Poker Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the Texas Hold'em terms used across this site and the calculator.
- Backdoor
- A draw that needs both the turn and the river to complete — for example, holding three cards to a flush after the flop.
- Board (community cards)
- The up to five shared cards — flop, turn, and river — that every player combines with their hole cards.
- Coin flip (race)
- A roughly 50/50 matchup, classically a pair against two overcards such as Q♠Q♣ versus A♠K♦.
- Connectors
- Two cards of adjacent rank, like 8-7. "Suited connectors" share a suit and can make both straights and flushes.
- Dominated
- A hand that shares a card with a stronger one and is a big underdog — A-Q is dominated by A-K.
- Draw
- An incomplete hand that can become strong if the right card arrives, such as a flush draw or a straight draw.
- Drawing dead
- Having no card left in the deck that can win the hand — equity is effectively zero.
- Enumeration (exact)
- Computing equity by evaluating every possible remaining board rather than sampling. The calculator does this once the run-outs are few enough, giving precise results.
- Equity
- Your share of the pot if the hand were played to showdown many times from the current point, counting both wins and split pots. The equities of all players add up to 100%.
- Flop
- The first three community cards, dealt at once.
- Gutshot
- An inside straight draw with four outs — only one rank fills the gap, e.g. holding 9-8 on a Q-J-5 board needing a Ten.
- Hole cards
- The two private cards dealt to each player.
- Kicker
- A side card that breaks ties between otherwise-equal hands — with A-A-K versus A-A-Q, the King kicker wins.
- Made hand
- A complete hand that doesn't need to improve, such as a pair or better right now.
- Monte Carlo
- Estimating equity by dealing a large number of random run-outs and tallying the results. The calculator uses this for large situations like pre-flop, accurate to a fraction of a percent.
- Nuts
- The best possible hand given the current board.
- Outs
- The remaining cards that improve your hand to a likely winner. A flush draw has nine outs; an open-ended straight draw has eight.
- Overcard
- A card higher than the board (or higher than an opponent's pair) — two overcards can pair to take the lead.
- Pot odds
- The price of a call relative to the size of the pot, expressed as the equity you need to break even on the call.
- Pre-flop / post-flop
- Before any community cards are dealt, versus after the flop. The calculator uses exact math post-flop and simulation pre-flop.
- River
- The fifth and final community card.
- Rule of 2 and 4
- A shortcut for turning outs into a percentage: multiply outs by 4 on the flop (two cards to come) or by 2 on the turn (one card to come).
- Runout
- One specific way the remaining community cards could come. Exact equity considers every runout.
- Set / trips
- Three of a kind. A "set" pairs the board with a pocket pair; "trips" pairs your single card with two on the board.
- Showdown
- The point where remaining players reveal their hands to decide the pot.
- Suited / offsuit
- Whether your two hole cards share a suit. Suited hands are modestly stronger because of the extra flush potential.
- Turn
- The fourth community card, dealt after the flop.
Want to see these in action? Open the calculator or read the Poker Odds & Probability page.