N

(n) 1. Chat term for “nice” (as in n1). 2. Chat term for “no.” Usually typed in response to a question.

(n) Noob. (Those are zeroes, not O’s.)

(n) Chat term for “nice one.”

(n phrase) Gumbo.

(v) 1. Mark a card, often with a fingernail. Also called spike, spur. 2. Catch the specific card you need to win, particularly as the last card in hold’em or seven-card stud. “I nailed an ace on the river.” 3. Catch someone cheating.

(n phrase) Marking cards with one’s fingernails, particularly sharp thumbnails. See nail, spur.

(n phrase) In lowball, a wheel (that is, a lowball, definition 2).

(expression) “I have a wheel.” Usually an announcement at the showdown by a lowball player.

(n) Northern American Poker Tour.

(n phrase) Force players to fold by betting or raising, thus producing fewer opponents to compete against for the pot.

(n) 1. A card that is not wild. Also, natural card. — (adj) 2. In a wild-card game, pertaining to a hand that does not contain any wild cards. For example, in deuces wild, a natural straight, such as 10-J-Q-K-A, would have no 2s.

(n phrase) Natural (definition 1).

(n phrase) Draw poker played with no antes or blinds.

(n) A chat term meaning “nice bet” or “nice bluff.”

(n) A chat term meaning “nice call,” “nice card,” “nice cards,” or “nice catch.”

(v) 1. Anger by means of verbal abuse, often by application of sarcasm, sometimes by lying about one’s hand just prior to the showdown. — (n) 2. The act of so angering someone; usually preceded by give the. “You’re gonna get punched in the nose if you keep giving him the needle.” 3. A brief.

(n phrase) One who regularly applies the needle (definition 2) to others.

(n) Needle artist.

(n) A pair of aces.

(n, imitative) 9 (the card or the lowball hand).

(n phrase) See discussion at expectation.

(n phrase) See discussion at expectation.

(n) Due to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, advertising by online poker sites that might break the law has not been acceptable to television broadcasters and other media. “Breaking the law” here is construed as sites that involve real money. Consequently, the major poker sites have developed .net counterparts to their .com sites. On the latter, cash wagering takes place; on the .net sites, only play money is used. In advertisements, a disclaimer always appears, “This is not a gambling site.” So, for example, PokerStars.com has a parallel PokerStars.net site.

(n phrase) A $1,000 bill. Since the bills are no longer in circulation, the term is now rarely used.

(n phrase) A $5 chip. (This term is rarely heard.)

(cardroom saying) What a player might say after winning a pot that required him to shoot his way out (see shoot one’s way out).

(n) Short for newbie. See noob.

(n) Beginning player. Sometimes shortened to newb or noob. (And there is a distinction in some contexts.)

(n phrase) A fresh deck of cards put into play.

(expression) Request by a player for a new deck.

(n) In hold’em, K-Q as starting cards.

(n phrase) 1. Someone who has never played poker before. 2. Someone who has never played poker in a cardroom before. When seating a player, a floorman might say to the house dealer, “Can you help him for the first few hands? He’s a new player.” 3. A player who has not yet played a hand at a specific table. When a house dealer first starts a dealing session, a player in the game might say to her, “Deal seat three out; he’s a new player.”

(n) A chat term for “nice fold.”

(n) A chat term for “nice hand.” The usual response is ty.

(n) A chat term for “nice hands” or “Nice hand, sir.”

(n) RGP shorthand for Nice hand, sir; well played.

(n) RGP shorthand for Nice hand; well played, sir.

(expression) What a player says in acknowledgment to the winner of a big pot when he can’t bring himself to say “Good hand.”

(expression) 1. “Good hand.” 2. A sarcastic acknowledgment of the poor quality of another player’s cards. If someone wins a hold’em pot with 7-2 offsuit and shows the cards to his neighbor, the latter might say, “Nice hand.” Also, “Nice paper.”

(expression) Nice hand; well played, sir.. Sometimes rendered as the initialism NHSWP.

(expression) The standard response by an RGPer when being shown a hand that didn’t have much chance of winning, but managed to defy the odds. Sometimes rendered as the initialism NHWPS.

(expression) “Nice hand.” (definition 2).

(expression) Acknowledgment to the winner of a big pot for having played the hand well.

(n) Short for nickel, that is, a $5 chip.

(n) 1. $5 or a $5 poker chip. Also called a red or a redbird because that’s its typical color in most casinos and cardrooms. 2. A 5. In high poker, three nickels means three 5s. — (adj) 3. $5. Nickel chips are $5 chips. 4. In lowball, having a 5 as the second highest card. A nickel 8 is an 8-5.

