While browsing and reading some of the Poker questions in here and some have used Poker terms such as Bingo, Limper UTG etc…can someone enlighten me and help me to understand
the poker lingo in here? I feel so dumb lol…when I’m trying to understand what they are saying. SB BB Preflop etc…I have been playing for 5 yrs but never paid attention to the terms or lingo used. I do know what a flop and river is tho lol
Thanks in advance
Hi @MZ1COBRA2,
UTG means Under The Gun (first player to act in a hand.)
Limper is someone who calls bets nearly every hand.
BB means Big Blind
SB means Small Blind
Preflop means the action that takes place before cards are dealt to the board
Bingo is referred to players who go all-in every hand.
I hope this is helpful.
-Marc
IMO a Limper is a player who posts or calls minimum bet preflop every hand and folds when a raise is present. Someone who calls bets every hand would be a calling station…
-Larry
cheers
Thanks! I guess I better get a Poker Book or learn the lingo. I’m still confused why they call it Bingo and how that name came about. I always just thought of it as full tilt.
Limper is a new term for me.
now that’s a new one calling station…is there a lingo Poker Book available?
I always thought the limper in my book would be a conservative bet and they cant to see the flop before they raise their bet. I learn something new every day wow.
thank you!
This might help. Since these are all “specialized usage” terms, it really isn’t a dictionary, it’s a lexicon.
It might not show all the abbreviations, though, but Marc got the most basic and frequently used ones.
Bingo requires no skill and is just a game based on luck. As is someone pushing All-in preflop consistently is depending on pure luck.
There is an excellent post with a bunch of definitions here:
[The Juicee Basics - #2 by JuiceeLoot]
There are poker glossaries a web search away. Look things up as you read about them as needed until you are comfortable.
It’s kindof hard to read deep poker strategy when you’re dealing with a lot of jargon all at once, so it can help to compartmentalize what you’re studying, and focus on one thing at a time.
My first thing to learn was the shorthand for cards, which was pretty easy:
Rs (where R is the rank of the card, s is the suit): eg, AsAc would be Ace of Spades, Ace of Clubs.
You can abbreviate further, omitting the suit if it’s not important: AA.
Or you can simply notate whether your hand is suited or off-suit: AKs, AKo. In this case the s doesn’t mean Spades, it means suited.
The ranks go: 23456789TJQKA. They use T instead of 10 because it’s just one digit instead of two.
For complete hands, you only need to notate the relevant details of the hand, to the extent that is necessary to determine who the winner is. I can say I have Aces, or AA. Or if someone else is also on a pair of Aces, then we need to put the kicker in there, so AA9 vs. AAJ, AAJ would have the stronger hand. For two pair, we could say KK77T for two pair, Kings and Sevens, with a Ten kicker. Three of a Kind is the same pattern, 555K would be Three of a Kind, 5s with a King kicker.
Straights are Straight low-to-high, eg, Straight, 6-T, or Straight T-A.
Flushes are noted by their high card, eg, “Ace-high Flush”. If the top card is a community card and more than one player in the hand has made a flush, then it may be necessary to differentiate based on the highest suited hole card of the winning hand. Eg, A-high Flush, with the King. Probably the easiest shorthand is to just note all the cards in the hand, and their suit, like so: AKT83s.
Full houses can be notated by the ranks of the hand only: KKK55 would be Kings full of Fives.
Next I learned the shorthand for betting:
xBB = the size of the bet is X times the size of the Big Blind. There’s also Pot and 1/2-Pot sized bets. Usually pre-flop we talk about bet sizing in terms of multiples of the BB. Post-flop we talk about bet sizing in terms of the size of the pot. Sometimes we may talk about sizing of bets in terms of our or our opponent’s stack (eg, the “all-in” bet, but sometimes we can talk about betting a fraction of your stack).
3-Bet = the third raiser in a street of betting. Eg, someone opens, then gets raised, then the raiser gets re-raised by either a 3rd better or one of the players who had bet already; the third bet is said to be a 3-bet. There’s 4-betting and 5-betting, as well.
Limping is calling the big blind rather than raising/opening. Opening is raising the bet above the big blind, or being the first better on any street of the hand.
After that, I learned the terms for the positions. At a 9-seat table, there’s a lot to remember, but it breaks down early, middle, and late. The first three to learn are: Button, Small Blind, and Big Blind. Button is the “dealer” position, they are last to act, and have the best position at the table. Small and Big Blind are the first two to act, have the worst position, and have to kick in the Small and Big Blind bets to start off each hand. The next two seats are known as Under the Gun (UTG) and “Under the Gun Plus One” (UTG+1). SB, BB, and UTG are the early position seats, UTG+1 and the next two seats are the middle positions, and then the final three seats are the Hijack, the Cutoff, and the Button. We already talked about the Button. Hijack and Cutoff are late position seats that have some advantage when it comes to stealing the blinds.
If no one raises preflop and it comes around to the Button, the Button may opt to try to raise high enough to make everyone fold, known as “buying the pot” or “stealing the blinds” if only the blinds are in and everyone else folded rather than limped. But sometimes the Hijack or Cutoff seats will pre-empt the Button’s bet, since they’re earlier to act, and thus they can “hijack” or “cutoff” the Button player from being able to steal, by stealing themselves.
Once you have all that down, you’re pretty functional in terms of lingo, but there’s a lot more than that, but you can pick it up pretty quickly.
Thank you all for your help and quick responses. I guess I better get busy and learn all this stuff in case you guys give me a pop quiz lol. Much appreciated in all the info you are sharing with me.
MsCobra427
Replay has a glossary of terms in it’s help section. Click on "Help’ at the bottom of the dashboard page and select “Playing Poker”. Scroll down and you will find it or click on the links below.
Good Luck.