Poker Term Post-it

In the world of internet poker, some people chat a lot, some people write a lot. And I prefer to read. Actually, some professionals are really good at writing poker articles with incisive analysis and humorous metaphors. To help you too suck juice from these pro-talk, I offer you introduction of some useful poker jargons.

1. Muck
As a noun! It refers to the area on the table where all of the dead cards are placed. Basically, there are folded cards.
As a verb! It means to fold.

2. UTG
Abbreviation for: Under the Gun. It is the position to the left of the big blind which acts first before board cards are dealt. Of course, you can't choose positions at the poker table. As an early position, somehow it is admitted to be a disadvantage.

3. Rock
It's a nickname for a type of player who will play only top hands. They are very good at folding most of their losers, but will not aggressively bet their winners, which in result not making much money. They are also easily bullied out of pots because of their tight nature.

Please stayed tuned for my upcoming articles on poker term and poker rules!

Alpha→Omega

My online poker experience has a really interesting trajectory. Enjoy!

1, Learn poker rules
So far, I still remember my exclamation the first time when I combined a Full House

2, Practice poker with play money
At that time, I had to restrain myself from the impulsion of throwing all in. My mentor told me seriously that the play money is not for play.

3, Learn basic poker strategy
I finally learned I should better be a tight poker player than a calling station.

4, Play low stakes with real money
$0.02/$0.04 Limit is my sweet home.

5, Join No-Limit Tourney
For me, this would be Final Fantasy & Mission Accomplished (my first thought is Mission Impossible).

6, Try other poker games other than Texas Holdem
Following the same cycle in Omaha, or whatever it is, is essential.

Learning is Winning

The other day, I was caught by a friend who asked me about the ABCs about Texas Hold'em. I was eloquent in explaining to him about poker glossaries, poker hand rankings, so on and so forth. But the cat got my tongue when it turned to bet structure.

The thing is, I can play comfortably in the game, but I took it for granted that I should have known therefore the poker rules and other "small" things.

So I logged into my poker room account, observed every step during the round, and took notes of what I was missing before.

Note 1

First of all, on the table there is a position called "Button". Basically it's the reference subject in the poker game. And this button rotates clockwise after each round of game.

The first player next to the button clockwise chooses to bet the small blind. Small blind is half of the big blind. Don't blame me if I am a little off the subject... For example, Room XYZ 3/6NL: No limit for bets, with 3 as small blind, and 6 as the big blind and minimum bet.

The second player next to the button clockwise chooses the big blind. As soon as he bets the big blind, which equals the minimum bet at one time, the 2 hole cards are dealt.

From the next player to the button, they have the privilege to see their hole cards before they decide to call the bet, raise or fold. So the button always is the last person to act. And he/she can see all other players' moves before making his own decision. So the button has an utmost advantage.

Then the ball rolls to the small blind. He can choose to call the blind, raise or fold, which in his position, would mean the loss of small blind.

Remember it's always the first person next to the button who has the first speak.
I am into my game once again... My hands are hot right now. I'll be inspired to do the teaching another day, I think.

Recommendation for those who know little about side pot

Scenario:

Player 1 goes all in $50
Player 2 calls with $50
Payer 3 sees the $50 and raises player 2 $50
Player 2 calls the raise and this money is put into the side pot
Player 1 has the best hand and wins the pot

Question:

Do player 2 and 3 still compete for the side pot with their hands or since player 1 had the best poker hand does the side pot money just go back to player 2 and 3 evenly.

Answer:

It is a very interesting part of poker rules. The purpose of the side pot is to allow the remaining players in the hand who have money to wager it. This wagering is considered outside of the all-in person's hand. What happens when there is a side pot is that whoever has money invest in that particular pot has a right to win it if their hand is the best. So let's go over some options with the example you gave above.
Player 1 has the best hand - he only gets the main pot since he doesn't have any money in the side pot. Who wins the side pot depends on Player 2 and Player 3 (since it's their money).
Player 2 has the bet hand - he takes everything. Notice he had money in both pots so he was competing in both.
Player 3 has the best hand - same as above, he takes everything.

So the bottom line is that if you have money in a pot you have a chance to win it. If you have three side pots, you could have three different winners. There has to be a winner for each pot, no one gets their money back unless they have the same hand.

Cat Got Your Tongue

Count to three; tell me what's on your mind.
Blackberry, you think of business mobile phone.
Blueberry, maybe it's your favorite savor of ice cream.
Strawberry, you would probably think of chewing gum.
…
Don't get me wrong, I am not into any "rainbow berry". I am talking about instinct and direct association. Next, I would try my experiment deeper and ask a guy, who is totally unaware of my subject. H stands for hint; G stands for guess.

