Glossary¶

A quick-reference of NLHE cash terms. For the concepts that deserve real depth, follow the links to the concept pages (Poker Math, Ranges & Advantage, Bet Sizing, C-Betting & Lines).

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Fastest way to find a term is the search box (top bar). This page is grouped by category for browsing.

Positions¶

UTG (Under the Gun) — first to act preflop; tightest opening range.
MP / LJ (Middle / Lojack) — early-middle position.
HJ (Hijack) — two off the button.
CO (Cutoff) — one off the button; wide stealing range.
BTN (Button) — last to act postflop; widest range, highest winrate seat.
SB (Small Blind) — posts the small blind; OOP postflop, worst seat.
BB (Big Blind) — posts the big blind; gets a discount to defend, but plays OOP.
Position / In Position (IP) / Out of Position (OOP) — acting last (IP) is a structural advantage: more information, better pot control, higher equity realization.
Initiative — being the player who made the last aggressive action; lets you continuation bet.

Preflop actions & plays¶

RFI (Raise First In) / open-raise — the first voluntary raise into an unopened pot.
Limp — just calling the big blind preflop (rarely correct in modern NLHE; sometimes used in SB).
Limp-reraise — limping intending to re-raise; a trapping line.
3-bet — the first re-raise (the open is the "2-bet"). Can be value or bluff/light.
4-bet / 5-bet — the next re-raises; 5-bet is usually all-in at 100bb.
Cold-call / flat — calling a raise (not having already invested).
Squeeze — a 3-bet after an open plus at least one caller — leverages dead money and the caller's capped range.
Isolation raise (iso) — raising to play heads-up against a weak limper.
Set-mining — calling preflop with a small pocket pair hoping to flop a set (~11.8%; needs implied odds ≈ 15–20× the call). → Preflop
Blind defense — calling/3-betting from the blinds vs a steal; the BB's price (already posted) justifies a wide defending range, but realize it OOP. → Preflop & Blind Defense
Linear vs polarized 3-bet — see Ranges & Advantage.

Postflop bet types & lines¶

C-bet (continuation bet) — a bet by the player who led the prior street (canonically the PFR betting the flop). → C-Betting
Double / triple barrel — continuing to bet the turn / river after c-betting.
Delayed c-bet — the PFR's turn bet after the flop checked through.
Check-raise — checking, then raising a bet behind.
Donk bet — an OOP bet by the player who was not the prior-street aggressor (e.g., a flop check-caller leading the turn). Flop donks are rarely correct; turn donks can be. → C-Betting
Probe bet — an OOP turn/river bet after the would-be c-bettor checked back.
Float — calling a bet with a weak/marginal hand intending to take the pot away on a later street, often IP.
Float bet — an IP bet after calling the raiser's prior-street bet.
Block / blocking bet — a small bet (usually OOP) to set a cheap price and avoid facing a larger bet.
Stab — betting when opponents show weakness by checking.
Check-back — checking IP to end the street (pot control / give-up / trap).
Give-up — abandoning a bluff line and checking/folding.

Board & texture¶

Dry / static board — uncoordinated, few draws (e.g., K72r); equities are "locked," favors small/frequent c-bets.
Wet / coordinated / dynamic board — many draws/connectivity (e.g., T98ss); equities shift street-to-street, favors polarized/larger bets.
Rainbow / two-tone / monotone — three suits / two of a suit / all one suit.
Paired board — contains a pair (e.g., K K 4); c-bet often but small.
Board coverage — how well your range contains the strong combos a board enables.
Range-favoring vs caller-favoring card — a turn/river that helps the aggressor's range vs the caller's; drives barreling and donk decisions.

Hands, draws & categories¶

Value (bet) — betting a hand that wants worse hands to call.
Bluff — betting a hand that wants better hands to fold.
Semi-bluff — bluffing with a draw that can improve to the best hand.
Bluff-catcher — a medium hand that only beats bluffs (calls to capture the opponent's bluffs).
Made hand — a complete hand (pair or better) needing no improvement.
Nutted / the nuts — the best possible hand (or close); air — no made hand and little equity.
Flush draw — four to a flush. OESD (open-ended straight draw) — 8 outs. Gutshot — inside straight draw, 4 outs.
Combo draw — a hand with two draws (e.g., flush draw + straight draw), high equity.
Backdoor draw — needs both turn and river to complete (e.g., backdoor flush); adds small equity + bluff potential.
Equity — your share of the pot = chance of winning at showdown given ranges. → Poker Math
Outs — cards that improve you to the likely best hand.

