Terms Starting with C

Caesars Cup

The Caesars Cup is a promotion put on by the Betfair poker room where Americans will face Europeans at the WSOPE 2009 event in a Ryder Cup style matchup. (read more)

Caesars Palace

Caesars Palace is a hotel and casino located in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and other parts of the country. It is host to many poker events. (read more)

Cage

The cage is the area of a casino or poker room where chips and currency get exchanged and where other related pieces of business take place. (read more)

Cake Poker

Cake Poker is an online poker room founded in 2004 and based in Curacao, positioned as one of the top 10 online poker rooms in the industry. (read more)

California Split

California Split is a poker movie that takes place in the cardrooms of Southern California in the 1970s. It was directed by Robert Altman. (read more)

Call

A poker call is when a player matches the bet of a player who has already bet (read more)

Calling Clock

Calling Clock is a request by an opponent to start a countdown clock to be started to force a player to make an action. (read more)

Calling Station

A calling station is a player you can't bluff against in poker. He will call every bet you have and is someone to avoid unless you hold a big hand. (read more)

Cambodia

Cambodia is a bizarre hand nickname that originated in NYC for the hole cards 74o (74-suited is known as 'Cambodian Slick'). (read more)

Canadian Poker Tour

The Canadian Poker Tour (read more)

Canine

The term Canine is slang for a specific hand for a hand in holdem when someone is dealt any combination of K9. (read more)

Cap

Capping the bet means putting the maximum number of raises in during a hand of poker. Four raises typically constitute a cap. (read more)

Cap Game

A cap game is one where there is a cap on the maximum bet. (read more)

Carbon Poker

Carbon Poker, a relative newcomer to the online poker scene, is part of the Merge Gaming network, which supports a large and continually growing player base. (read more)

Card

A card is one of the pieces of the deck and has a unique value. (read more)

Card Dead

Card dead is a way for a poker player to state that he is 'running bad' by noticing that he has not recently received many playable poker hands. (read more)

Card Player Magazine

Card Player Magazine was founded in 1988 and purchased 10 years later by Barry Shulman, who remains the publisher and CEO. His son Jeff Shulman is president. (read more)

Card Sense

'Card sense' refers to an innate, organic ability to understand games of skill and chance that involve a 52-deck of playing cards. (read more)

Cardrack

Cardrack is a poker slang term that means someone is experiencing a hot run of cards. Being a cardrack is sort of the opposite of being 'card dead.' (read more)

Cardrunners

Cardrunners is a website founded by Taylor Caby and Andrew Wiggins which specializes in producing training videos for online poker games. (read more)

Cards in the Air

'Cards in the air' is an expression used to indicate that dealing has or will begun in a poker tournament, i.e. 'cards in the air at noon.' (read more)

Cards Speak

Cards speak is a regulation in poker games that outlines the fact that an exposed hand will always 'play' or be considered 'live.' (read more)

Care Bears

Care Bears is a term used by the unlikeable Eric Molina at the 2006 WSOP to take the place of curse words so that he would not get penalized for swearing. (read more)

Carlos Mortensen

Carlos Mortensen is the only Hispanic Main Event winner in World Series of Poker history and has 2 WSOP and 2 WPT titles for over $8,500,000 in winnings. (read more)

Case

A case card is the last remaining card of a rank in the deck. It's often used to describe an out a person has in a hand. It's a bad beat losing to a case card. (read more)

Cash Game

A cash game is one in which the blinds and antes remain constant and actual money is at stake. It's synonymous with a ring game. (read more)

Cashier

The cashier at a casino is the cage where all of the money is held behind while at a poker site it is where your account balance is shown. (read more)

Cashout

The term cashout is used when a player takes their money off of an online poker room or turns in poker chips at the cashier at a casino. (read more)

Casino

A casino is a public building for gambling and entertainment. (read more)

Casino Flu

Casino flu is a term that indicates the common mallady that can result from handling a lot of money or poker chips in a casino setting. (read more)

