: a poker room may have a $5 buy-in satellite for a $200 buy-in larger event. If you win the satellite, you get free entry to the $200 buy-in event.

Set. Nickname for Three-of-a-kind. For example: 777.

Small Bet. in Limit Texas Hold’em games, this is the minimum bet pre-flop and just after the flop. This is also the mandatory bet of the player on the BB position. The minimum bet after the turn and the river is the Big bet (double the Small bet). For example, in a $1/$2 limit table, the Small bet would be $1, the minimum amount to pay in order to be in the hand.

Small Blind (SB). this is the position at the left side of the Dealer Position. If you are on this position, you have to put a mandatory bet – half the minimum bet – before being dealt your cards. If there are only two players in a table, the SB is also with the Button.

Stack. The chips in front of each player.

Straight. A sequence of five cards with mixed suits, for example: A2345, TJQKA, 6789T.

Straight Flush. A sequence of five cards of the same suit, like 45678s.

Suited (s). Cards of the same suit. Example: 98s means a 9 and an 8 of the same suit.

Suits. There are four suits in card games: Spades, Diamonds, Clubs, and Hearts. All suits have the same strength in Texas Hold’em.

Super Satellite. A tournament, usually with a small Buy-in, that gives, as prizes, one or more free entries to Satellite tournaments.

T

U

Under the Gun. The first position, the first player to act in this hand.

V

W

X

x. Usually means “any low card”, for example, Ax means an Ace and a small card, like 5 for example.

a