H: Badugi, it's very popular and famous in Korea.
G: Spicy vegetable? Spicy sauce? …
(Click the link to see the right answer yourself, if you choose to skip the following part.)

H: Spade, it's a black spade.
G: Dirty miners underground dig for coal?

H: Heart.
G: Love, a romantic couple in the moonlight.

H: Diamond.
G: Crystal-clear little ring with shining light reflecting in… It hurts eyes.

H: Club.
G: VIP cards, red carpet, massage … Wait a minute. You are talking about the suits of poker cards, aren't you?

Badugi is a kind of poker game which originated from Korea. Poker players draw cards to form their respective hands. It's totally an alien among poker games in respect of poker rules, for the winning laureate goes to the one who has the lowest poker hand.

Korea is also famous for gimchi (spicy cabbages).

About the picture that I copied from a website—I always have a weird thought and uncontrolled fear that the images don't look like they are popping out in 3D but instead sinking into the graphic. In fact, I just can't see through it. Let me know what you see in the comments section.

Crabs Walk Sideways

Everyone is a speck of dust in the universe, and uses his/her whole lifetime to show the shiniest sparkle … We may not strive to be the most perfect man in the world, like Che Guevara. Deep inside, a little voice moans: behave yourself, play by the rule. That makes me in confrontation with Sattre. Back to gaming business. Poker etiquette are not official poker rules that would affect the results of a poker hand necessarily. They are set of "gentlemen rule" set by the house to keep the game friendly, polite, and in general to keep everyone happy.

It is a great practice for those who run house poker games to add some of the following poker etiquette rules to their house poker rules sheet, print it before the game, and make sure all players are aware of them.

Poker Etiquette During Play

Act in turn.
Keep your cards on the poker table at all times.
Act in a timely manner. Don't take too long to make your move.
If you are not in the hand, don't comment: Don't give advice or information to players who are playing. They are supposed to pay attention themselves.
One hand one player: Don't give advice to anyone. Don't pursue them to make any actions. Everyone is grown up enough to make their own decisions.
Keep your large denomination poker chips in front of your stack.
Don't talk on the phone while playing.

Betting

Don't splash the pot.
Don't string raise.

Showdown

Don't expose your cards until the hand is over.
At showdown flip both cards at the same time.
Don't slow roll: Slow rolling is to pretend your hand is not good enough and take a long time to reveal your cards at the end while your hand is really the winner. Do not do it - it is very frustrating.
Don't check down hands: This is a very non-friendly practice, so unless you are in a very large poker tournament stay away from it.

Aware or not, you are helping make a stand for online poker right here, right now. Thanks for the contribution.

She is Teresa

1, she loves juicy fruits.

2, she likes to whistle.

3, she has 3 piggy banks, with over 2,000 coins.

4, she is not a big fan of fluffy pets.

5, she keeps a safe distance from dogs.

6, she has ticklish areas all over.

7, she likes watching Korean entertainment TV shows after coming back home from work.

8, she is pretty upset when losing lots of fake poker chips.

9, she panics, usually with screams when heroes in TV are in danger.

10, she holds my arms and squeezes them if I happen to be there at that moment.

11, she screams at sight of cockroaches, too.

12, She would only eat dumplings if there is no option.

13, she jumps and hops a lot when she is happy.

14, she teases and speaks to babies and hopes them would talk back.

15, she brandishes her arms in a robot-like move in front of the computer.

16, she calls it aerobics.

17, she has a mark on the inside skin of both her ears.

18, she needs snacks to be around while I am responsible to eat most of them.

19, she knows little about poker rules so far.

20, she puts her efforts into remembering poker hand rankings.

My Big Plan

I am planning writing a book on poker and gambling!

The idea is simple.

First step is to look through some in-depth reviews about best-sellers. Keep the essence, and go the dregs.

I would make up a beautiful name for my works. For example, Zen and the Art of Poker would be a good choice, though it has been registered one step earlier by an anonymous poker player.

Anything you can imagine in the gaming world, you can find it in this to-be encyclopedia. Special sessions will be dedicated to poker strategy and tips. Ever-changing poker rules will take up little space due to their stubbornness?! And an extra chapter is for calculus—poker odds are always the pus-filled heel of we Achilles.

To make it attractive to both professionals and fishes, entertaining elements will score high here. Dumb Q&As will be tolerated. Amateur-type articles such as the list of differences between Baccarat and Blackjack will abound.

As for the catch, I will throw in pros and cons of cheating, the know-how of stacking poker chips (I can only offer links on Youtube due to paper's 2D limit). To be thrilled, my collections of freak poker news/stories will be the trump card.

