Poker Jargon

Action: The time a participant is to do something.  A player could say to the dealer “Who has the action” if they have lost track of whose turn it is.

Ante: The little portion of a bet put down by all players to build the pot at the start of every poker hand.

Burn: This is the procedure of issuing the topmost card from the deck, face down.  This is done between each betting round before handing out the next community card(s).  This acts as a security against players recognizing or glimpsing the next card to be used on the board.

Complete Hand: A full five card poker hand like a full house, flush, straight or straight flush.

House: The establishment that runs the game

Inside Straight: A poker hand having four cards needed to fill a straight except one in the centre.

Kicker: A playing card in a player’s poker hand that is made use of as a tiebreaker when two competitors have hands that are of identical ranking.

Muck: The playing cards before the dealer that have been burned or folded during the hand.

Open-ended straight: A hand of four sequential cards that needs one more playing card at either end to make a straight.

Pocket: The playing cards in your possession that only you are able to observe.

Protect: Putting a poker chip on your cards to indicate that you are still playing the game to make sure that your set of cards is not inadvertently fouled by a discarded hand or mucked by the dealer.

Quads: Four of a kind.

Rank: The value of the card (not the suit).

Tell: A sign or tip-off that a participant accidentally reveals concerning their hand.

Toke: A small percentage of the pot that a successful player may present to the dealer (a kind of tip).

Trips: Three of the same value.

Variance: The changes in a players funds, whenever the changes in your funds are big your variance is greater.