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Poker Challenges

Glossary

Poker jargon, plainly explained

Short, precise definitions of the terms used across the lessons and puzzles here, each with a worked example.

  1. CounterfeitWhen a community card pairs a rank you do not hold, so a new pair appears on the board that any single opponent card can turn into trips, quietly devaluing a hand that looked safe.
  2. EquityThe share of the pot a hand or range expects to win on average across every way the remaining cards could come.
  3. ICMIndependent Chip Model: converts tournament chip stacks into real dollar equity by weighing each player's finishing chances against the payouts.
  4. MDFMinimum defence frequency: the smallest share of your range you must continue with against a bet so the bettor can't profit by bluffing any two cards.
  5. PolarisedA range or bet split between very strong hands and near-total bluffs, with the middling hands folded out or checked back rather than bet.
  6. RangeThe full set of hands a player could hold in a spot, each weighted by how likely it is, rather than a single guessed hand.