Playing a drawing hand that will lose even if successful (a state of affairs usually only discovered after the fact or in a tournament when two or more players are "all in" and they show their cards). I caught the jack to make my straight, but Rob had a full house all along, so I was drawing dead.
U
| full, full boat, full hand, full house | A hand with three cards of one rank and two of a second rank. Also "boat", "tight". See rank of hands (poker). | U |
| guts, guts to open | See inside straight draw. | U |
| cripple | In some community card games, to cripple the deck means to have a hand that makes it virtually impossible for anyone else to catch up to. For example, in Texas hold 'em, if your hole cards are A-T and the flop is A-A-T you have "crippled the deck" and it is unlikely you will make much money from it. | U |
| set-up | A deck that has been ordered, usually King to Ace by suit (spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds). In casinos, it is customary to use a set-up deck when introducing a new deck to the table. The set-up is spread face up for the players to demonstrate that all of the cards are present before the first shuffle. Also called to "spade the deck". | U |
| short stack | A stack of chips that is relatively small for the stakes being played. | U |
| four-straight | Four cards in rank sequence; either an open-ender or one-ender. A non-standard poker hand in some games, an incomplete drawing hand in most. Sometimes "four to a straight". | U |
| limp, limp in | To enter a pot by simply calling instead of raising. | U |
| action button | A marker similar to a kill button, on which a player places an extra forced bet. In a seven-card stud high-low game, the action button is awarded to the winner of a scoop pot above a certain size, signifying that in the next pot, that player will be required to post an amount representing a completion of the bring-in to a full bet. For example, in a stud game with $2 and $4 betting limits and a $1 bring-in, a player with the action button must post $2; after the cards are dealt, the player with the low card must still pay the $1 bring-in, then when the betting reaches the player who posted the $2, he is required to leave it in as a raise of the bring-in (and has the option to raise further). Players in between the bring-in and the action button can just call the bring-in, but they know ahead of time that they will be raised by the action button. | U |
| home game | A game played at a private venue (usually the home of one of the players), as opposed to a casino or public cardroom. | U |
| rail | The rail is the sideline at a poker table - the (often imaginary) rail separating spectators from the field of play. Watching from the rail means watching a poker game as a spectator. People on the rail are sometimes called railbirds. "Going to the rail" usually means "Losing all one's money". | U |