Option

1. The choice given to the big blind to either raise or check.

How it Works

The option to check or raise is one of the few advantages a player in the big blind has during the course of a poker hand. It comes into effect when action has been limped around to the player in the big blind.

The other time an "option" is commonly given is to a player who places a live straddle. In a straddled hand, if the other players in the hand opt to just call the straddle, the player who initiated the straddle now has the option to check or raise, just as the blinds would. In fact it is this aspect that makes a straddle "live."