-
Baby - A low-ranked card, usually used in lowball games.
-
Back into a hand - When a player draws cards that make her or his hand different from the hand s/he was originally attempting to make.
-
Back to back - Having a pair in five card stud.
-
Backdoor - A draw requiring two or more rounds to fill. For example, catching two consecutive cards in two rounds of Seven-card stud or Texas Hold’em to fill a straight or flush. A hand made other than the hand the player intended to make. I started with four hearts hoping for a flush, but I backdoored two more kings and my trips won.
-
Backdoor flush - When a player has three cards that would support a flush, but requires the turn and river to make the flush.
-
Backdoor straight - When a player has three cards that would support a straight, but requires the turn and river to make the straight.
-
Backer - Someone who does not play but finances a player.
-
Back in - To enter a pot by checking and then calling someone else's open on the first betting round. Usually used in games like Jackpots, meaning to enter without openers. To enter a pot cheaply or for free because of having posted a blind.
-
Back into - To win a pot with a hand that would have folded to any bet. For example, two players enter a pot of draw poker, both drawing to flushes. Both miss, and check after the draw. The player with the ace-high draw "backs into" winning the pot against the player with only a king-high draw.
-
Bad Beat - Loosing a hand unluckily. Usually involves a heavy commitment of chips when winning by a large margin, only to be beaten by an unlikely combination of cards.
-
Backraise - A re-raise from a player who originally called.
-
Bankroll - Amount of money that you’ve set aside specifically for poker.
-
Bankroll Management - the science of playing in the most sensible and favourable way based upon how much money you have.
-
Behind - A) Not (currently) having the best hand.
B) Describing money in play, but not visible as chips in front of a player. For example, a player may announce "I've got $100 behind" while handing money to a casino employee, meaning that he/she intends those chips to be in play as soon as they are brought to him/her.
-
Bellybuster - Another term for an inside straight.
-
Belly Hit - To complete an inside straight.
-
Bet - Starting the betting off after a new card is dealt. If you’re first to act after the flop for example, you can either bet or check.
-
Bet Odds - The odds you get as a result of evaluating the number of callers to a raise.
-
Bet Into To - bet before a stronger hand, or a player who placed a strong bet on the prior round.
-
Bet the Pot - When a player bets the amount of the pot.
-
Betting structure - The complete set of rules regarding forced bets, limits, raise caps, and such for a particular game.
-
Bicycle - A straight A-5. The best possible low hand in Omaha Hi Lo (also known as Wheel).
-
Big blind - The larger of the two blinds typically used in a hold'em game. The big blind is normally a full first round bet.
-
Big Bet Poker - Another term for Pot limit or no limit Poker.
-
Big Dog - To be a large underdog to win a particular pot.
-
Big Full - The highest possible full house in Texas Hold'em Poker: A-A-A-K-K.
-
Big Lick - Pocket cards of 6 and 9. Also known as "dinner for two" and "prom night", if suited.
-
Big One - $1,000
-
Big Slick - Ace King starting hand.
-
Blackleg - A nineteenth century term for a card player of ill repute.
-
Black Chip - $100 Casino chip.
-
Black Mariah - (a) A term used in the Seven-Card Stud game High Chicago where a player has the best hand at the table and the highest Spade face-down; (b) a Seven-Card Stud game in its own right where the hand that wins the pot must be both the best hand and have the highest Spade face-down.
-
Blank - A useless card.
-
Blind - Antes paid by the two players to the left of the dealer.
-
Blind stud - A stud poker game in which all cards are dealt face down.
-
Blind robber - A player who opens a pot without having good cards in the hopes that the blind will throw his or her card away and the opener can win the chips represented by the blind or blinds without having to actually play the hands.
-
Blistering - A cheater’s technique to mark cards with his or her fingernail or device.
-
Blocker - A card required by one player that is already in possession of another player.
-
Blow back - When a player loses all or most of the money s/he came to the table with.
-
Blind Raise - When a player raises without looking at his hand.
-
Blue - The colour of poker chip most often used to represent the highest denomination of money. (Derived from "blue chip" stock).
-
Bluff - A bet that suggests a player has strong cards when, in fact, he doesn’t.
-
Bluff-catcher - On the last betting round, a hand that cannot win if the opponent is making a legitimate value bet, but that might win if the opponent's bet was a pure bluff.
-
B&M - Brick and Mortar; a card room with a physical location as opposed to virtual (i.e. online).
-
Board Cards - These are the open cards in the middle of the table.
-
Boat - A full house.