Ranges → see Ranges & Advantage ¶

Range — the full set of hands a player can have in a spot (think ranges, not single hands).
Polarized — nuts + bluffs, no medium hands → larger sizing.
Linear / merged — top-down value, strongest to medium → smaller sizing.
Condensed / capped — concentrated in medium hands, lacking the nuts; an uncapped range still contains the strongest hands.
Range advantage vs nut advantage — stronger overall equity vs an edge at the top of the range.
Equity realization (R) — the fraction of raw equity you actually convert to winnings.
Balance — mixing value and bluffs so you can't be exploited.

Math & theory → see Poker Math ¶

EV (Expected Value) — the probability-weighted average result of a decision.
Pot odds — the price you're getting to call; required equity = call / (pot + call).
Implied / reverse implied odds — money won on later streets when you hit / lost when you make a second-best hand.
Fold equity — EV gained from the chance your bet makes a better hand fold.
MDF (Minimum Defense Frequency) = pot/(pot+bet) — minimum share of range you must continue to deny auto-profit bluffs.
Alpha = bet/(pot+bet) — required fold frequency for a bluff to break even (Alpha = 1 − MDF).
Bluff-to-value ratio — the mix of bluffs to value bets that makes opponents indifferent (shifts with bet size & street).
SPR (stack-to-pot ratio) — effective stack ÷ pot; low SPR commits top-pair-type hands, high SPR demands stronger hands. → Poker Math, Multiway & Stack Depth
Multiway pot — 3+ players; MDF doesn't apply (folds are multiplicative) → bluff far less, value tighter. → Multiway & Stack Depth
Combinatorics — pair = 6 combos, unpaired = 16 (4 suited + 12 offsuit), 1,326 total. → Poker Math
Blockers / removal — cards you hold that reduce the combos an opponent can have.
GTO / Nash equilibrium — an unexploitable strategy; can't be beaten, but doesn't maximally punish mistakes.
Geometric / pot geometry — equal pot-fraction bets each street to be all-in by the river. → Bet Sizing
Overbet — a bet larger than the pot; unlocked by nut advantage + polarization.
Rake — the house's cut; tightens correct ranges and lowers the value of marginal pots.

Solver & study¶

Solver — software that computes the GTO strategy for a spot (PioSOLVER, GTO+, GTO Wizard).
Node-locking — fixing one player's strategy to a (sub-optimal) line and re-solving to find the exploit.
Aggregation report — solver output across all 1,755 flops at once; the tool for extracting cross-board heuristics.
EV loss — how much expected value a decision gives up vs the solver's best action; the trainer's scoring metric.
Sim — a solved scenario.

Exploitative & population¶

GTO vs exploitative — playing the unexploitable baseline vs deviating to punish a specific opponent's mistakes (they're complementary — GTO is the baseline you deviate from).
Population read / tendency — a pool-wide pattern (e.g., the field over-folds rivers) used to exploit unknowns.
Leveling — reasoning about what the opponent thinks you have ("level" 1/2/3 thinking).
Thin value — value-betting a marginal hand that gets called by worse just often enough.
Bluff-catch — calling with a bluff-catcher to capture bluffs at the MDF-implied frequency.

Results & mental game → see Mental Game & Variance ¶

Variance — the swing of results around your true winrate; huge in poker.
Resulting — judging a decision by its outcome instead of its quality (a thinking error).
Tilt — any deviation from your A-game caused by emotion.
bb/100 — big blinds won per 100 hands; the standard winrate unit.
EV (in your tracker) / all-in adjusted winrate — your results adjusted to remove all-in luck.

Definitions reflect modern solver-era consensus (GTO Wizard, Upswing, Red Chip, Run It Once, 888poker). Concept pages carry the formulas, examples, and citations.