(n phrase) $5 poker chip. Often shortened to simply nickel.

(adj) Describing a small game.

(n) Nickel-dime-quarter game.

(n phrase) 1. A small-stakes home game, with those being the chip sizes and betting limits. Usually, five cents is the smallest bet permitted and 25 cents the largest. Sometimes the nickel refers to the ante, the dime the minimum bet, and the quarter the largest. Also, quarter game. Compare with penny-ante game.2. Any small-stakes game. Often shortened to nickel-dime quarter.

(n) In hold’em, 5-5 as starting cards.

(n phrase) Dimestore.

(n phrase) Graveyard shift.

(n, imitative) 9 (the card or the lowball hand).

(n phrase, imitative) 9 (the card or the lowball hand).

(n) 1. The card whose rank is 9, of which a standard deck contains four, one each in the spades (♠), hearts (♥), diamonds (♦), and clubs (♣) suit. 2. A low hand topped by a 9, that is, whose high card among five unpaired cards is a 9. In a lowball game, you might hear the following exchange: “I’ve got a 9.” “No good; I’ve got an 8.”

(n) In high poker, three 3s.

(n phrase) Nine.

(n phrase) A full house consisting of three 9s and a pair.

(n phrase) 1. 9s up. 2. 9s full.

(n phrase) Two pair, the higher of which are 9s.

(n) 1. Nine-way straight. 2. In the 52-card deck, a hand containing four cards to a flush.

(n) In the 53-card deck, open-ended straight.

(n) A tight player who takes no chances, and is thus very predictable. Even tighter is a supernit.

(n) A game full of extremely tight players. Opposite of donkfest.

(n phrase) In high poker, two small pair, usually 3s and 2s. Also called mites and lice, mits and mites.

(n) Shorthand, particularly in e-mail and Internet postings, for no-limit. Also a chat term.

(n) A chat term for no-limit.

(n) A chat term for “nice laydown.”

(n) Shorthand, particularly in e-mail and Internet postings, and a chat term, for no-limit hold’em. Sometimes nlh.

(n) Shorthand, particularly in e-mail and Internet postings, and a chat term, for no-limit hold’em. Sometimes nlhe.

(n phrase) NLHE.

(n) A hand so good that it can be correctly played even by someone with no brains. In hold’em, that would be a big pair, probably kings or aces, in ace-to-five lowball, a good 6 or better, and in draw high, aces full or better.

(n phrase) In any form of draw poker, an announcement on the draw that one is standing pat, that is, drawing no cards.

(v phrase) An indication (or rule) that betting cash is not permitted in a game. Cash must immediately be converted into chips, which are then all that may be used to make bets. Cash on the table may never be put into a pot, even if the player has ordered chips. Compare with cash plays.

(n phrase) The arrangement in some cardrooms, in a flop game, that no rake or drop is taken on any hand in which the betting does not proceed past the first round, that is, there is no flop. This encourages players to chop the blinds.

(n phrase) A humorous term for the kind of hold’em played among low-limit loose players, those who call on practically any two cards and having caught any piece of the flop. Sometimes rendered California no fold’em hold’em, supposedly due to hold’em’s relatively late appearance there, particularly in the southern part of the state, which was known for a while as “hold’em paradise.”

(n phrase) Said of a player who doesn’t gamble, often used derisively, and part of expressions like “He’s got no gamble.”

(v, n) In the larger double-limit games, usually above $15-$30, with a live blind, the situation in which players are not permitted to open by just calling the blind, that is, opening with a bet the same size as the blind. Thus, the minimum opening bet is always two bets. See gypsying in.

(n phrase; expression) See “That’s no hill to climb for a stepper.”

(n phrase) The form of poker in which, on his turn, a player can bet all of his chips (or of his opponent’s, if the bettor has more), as opposed to a limit game, in which all bets and raises are in multiples of the betting limit. In a no-limit game, the largest bet that technically can be made is equal in size to the stack(definition 2) of the player who has the second-largest amount of chips at the table. Compare with pot limit.

(adj) Describing a game played for no limit, in such phrases as no-limit game, no-limit poker, no-limit hold’em, and so on.

(n phrase) A game played with (or for) no limit.

(n phrase) No limit.

(n phrase) No limit.

(v phrase) No cash plays.

(n) In lowball, a card that does not pair one in your hand (thus making specifically the hand you were drawing to). When a player makes a good hand, he may say, “I caught a noncomoquer.” Comes from panguingue. Compare with comoquer.

(n) Any of the nonpoker games.

(n) Any of various house-banked casino games that use one or more decks of cards and use poker hand rankings but do not contain the skill elements of poker, such as betting, checking, raising at will and bluffing. Such games include Caribbean Stud and Casino Hold’em Poker.