Catch

Catch is referenced in poker as when you hit a card you need on a draw or when you call someone and expose their failed bluff attempt. (read more)

Center Pot

The center pot is the same thing as the main pot in poker. In a hand, a main pot and side pot can occur, meaning two pots must be awarded at the end of a hand. (read more)

Cereus Network

The Cereus Network was formed by Tokwiro Enterprises who own both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet. (read more)

cEV

cEV refers to a poker tournament strategy concept that analyzes whether a play at hand has a positive expected value in terms of tournament chips. (read more)

Chad Brown

Chad Brown is a PokerStars Pro who has final tabled events in the WSOP and WPT for over 26 cashes. (read more)

Chainsaw

Chainsaw is the ironic nickname for Allen Kessler, who is known for many things in the poker community, including a nitty style of play. (read more)

Chameleon

The term chameleon is a reference to a player that changes and varies their style of play from wild to tight at a moment's notice. (read more)

Chasing

The act of staying in a hand against a bet with an unmade hand with the hope of hitting. (read more)

Chat

Chat can describe the area on an online poker table where players type to each other. Players can have their chat banned for misuing this area. (read more)

Chat Box

A chat box is a small area on an online poker table that allows you to type in a message for other players at the table to read. (read more)

Check

Passing on the opportunity to bet while retaining the right to raise if a bet is placed (read more)

Check in the Dark

To check in the dark is to check before seeing what the next card is dealt on the board. (read more)

Check Raising the Devil

Check Raising the Devil is the autobiography of famous poker pro Mike Matusow (read more)

Check-Raise

Check-raising an opponent in poker means raising over the top of a bet. It's a strategy to be aggressive at the poker table. It's usually a sign of strength. (read more)

Checked Around

The term Checked Around describes when a hand is in a multi-way pot and all players in the hand check on a given street. (read more)

Chess

Chess is a game that relies more heavily on pure skill than poker, but, like Magic the Gathering, was the game that several notables played before poker. (read more)

Chinese Poker

Chinese Poker is played by evenly dividing the deck into 13-card hands and creating a sequence of hands, consisitng of 5,5, and 3 cards. (read more)

Chino

Chino is a verb that describes the fine art of borrowing money from poker players with no specific way of repaying the loan. (read more)

Chip

Chip can be a verb meaning to grow your stack in poker. It also is a unit of betting in the game, as in a chip set. Chipping up means growing your stack. (read more)

Chip and a Chair

Chip and a chair is an expression that is somewhat similar to 'it's not over until it's over:' You can come back to win a poker tournament even with one chip. (read more)

Chip Count

Chip count refers to the amount of proxy chips that a player has in a poker tournament. Chipcounts are often tracked by the media or discussed among peers. (read more)

Chip Dumping

Chip dumping is losing your chips on purpose in order to benefit another player's chip stack. It is not allowed in an online poker room. (read more)

Chip Reese

Chip Reese, who died in 2007 at the age of 56, is a legendary card player, who had a mystery of many games including seven-card stud, gin and bridge. (read more)

Chipleader

The chipleader is the person in a poker tournament who has the largest amount of chips at any given point in a poker tournament. (read more)

Chiren80

Chiren80, whose real name is Machir Boumaaza, is the most successful breakeven player in history and a member of Team PokerStars Online. (read more)

Chirp

Chirping is what happens after someone wins a pot and suddenly becomes talkative. It is a representation of the mood swings that exist in a poker game. (read more)

Chop

Chopping a pot in poker or dividing up the final tournament prize pool based on number of chips or another factor. Chops are done deep in tournaments. (read more)

Chop the Blinds

When one wants to chop the blinds, it means the hand only has the small and big blinds left and they both decide to kill the hand and take back their blinds. (read more)

Chris Ferguson

Chris Ferguson has been a powerhouse in poker for more than a decade. In 2000, he won the World Series of Poker Main Event for $1.5M. (read more)

