beginner
Paint Cards
Paint cards are the king, queen and jack, also called face cards, court cards or picture cards. They have pictures of faces.
Pair
A pair is two cards of the same rank. In Hold'em, a pair in your hand is a pocket pair, and a pair of one hole card with a board card is also a pair. It is the lowest-ranked made hand, above high card.
Pass
To pass is to fold. In some games, it means to decline to bet, or to check.
Passive
A passive player mostly checks and calls and rarely bets or raises. The style is the opposite of aggressive.
Pat
A pat hand is a hand that is already complete and needs no more cards. In draw poker, a player who stands pat keeps all five cards.
Pay Station
A pay station is a player who rarely folds, so that he often calls with worse hands and loses money. The same type of player is a calling station.
Pedigree
Pedigree is a nickname for king-nine, K-9, of any suits. It is a weak, speculative hand.
Peg
To peg cards is to mark the fronts of cards with a pin, tack or ring so that the cheater can later tell their rank by touch. It is a cheating technique.
Penny Ante
Penny ante is a game with very low stakes. The phrase is also used for anything that is small or unimportant.
Picture Cards
Picture cards are cards that show a face: the king, the queen and the jack. They are also called face cards or court cards.
Pigeon
A pigeon is a player who is seen as a bad player by others. He is a weak player who makes many mistakes and loses money.
Pips
Pips are the spots or marks on the face of a card that show its rank, such as the hearts on a seven of hearts.
Pips, Pipped
Pips, or pipped, can mean the spots on a card, and as a verb, one card beating another by a single pip, outranking it by one. For example, ace-ten is pipped by ace-nine when the ten is only one higher.
Play the Board
To play the board means that your best five-card hand is made entirely of the five community cards. Anyone else in the hand with the same board also plays it, so the pot is split unless somebody has a better hand.
Played Card
A played card is a card dealt to a hand. It is a card that has been put into play, rather than left in the deck.
Playing the Board
Playing the board means that your best five-card hand is made of the five community cards. Anyone who plays the board and nobody has a better hand splits the pot.
Pocket means the down cards, also called the hole cards, which only the player can see. In Hold'em, they are your two private cards.
Pocket Cards
Pocket cards are the two cards dealt to you at the beginning of a Hold'em hand that nobody else may see. They are also called hole cards.
Pocket Pair
A pocket pair is a pair of hole cards, such as two sevens. It is also called a wired pair. It is a strong start, since you already have a pair.
Pocket Rockets
Pocket rockets is the nickname for a pair of aces as hole cards, the best starting hand in Hold'em. The aces look like rockets to the players.
Point
A point is the value of a card. In some games, it is a number used to count the strength of a hand.
Poker
Poker is a family of card games in which players bet on the strength of their hands. The winner is the player with the best hand at showdown, or the last player left after the others fold.
Poker Face
A poker face is an expression that hides a player's thoughts and does not reveal anything about the cards he holds. It is a basic skill that stops opponents from gaining information.
Poker room
A poker room is a dedicated space in a casino or an online site where players can play different types of poker games.
Poker Rules
The rules of poker differ between games, but most share a structure: players receive cards, bet in rounds, and the best hand wins at showdown, or the last player left wins the pot.
Position
Position is a player's place in the betting order relative to the button. The later you act, the better your position, because you see what the others do first.
Post
To post is to put in a required bet, such as a blind or an ante. A player who has to post is making a forced bet.
Postflop
Postflop is the stage of a hand after the flop has been dealt. It includes the flop, turn and river betting rounds.
Pot
The pot is the total of all the chips that players have bet in a hand. The winner of the hand takes it. In pot-limit games, saying 'pot' means that you bet the size of the pot.
Pot-Limit
Pot-limit is a betting structure in which a player can bet or raise any amount up to the current size of the pot. The most popular pot-limit game is Omaha, known as PLO.
Preflop
Preflop is the stage of a poker hand after the hole cards are dealt and before the flop. It is also the betting round that takes place before any community cards appear.
Public Poker
Public poker is poker played in casinos or public card clubs, where the pots are cut for profit. The house takes a rake or time charge.