Finally, I will contact with those slick print-on-demand publishers, like iUniverse or AuthorHouse. Of course I won't publish it, at least not with an ISBN. Current copyright law is lagging way behind in the trend of internationalization. For the time being, I will let it printed in limited edition, circulated first among my pals and relatives. It would be a superb birthday gift.

I won't tag price on it—money would be an insult to the art. To be honest, it won't surprise me it is worshiped as the bible of poker 2,000 years later.

Gravity Counts

On the 6th floor of an apartment building, John Doe falls off the window. It's no doubt an accident. What surprises is that during the less-than-one-second dive, the man's mind goes through a ton of things with high pressures to the extent of collapse. Besides, due to some unknown reasons, his five senses becomes blurred and hallucination sets in. Holly Molly, it's going on in slow-motion!

John passes through 5th floor: the window is open; a couple of people are playing Texas Hold'em. He sees himself among them. He is sporting his usual-casual move: stacking the poker chips on and off. Entertainment is fun.

The 4th floor: it's a kitchen scene. Seems nobody is not at home while the water tap is kept on. John can't hear the sizzling sound for it's being overlapped by the Beethoven Symphony IV from the living room next-door. Coffee cups are in the sink, toaster is still warm. A nice morning to be remembered.

It appears to be a casino lobby on the 3rd floor. John stands beside the Roulette wheel, his eyes rolling tightly with the little gold ball. It's a 2-grand bet. The roaring voices around evaporates into thin air the moment it stops at slot 26, his pregnant wife's birthday.

2nd floor turns to be his gaming specialty store. He dedicates a whole shelf for equipments like Mahjong tiles and poker cards. Another one is piled up with books on poker strategy and poker rules. On the wall, posters of celebrity poker players and their autographs are everywhere.

Ground floor is the bank VIP room. The bank manager brandishes a roll of documents in front of John's face, looking helpless. The Financial newspaper on the table typed in capital letters: 1929 in 21th Century.

Pong …

The clues are not clear. The detective before the monitor rethinks his judgment.

Play in Russian Style

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.
—Joseph Stalin

This Georgian Soviet-Union leader had coined many similar stunning quotes which are known to be gallant while merciless. While I don't think he would never dream that two former states under his reign would confront each other more than half a century later, and that's all I can talk about the Russia-Georgia conflict lately.
In fact, as one of world powers, Russia easily catches world's attention in as many ways as you can imagine, intentionally or not.

Russia is "hoping" for global warming to allow for further exploration. They are already attempting to "claim" part of the arctic. To give its initiative some justification, Canada and Scandinavian countries make the same prayer.

Russia is the unparalleled leader in arms exports. And this will continue to be extremely lucrative for them financially and relations-wise with semi-rogues like Venezuela and Sudan.

Seeming to make this topic distracted away from the politics, I also find: in 2006, a gaming zoning bill was passed in Duma by a vote of 440-0. It aimed to control gambling by banishing it to four specific zones; two to be set in European Russia, one in Siberia and one in the Far East.
Fast-forward to 2007. Thanks to a convincing argument by Dmitry Lesnoy, president of the Sport Federation of Russia, on poker being an "intellectual game", and a decision by the Russian Federation's Federal Agency of Physical Culture and Sports, poker tournaments were finally classified as official sport competitions in the nation of Russia. But to some poker players, the sprouting poker rooms and highly publicized legislation could possibly just be a flash in the pan. They are always worried that a change in the leader's mind, and then of the law, could banish poker to the four gambling sectors, like a simple slot machine or Baccarat table.

So, if I am allowed to implant poker rules to make a comparison, Russia has way too many cards to play at this moment, and we hope it will play fair and "by the book".

It may seems I only focus on the negative side (pessimist's bad habit), but I don't deny there is always a silver lining in the cloud (lots of online poker sites are available in Russian). Anyway, I have no intention of messing with Russian people. So if any Russian hackers happen to be here, please don't piss off.

Did You Know

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."
This quote over the significant decline in the population of honeybees is attributed to Albert Einstein.

John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, was a man of doubtful integrity and a compulsive gambler who lived in the 1700s. He was so reluctant to leave a poker game even for a meal that he had a servant bring him a piece of meat between two slices of bread so he could eat with one hand and play cards with the other poker players. The new invention was dubbed … a sandwich.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." Dick Rowe said of the Beatles. The former was the executive of Decca Records (UK), the very company who rejected the Beatles. It happens in 1962.

In France, Blackjack call this land hometown. In French decks, the four suits represent the four classes: Spades represent nobility, hearts stand for the clergy, diamonds represent merchants, and clubs are peasants. Maybe here poker rules are different, too.

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels".
Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) said this. But 100 years before his quote, across the English Channel (or La Manche according to French), a big name had the exact opposite feelings:
"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
By Voltaire (1694-1778)

"All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion." Quoted from British scientist Stephen Hawking.