-
Bobtail - An open-ender, or "outside" straight draw.
-
Bomb - A brick.
-
Boss - The strongest hand at a stage in the game.
-
Bone - A chip, often of small denomination.
-
Bot - Short for "robot". In a poker context, a program that plays poker online with no (or minimal) human intervention.
-
Bottom Dealer - A Card manipulator who can deal from the bottom of the deck without others noticing.
-
Bottom end - The lowest of several possible straights, especially in a community card game.
-
Bottom Pair - A pair with the lowest card on the flop. If you have A -6, and the flop comes K-T-6 , you have flopped bottom pair.
-
Box - The chip tray in front of a house dealer, and by extension, the house dealer's position at the table.
-
Boxed card - A card encountered face-up in the assembled deck during the deal, as opposed to one overturned in the act of dealing.
-
Break - In a draw poker game, to discard cards that make a made hand in the hope of making a much better one.
-
Brick - A blank, though more often used in the derogatory sense of a card that is undesirable rather than merely inconsequential, such as a card of high rank or one that makes a pair in a low-hand game.
-
Brick & Mortar - A "real" casino or card room with a building, tables, dealers, etc.
-
Bridge order - Poker is neutral about suits, apart from certain minor situations: (a) In determining the dealer at the start of a game
(b) Determining the outcome of a ‘chip race’ (c) Determining the bring-in bettor in a stud game. In these instances, the order is: Spades-hearts-diamonds-clubs.
-
Bring-in - The forced bet made on the first round of betting by the player who is dealt the lowest card showing in 7 Card Stud and Stud 8 or Better. In Razz (Lowball) it is the highest card showing.
-
Bring It In - To start the betting on the first round.
-
Broadway - An ace high straight. (A-K-Q-J-10).
-
Broken Game - A cash game that was going previously but now no longer exists
-
Broken Fall - A flop where a straight cannot be made on the next card, such as K,8,2.
-
Broomcorn's Uncle - A player who antes himself broke.
-
Brush - A casino employee whose job it is to greet players entering the poker room, maintain the list of persons waiting to play, announce open seats, and various other duties (including brushing off tables to prepare them for new games, whence the name).
-
Bubbled - When a player is knocked out of a tournament in the final place before the prize money.
-
Buck - A token used to mark the position of the dealer. See button.
-
Bug - A wild card that can serve to fill a straight or flush, but which otherwise plays as an ace.
-
Bull - Another name for an Ace.
-
Bully - To bluff repeatedly at all opportunities, or a player who does so.
-
Bullet - An ace. A chip
-
Bullets - A pair of Aces.
-
Bump - To raise.
-
Buried - A card that a player needs to complete his hand that does not end up being dealt from the deck is said to have been "buried".
-
Burn - To discard the top card from the deck, face down. This is done between each betting round before putting out the next community card(s). It is security against any player recognizing or glimpsing the next card to be used on the board.
-
Bury card - A card taken from the top of the deck and then placed in the middle.
-
Business - Deals made during the play of a hand with the players involved. This is rare, but occasionally found in big bet games. Includes deal twice, insurance, and other side bets. I call your all-in bet. Now let's talk business before the last card.
-
Bust - A hand that is worthless and does not pan out as the player had hoped.
-
Bust out - When a player loses all her/his chips and is eliminated from a tournament.
-
Button - A physical disc that moves around the table to indicate who is dealing.
-
Buy - (1) As in "buy the pot." To bluff, hoping to "buy" the pot without being called. (2) As in "buy the button." To bet or raise, hoping to make players between you and the button fold, thus allowing you to act last on subsequent betting rounds.
-
Buy-in - The cost of getting into a game. Tournaments have set buy-ins while cash games have minimum buy-ins (meaning that you must purchase at least the minimum buy-in worth of chips to sit down at that table).
-
Buy-in limit - The minimum amount a player must bring to a one-on-one game.
-
Buy short - To buy into a game for an amount smaller than the normal buy-in. Some casinos allow this under certain circumstances, such as after having lost a full buy-in, or if all players agree to allow it.
-
Buy the button - A rule originating in northern California casinos in games played with blinds, in which a new player sitting down with the button to his right (who would normally be required to sit out a hand as the button passed him, then post to come in) may choose to pay the amount of both blinds for this one hand (the amount of the large blind playing as a live blind, and the amount of the small blind as dead money), play this hand, and then receive the button on the next hand as if he had been playing all along.
-
Buy me - An expression indicating a players desire to pass or check.
lexicon4poker.com