You’ll recall that last time I told you about poker tools that will help improve your game as you strive to become a good player on money poker sites. The first thing I recommended was an online poker dictionary because you’ll find it hard to read poker literature if you don’t know the most common and important poker terms. If you take a look at a poker dictionary, though, there are so many different terms that you’ll wonder where to start! To help out, I will talk about some of the poker terms that I deem most important for someone learning on a Full Tilt Poker download or any other poker site download. Start with these terms because they are the most important ones to know.
The terms that I think you should learn first have earlier entries all to themselves, so please make sure you’ve read my previous articles before continuing. You should always pay close attention to “bankroll management” and “variance” as they are undeniably some of the most important terms in poker. When you’re learning to play on your Bwin Poker download, you might be the victim of a lengthy downswing. That’s why you need to have a healthy bankroll.
Since poker is all about money, you should quickly learn about the “rake”. The rake is the money taken from every pot or prize pool by the host of the poker game. So for example, if you play some no-limit hold em after using a Titanpoker bonus code, each pot you play will be reduced by around 5% and given to the site. Rake will differ between sites, and each hand can be raked up to a maximum amount.
Another term to take a look at is “position”. We’ve already discussed the strength of your preflop cards in the poker hands order entry, but the importance of position was never brought up. If you are last to act post flop, you have the best position at the table, and good position is as important for winning pots as the strength of your cards. You should be playing fewer hands when you’re out of position and more hands when you’re in position. When you download free casino games, you couldn’t care less where you sit in relation to other players. Because of the concept of position, poker is a different story.
You should check out the term “outs” in a suitable online poker dictionary. If you’re playing in a pot and you feel you don’t have the best hand, you should determine the cards that could be dealt on later streets that likely would improve your hand to the best. These are called your “outs”.
Look up the phrase “fold equity”. When you’re playing a hand, you need to take into account that there is a chance your opponent will fold if you bet. This is called fold equity, and it is very important because it’s a way to win pots without necessarily having the best hand. If you ever take a look at Daniels Room poker, you will see that the best players employ this idea very often.
If you read advice columns on the internet regarding poker, the word “nit” will likely appear every so often. A nit describes a player that plays a very limited number of hands and is afraid to gamble without the best of it. He will rarely put money into the pot if he is not guaranteed to win.
One more term that is going to be handy to know when you download free poker is “all-in”. Especially prevalent in tournament poker, you are betting your entire stack if you go all-in, and to call, your opponents must call the amount in your stack or go all-in themselves. If you are called and don’t win the showdown, you are likely bust and you must re-buy (if the game permits it) or leave the table.
In a future article, I will go through the dictionary and choose more terms to look at. In the meantime, study these terms carefully and see if you can find some strategy articles that use them. Good luck and have fun at the tables!
