Postflop Poker Glossary

Pot odds are the price you’re getting to call: the ratio of the total pot to the amount you must call. They tell you the minimum equity your hand needs to make calling break even.

MDF is the minimum share of your range you must continue with against a bet so the bettor can’t profitably bluff any two cards. It equals pot ÷ (pot + bet).

Implied odds are the extra money you expect to win on later streets when your draw completes. They let you call a bet that immediate pot odds alone don’t justify.

Equity is your hand’s share of the pot if the hand were played to showdown from here: how often it wins against villain’s range, counting the cards still to come. You compare it with the price of a call to decide whether continuing makes money.

Outs are the unseen cards that complete your hand — the cards that turn a draw into the best hand. Counting them, and converting the count into a percentage, is how you measure a draw’s equity against the price of a call.

An open-ended straight draw (OESD) can complete at either end and has 8 outs; a gutshot needs one specific rank in the middle and has only 4. The difference roughly halves your equity, and it decides which straight draws can call a bet.

Range advantage means your entire range of possible hands is stronger than your opponent’s on a given board. The player with range advantage can bet more often and at higher frequency.

Nut advantage means holding more of the very top hands — sets, straights, two pair — on a given board than your opponent. It is narrower than range advantage, and it is what decides how big you can bet.

A range is the full set of hands a player can hold in a given spot, given everything he has done so far. Thinking in ranges, instead of guessing one hand, is the basis of every postflop decision in this trainer.

Board texture describes how connected and coordinated the community cards are. Dry boards are disconnected and favor the aggressor; wet boards are connected and shift equity toward the caller.

A continuation bet, or c-bet, is a bet made on the flop by the player who raised before the flop. It continues the preflop aggression and pressures the opponent with both value and bluffs.

Position means acting last on every street (in position, IP) or first (out of position, OOP). The player in position sees the other player’s action before deciding, which lets him realize more of his equity, take free cards and control the size of the pot.

A polarized range is a betting range made up of strong value hands and bluffs, with medium-strength hands checked. Big bets and overbets should be polarized so the bluffs are backed by real value.

A bluff catcher is a hand that beats only your opponent’s bluffs, not their value bets. You call with it to stop the opponent from bluffing profitably, choosing the ones that block their value.

Two actions are indifferent when they have the same expected value. At equilibrium the bettor bluffs just often enough that the caller’s bluff-catchers are indifferent between calling and folding, and that is why solvers show mixed frequencies.

To barrel is to keep betting on a later street after your previous bet was called — a second barrel on the turn, a third on the river. A barrel needs a reason of its own: a card that helps your range, real equity, or both.

A value bet is a bet that, when called, wins more than half the time. The test is not whether your hand is strong but whether, of the hands that call, you beat most of them.

Showdown value is a hand’s chance of winning if the hand is checked down — a pair or ace-high that may already be best. Hands with showdown value usually prefer to check rather than turn themselves into bluffs.

A check-raise is checking to your opponent and then raising after he bets. It is the out-of-position player’s main weapon: it turns villain’s c-bet into a big pot when you are strong and adds fold equity to big draws.

A probe bet is a turn bet from the out-of-position caller after the preflop raiser checked back the flop. The raiser’s check capped his range, so the caller seizes the betting lead with value hands and with bluffs on scary cards.

A capped range is one that can no longer contain the strongest hands, because the player’s earlier actions would have been different with them. Betting into a capped range is how probes, thin value bets and value overbets make money.

SPR is the effective stack divided by the pot at the start of the flop. It tells you how committed you are: low SPR means top pair can stack off, high SPR rewards implied odds and pot control.

Pot commitment is the point where so much of your stack is in the pot, or the remaining bets are so small relative to it, that folding is wrong on price alone. The commitment decision is a plan you make on the flop, not a feeling on the river.

Blockers are cards in your hand that reduce the combinations of hands your opponent can hold. Holding the ace of a suit, for example, makes it less likely your opponent has the nut flush.

A 3-bet pot is a pot where the preflop raise was re-raised and called. It starts big, so the stack-to-pot ratio is low by default, both ranges are narrow and strong, and commitment decisions arrive on the flop.

Pot control means choosing a line that keeps the pot small on purpose. It is for medium-strength made hands that are ahead of villain’s weak hands and behind his strong ones — hands where betting does not change that.

A scare card is a turn or river card that changes who is ahead — a third flush card, a fourth card to a straight, an overcard to a pair. It gives the bettor new value hands and a credible story to bluff with.

Floating means calling a flop c-bet in position with a hand that is not yet strong, planning to take the pot away on a later street — usually with a bet when the c-bettor checks the turn.

An overbet is a bet larger than the size of the pot. It’s used with a polarized range on boards where you hold the nut advantage and the opponent’s range is capped at medium-strength hands.

A donk bet, or lead, is a bet by the out-of-position preflop caller into the preflop raiser before the raiser has had a chance to c-bet. It makes sense only on boards that hit the caller’s range harder than the raiser’s.

A thin value bet is a value bet with a small margin: a marginal made hand — weak top pair, second pair, a small overpair — bet because, when called, it is ahead slightly more than half the time.

A semi-bluff is a bet or raise made with a drawing hand — one that can win now by making the opponent fold, and can also improve to the best hand if called. It combines fold equity with real equity.

Fold equity is the extra value a bet or raise gains from the times villain folds. Together with your hand’s own equity when called, it decides whether a bluff or a semi-bluff makes money.

A multiway pot is a pot contested by three or more players. Every extra player makes it more likely that somebody holds a real hand, so bluffs work less often, value hands need to be stronger, and heads-up rules like MDF stop applying.

A calling station is a player whose main mistake is that he does not fold. Against him bluffs lose their fold equity, so you stop bluffing, value bet wider and bigger, and wait for a hand to charge him with.

ICM, the Independent Chip Model, describes why tournament chips are not all worth the same: the chips you lose cost more than the same number of chips won would gain, because busting ends your chance at every later payout.