(n) See poker variants.

(n) Any of various hands not usually recognized as having value in cardrooms and casinos, generally only found in draw poker. Nonstandard hands include big dog, little dog, big cat, little cat, kilter, skip straight, blaze, and the like. Also called freak hand, special hand.

(n) Newbie. Both noob and newb come from the world of online gaming, particularly World of Warcraft, and sometimes a distinction is made. A newb is just a beginner, whereas a noob is an unskilled beginner, and the term is sometimes taken as a sarcastic putdown, as in “gg noob,” which, while ostensibly meaning “good game, beginner,” can be interpreted as “You played like an idiot.” Sometimes spelled n00b.

(n phrase) 1. In high poker, a hand lower than one pair, usually named by its high card, as, for example, ace high. 2. In the rank of hands, the hand that ranks below one pair and is sometimes known as high card. Examples for both of the preceding: A♠ K♠ 7♣ 9♦ 2♥, 7♥ 5♣ 4♣ 3♦ 2♠. Between two hands having no pair, the one with the higher card wins at the showdown. If the top cards are the same, the next card is compared, and so on. Thus, A♣ K♠ T♠ 9♣ 8♦ beats A♠ K♣ T♥ 9♦ 7♠. 3. In lowball, any hand without a pair. No pair usually implies a hand topped by a nondescript high card, as a 10 or worse, but someneedle artists show down a good hand, like a 6 in ace-to-five lowball, accompanied by the announcement, “No pair.”

(n phrase) No peeky.

(n phrase) A poker game played only in private or home games, a form of five- or seven-card stud in which each player gets all his cards face down, and is not permitted to look at them. The first player to the left of the dealer rolls (that is, turns face up) one card, at which point there is a round of betting. The second player then rolls as many cards as it takes to beat what the first player has exposed, at which point there is another round of betting. This continues on around, with each player rolling only as many cards as it takes to beat the previous player’s exposed cards, followed at each such point by a round of betting. If at any point a player exposes five (or seven) cards that cannot beat the player to his right, that player is out. Sometimes called beat your neighbor.

(n phrase) The situation in which one’s starting cards bear no relation whatever to the flop, such as starting with 5♠ 6♠ and seeing a flop of A♥ K♣ 9♥. See catch a piece of the flop.

(n phrase) A button placed at the position of a chip stack at which no player has been present for some length of time. Typically, each time a new dealer comes to the table (say every half hour) another no player button is placed before the unattended stack. Depending on house rules, a seat that has collected two or three such buttons may have its chips picked up by the house, to free the seat for another player.

(n phrase) 1. The situation in which a high-low split game is played without a qualifier. 2. The situation in which a specific hand in a high-low-split game with a qualifier does not have a qualifier, or in which no hand qualifies for low, in which case the best high hand wins the entire pot.

(n phrase) Freeze-out tournament (definition 1).

(n phrase) A series of tournaments that take place in the US and the Bahamas, with more events envisioned in Canada. Sometimes rendered as the initialism NAPT.

(n phrase) Like draw poker, particularly ace-to-five lowball, as played in Northern California (though dying out), with respect to the betting structure. The game is played single limit. Compare with Southern California-style.

(expression) “I have a full house.”

(n) See on the nose.

(adj) Describing games played for extremely high stakes, games with minimum bets of at least $200 online and often $1,000 and up in a brick and mortar club.

(n phrase) The part of a cardroom in which games are played for nosebleed stakes. The nosebleed section in a brick and mortar club is often roped off from the rest of the cardroom or in a separate room. More commonly called high-stakes section.

(adv phrase) On tilt. “He’s got his nose open.” Sometimes nose wide open.

(n phrase) The joker. (Look at a Kem plastic deck.)

(adv phrase) Nose open; wide open.

(n) An ace, 2, 3, or the joker, so called because when the card is lying face down and you lift its lower right corner you see no spots. Some lowball players couple the knowledge that a card could be one of these but that they don’t know which one with game theory to decide on whether or not to bet. See liner,spotter.

(adv phrase) 1. Describing a board that has cards of different suits, that is, a rainbow flop or rainbow board. 2. Describing starting cards of different suits.

(expression) See trapper.

(v) Just barely beat someone, usually by one card. In ace-to-five lowball, if your 8-6-7-3-2 loses to a 8-6-7-3-A, or, in hold’em, your pair of aces K-Q-7 is beat by a pair of aces K-Q-8, you have been notched.

(n) Unplayable cards. “I can’t play; I’ve got nothing.” Opposite of something.

