Poker history dates back to the early 19th century with its commencement in America. This sport is now a universal medium of entertainment and looked upon as a game entailing immense concentration and competitive skills. With poker fever gripping people of every age group, we help our poker enthusiasts get familiar with the lingo of this glamorous game. This poker jargon is perfect for beginners to get started with the game and create marvels on the poker table!
- UP THE ANTE: This can be related to the life like situations of taking risks to scale new heights and profits. In the game of poker, however it relates to the situation of raising the size of your bet. A bigger amount in the pot is a lucrative and helps in fetching more players at the table, making the game fiercely competitive and interesting.
- DRAW: A player usually prefers to ‘Draw’ when his hand can fetch him a winning streak on the poker table on improvement once the all the board cards are revealed. The poker fanatic usually uses this technique to complete his pair of hand and make it more valuable.
- BLINDS: These are precisely a set of bets that are made before the beginning of the game. This gamble rotates across the poker table. These blinds are considered to be obligatory bets and are a prerequisite for the proceeding of the game.
- RAISE: Often a player is compelled to increase the rate of his bet to maintain his stand in the game. This act of raising the amount of bet to continue playing at the poker table is termed as raise.
- BUY IN: Corresponding to the size of bet, there is a minimum amount of chips required for a player to purchase before planning to plunge in the game. This term is often termed as ‘Buy in’ and fluctuates according to the size of the bet in a particular game.
- ALL IN: When you are either bestowed with a lucky suit of cards or either you wish to leave your earnings in the hands of destiny, the player decides to bet the entire amount of his chip, regardless of the result, on the current hand and calls it an ‘All in’. In this condition, the player is left with no amount of chips and is in no position to call or place a bet.
- CALL THE BLUFF: This is a situation at the poker table in which a participant calls a bluff against a fellow competitor possessing the weakest suit of cards actually pretending to have a strong set of cards. This is similar to a situation in everyday life when fingers are raised against a person over concerns of legitimacy in his spoken statements.
- SHOWDOWN: This is usually one of the last steps before winding up the game at the poker table. When the final bet has been played, all the fellow competitors in the game are obligated to show their set of cards, which is termed as ‘Showdown’ in poker terminology.