"Americans always try to do the right thing—after they've tried everything else."
—Winston Churchill

Poker "News"

In the past few weeks, there is a big buzz about 14-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps associated with online poker room. And it's a pleasure to join the hysteria by picking up some analysis and shed a piece of light on the fact.


The story began when the poker legend Doyle Brunson and his son Todd paid a visit to the poker-loving swimming phenomenon at the Palms Hotel and Casino. "Phelps and some of his friends wanted books so I took Super System 1 and 2 to them and they asked all kinds of poker questions. Michael said all he wanted to do in life, was to eat, swim and play poker." Bla-Bla … Doyle wrote in his blog.

The old man should have added that Phelps dreams about being the finalist of World Series of Poker. Anyway, all kinds of speculations are immediately printed in black-and-white by some poker news sites (they seldom promote official poker rules without "throw-ins", I believe). According to them, the winner of eight gold medals in the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps' next venture may be to become one of the celebrity players for Doyles Room.

Here is a common-sense thought. The fish boy is no doubt the hottest commercial commodity on the planet. Giant companies are queuing to be connected with him. There is little possibility that one of these online poker casinos can afford that kind of money—I have to say poker business is on the downswing, with such an economical recession we are living through as backdrop. Sure he might make take a lowball deal to be associated with Doyle, but I think his financial advisers are way too smart for that. Besides, Phelps knows clearly himself the merits of being away from the poker table in the spotlight.

To be summarized, poker odds knowledge helps me conclude that all of this is just truly hypothetical.

Double-edged sword—Dangerous Starting poker hands

What is the most dangerously deceiving starting hand for an amateur player in Texas Hold'em?


Many poker stars would argue that A-Q suited is among the top 10 best poker hands. The first thing to accept is that A-Q suited is not a top 10 hand, but does make it into the top 20. If you played ABC poker by following a chart of hands, A-Q suited (A-Qs) is one you would never play in early position, and would only play in an unraised or unopened pot in middle to late. That explains why it is called as the worst best hand a player can start with.

Personally, I follow the straight-forward poker strategy: Call with a draw hand only when you have the pot odds to justify it. And I learned my lesson from some resources that a tie such as AQ, KQ, and QJ. Those are death hands to be avoided at all costs, especially if your opponent has made any aggressive move pre-flop.

At this point in poker's life, many top players believed that J-T suited was the best starting hand in poker. It was the highest suited connector possible with full straight potential. It doesn't "dead end" on the top end as Q-J would.

After all, every person has his own criteria on how to judge a hand as good or bad. Either you follow the golden poker rules, which is how people do at the table most of times, or you can do things your own way. Nothing is impossible and nothing has extremes. Just be yourself.

Funny joker—introduction of wild card

Due to personal hobbies, I always look for weird things and exceptions to satisfy my curiosity. Anyway, we are all geeks in some way. And here is what I find in poker game: some card that can be designated as any card you wish. Yes, it’s the "magic" wild card.


In most cases, wild cards are jokers, or they can be any cards agreed upon by the participating players. Poker rules make it clear that there are two kinds of functions for wild cards: "fully wild" cards and the "bug". A card that is fully wild can be designated by its holder as any cards he chooses with no restrictions. Under this rule, for example, a poker hand with a natural pair and a wild card becomes three of a kind. With wild cards in play, the best possible poker hand is a five of a kind. While the more common application of the wild card in casinos is that it plays as a bug, which is given the rank of ace unless designating it as a different card would complete a straight, flush, or straight flush. Under this rule, a hand such as T-T-Joker-7-3 is just a pair of tens (with an ace kicker), but any four same-suit cards with a bug make a flush, and a poker hand such as 8-Joker-6-5-4 makes a straight.

In particular, five-card draw is traditionally played with a joker in California (which plays as a bug), and also plays well with deuces fully wild. Seven-card stud plays well with one or two bugs, especially when played high-low split. Other games such as Texas Hold 'em and Omaha do not play well with wild cards.

For those who need a break from the poker table!

Internet poker has a lot of advantages. For example, you can enjoy some funny talks.

AK = Anna Kournikova. Always looks great. Never wins.

Q: Why didn't the elephant like to play cards in the jungle?
A: Because there were too many cheetahs. (Cheaters always avoid official poker rooms)

Q: Where does a professional poker player meet all his opponents?
A: The aquarium. (We are all fish, LOL)

Q: What poker hand did Doyle Brunson win two World Series of Poker events with?
A: !0-2

Q: What does American Airlines stand for in poker?
A: A-A

Laugh it out. However, remember: you must be serious with poker rules...