Chris Moneymaker

Chris Moneymaker is the winner of the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event and credited with starting the incredible boom poker felt during the mid 1990s. (read more)

Christian Harder

Christian Harder is a young and highly accomplished poker tournament specialist, with a handful of high-profile results live and online. (read more)

Circuit

Circuit refers to a series of poker tournaments that aren't unified by one company or theme. Live tournament pros are said to be 'on the circuit.' (read more)

Circus Circus

Circus Circus is a hotel and casino located at the North end of the Las Vegas Strip and is known for having a run-down poker room. (read more)

Clamp

Having your opponent in a clamp indicates that your hand is so much stronger than his, it will require nearly super-human strength to escape and win the hand. (read more)

Clean Out

Cleaning out a player in poker usually means taking a person's chips with malicious intent. To clean out a player is ethically questionable. (read more)

Clear The Rail

Clear the Rail is an expression used as a command by poker players to floor management to remove spectators from the area around a poker table. (read more)

Clicking Buttons

Clicking buttons is meant to denote an instance when an online player seems to be playing erratically--essentially randomly clicking buttons. (read more)

Cliff Josephy

Cliff Josephy is a professional poker player that goes by the screen name JohnnyBax. (read more)

Club Titan

Club Titan is the official VIP rewards program for the popular poker room Titan Poker, and offers players rewards such as bonuses and consumer products. (read more)

Coaching Video

A coaching video is one where a poker coach will do a screen capture and go through another player's session or stats and provide commentary. (read more)

Coffeehousing

Coffeehousing refers to the act of talking during a poker, hand, usually in an effort to gain information, sometimes in the form of needling. (read more)

Coinflipping Scam

Coinflipping scams involve one bettor offering another bettor favorable odds on the flip of a coin, an even money proposition. It is a scam. (read more)

Cold Call

When a player makes a cold call, it is when they are faced with a raise and have no money in the pot already and make a call. (read more)

Cold Deck

A cold deck in poker is equivalent to a 'cooler.' It refers to a situation in which two hands are forced into an unavoidable clash due to their strength. (read more)

Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman is an accomplished high stakes Sit and Go player (read more)

Collusion

Players who collude are collaborating in a poker hand or poker game in an effort to gain an unfair edge over the other players in the game. (read more)

Coloring-Up

Coloring-Up is the process of consolidating chips in a poker tournament. as the lower denominaton chips become unnecessary. (read more)

Combo Draw

A combo draw is a hand that has multiple draws to different hands such as both a straight and a flush. (read more)

Come

When you are 'on the come' in poker, it refers to the fact that you are drawing; it is also one of the most common bets in a game of craps. (read more)

Comeup

The comeup is a poker slang term used to describe a positive series of results in a gambling situation that nets an extraordinary profit. (read more)

Commerce Casino

Commerce Casino is the largest poker venue in the world. It is a hub for cash games all year around and hosts a large tournament series each February. (read more)

Community Cards

Community cards, also known as board cards or shared cards, can be used by all players in a poker game and give partial information about an opponent's hand. (read more)

Comp

Comp is short for 'complimentary' and refers to gifts or services that the casino offers back to gamblers in order to make them happy. (read more)

Complete

Completing is a concept that arises in stud games and refers to a bet made after the bring in that is eqal to the amount of the lowest betting limit. (read more)

Computer Hand

Computer Hand is a nickname given to the starting hand Queen-Seven in Texas Hold'em. It derives its name from a computer simulation of starting hands. (read more)

Concierge Service

Concierge Service is available for members of the SuperNova VIP level at PokerStars and allows a player to use FPP points for a specific item. (read more)

Connector

Connecting cards are two poker cards that are sequential in rank. Suited connectors are both sequential in rank and of the same suit. (read more)

Continuation Bet

A continuation bet is when a player bets out at the flop who was the raiser during the previous round of betting. (read more)

Contributed Rakeback Method

The contributed rakeback method is a way of calculating the amount of rake a player accumulates by only counting the times that player puts money in the pot. (read more)

Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke, a 1967 prison movie starring Paul Newman in the title role, is considered a great movie about gambling even though it is a movie about prison. (read more)

Cool Million

The term 'cool million' is simply an ironic way of referring to one million dollars in a poker situation. Such as, 'He bought in for a cool million.' (read more)

Cooler

A cooler is considered an unavoidable situation in poker, usually when two players hold very strong hands. (read more)

Coordinated

Coordinated boards are the opposite of ragged boards in poker. The term 'coordinated' refers to community cards that are connected and/or suited. (read more)

Copag

Copag is a company based out of Brazil that manufactures plastic playing cards for poker and was adopted as the official playing card of the WSOP. (read more)

Cory Carroll

Cory Carroll is a highly accomplished tournament player who originally hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has nearly $2M in cashes in live poker tournaments. (read more)

Countdown to Busto

The term Countdown to Busto refers to when a player always breaks bankroll management and his or her friends begin a countdown to when they are broke. (read more)

Counterfeited

Counterfeited describes a poker situation where a hand that once had value of its own has been rendered null and void due to the board texture. (read more)

Court Card

A court card is one that has a member of royalty on it, meaning one of the twelve face cards in a deck. (read more)

Courtesy Double Up

A Courtesy Double Up is when a player doubles up against a weak hand (read more)

Cover Play

Cover play is when you play more than just the requirements to release an online poker bonus to make it look like (read more)

Cow

Cow is a nickname for stevesbets, but it has evolved into a poker term for high stakes gamblers who are retarded and gamble too high. (read more)

Cowboys

The nickname Cowboys is given to pocket Kings (KK) in Texas Hold'em. (read more)

Crabs

The slang term Crabs is a nickname for the starting hand of 33 in Hold'em, a reference to how a 3 looks like a sideways crab. (read more)

Crack

Cracking cards means overcoming a strong hand with a weaker one. It's often used in conjunction with cracking aces or a pocket pair. (read more)

Cracky

Cracky is an adjective that describes someone in the throes of a gambling binge whose behavior is indistinguishable from a drug addict. (read more)

Crackyllite

Crackyllite is the term coined in order to describe the super turbo satellites that Full Tilt deploys in the hour right before a major tournament. (read more)

Craig Marquis

Craig Marquis is a young poker player from Texas who took ninth place in the 2008 WSOP main event after losing a conflip to Scott Montgomery. (read more)

Cranberry

A cranberry is gambler parlance for a poker chip that is worth twenty-five thousand dollars. It is called a cranberry because of its reddish hue. (read more)

Crapshoot

The term crapshoot gets its origins from an actual game of craps but may be used to represent any aspect of gambling or poker that is based primarily on luck. (read more)

Credit Card Roulette

Credit Card Roulette is a randomized way to gamble on communal costs; it is often used by poker players to determine who picks up the check at a restaurant. (read more)

Cripple

Crippling a player in poker means dealing a crushing blow to a player's chip stacks. If a player is crippled, it means that they will often have to push all in. (read more)

Crossbooking

Crossbooking is when two players agree to swap or 'book' action in addition to the stakes being played but based on the same outcome. (read more)

Crowbar

Crowbar is another term invented by NYC legend Alfonse, in which he would taunt his opponents by stating that he would 'crowbar' them, beating them in a hand. (read more)

Crying Call

Crying call refers to a situation where you are likely to be paying off your opponent and less likely to be calling with the best hand. (read more)

Cut

Cut refers to the act of slicing a deck of cards into two parts, usually the last component of a dealing procedure, or for the purpose of drawing a high card. (read more)

Cut Card

The cut card is usually a solid color, typically yellow, that is placed on the bottom of a deck so players cannot see what is that last card in the deck. (read more)

Cut-Off

The cut-off is the player seated to the right of the button in poker. He has the advantage of raising the blinds in a hand and can do so before the button. (read more)