(expression) An announcement made by a player who just bluffed and got called; an admission that a player was bluffing.

(n) In ace-to-five lowball, 4-3-2-A; always preceded by the rank of the highest card in the hand. For example, 8-nothing is 8-4-3-2-A. Also, -zip. Also, see perfect (definition 2).

(expression) An announcement made while showing down a particularly powerful hand.

(adj phrase) Describing a player who has folded or was not even dealt in for the current hand. “He’s not entitled to a share of the jackpot. He was not in the hand.”

(v phrase) See leave money on the table.

(v phrase) See full deck.

(expression) “I have a full house.”

(n) A chat term meaning “nice play.”

(n) Shorthand, particularly in e-mail and Internet postings, for no qualifier.

(n) A chat term for “nice try.”

(n) A very small amount of chips, or a very small profit.

(n phrase) The regular players in a game, usually a home or private game; those players around whom the game is built.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball, 6-5-4-3-A. In deuce-to-seven lowball, 8-5-4-3-2 of mixed suits.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball, 6-5-4-2-A. In deuce-to-seven lowball, 7-6-5-4-2 of mixed suits.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball, a 6 or wheel (sometimes a “good” 7); so called because players often refer to these hands by their positions on the scale of hands, starting with number one for a wheel, number two for a 6-4, and so on. In deuce-to-seven lowball, a similar ranking of the best hands.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball or deuce-to-seven lowball, a wheel.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball, 7-4-3-2-A. In deuce-to-seven lowball, 8-6-5-3-2 of mixed suits.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball, 6-5-4-3-2. In deuce-to-seven lowball, 8-6-4-3-2 of mixed suits.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball, 6-5-3-2-A. In deuce-to-seven lowball, 7-6-5-3-2 of mixed suits.

(n phrase) In ace-to-five lowball, 6-4-3-2-A. In deuce-to-seven lowball, 7-6-4-3-2 of mixed suits.

(n phrase) Seconds dealer.

(n phrase) In lowball, a wheel.

(v) See nursing.

(v) 1. Fondling one’s cards. 2. Playing extremely conservatively, usually with a small stack; usually followed by [one’s] chips or stack. “She’s been nursing a small stack all night.”

(n) 1. Daily requirement. When a player refers to his nut, he means how much he has to win just to “break even” (that is, exceed daily expenses). Anything over that is gravy. 2. Overhead. For a cardroom, the nut is expenses, beyond which comes the profit. 3. Difficult situation; usually part of the phrase tough nut to crack. — (adj) 4. In hold’em, pertaining to the best possible hand at a given point in a pot; usually followed by flush or straight, sometimes by high or low. For example, if four spades are on the board, whoever has the ace of spades as one of his hole cards has the nut flush. If A♠ K♠ 9♠ 8♠ are on the board, whoever has the Q♠ as one of his hole cards has the nut flush. If 9♠ 8♥ 7♦ 3♥ 2♦ are on the board, whoever has any J-T has the nut straight.

(n phrase) See nut (definition 4).

(n phrase) Four cards to the nut flush.

(n phrase) In a given situation, an unbeatable hand; the nuts (definition 2).

(n phrase) In any high-low game with community cards, the highest possible hand based on the cards showing.

(n phrase) In any high-low game with community cards, the lowest possible hand based on the cards showing.

(n phrase) A draw to the nut low.

(n phrase) The best possible no pair hand for a situation. In hold’em, if one starts with A-K and the board does not contain an ace or a king, one has the nut no pair.

(n) In any high-low game, having both the best possible low and high. In a community card game, this means the best possible based on the cards showing. For example, in Omaha, with 3-4-5-K-Q of mixed suits (no three cards of the same suit) on the board, the nut low would be A-2 and the nut high 6-7, so a player having A-2-6-7 would have nut-nut. With A-2-3-3-K on the board, a player holding nut-nut would have 3-3-4-5, four 3s for high and a wheel for low. The term is also sometimes more loosely used for hands that are nut low, near-nut (but obviously unbeaten) high.

(n phrase) Nuts player.

(n) 1. Very good hand; usually preceded by the. “Every time I get a good hand, they show me the nuts.” Also, the como se llamos, a duke, the Holy City, the Brazilians, the Brass Brazilians, the Royal Brazilians, the berries, the watchamacallits, los cojones, the golyoonies, the World’s Fair, and others.2. The best possible hand at a given point in a pot. For example, in hold’em, if the board is K♣ J♦ 9♣ 4♣, then A♣ with any other club is the nuts. (A river card that pairs one of the board cards could change the nuts.) Compare with second nuts and third nuts.

(n) Someone who plays only the nuts, that is, a conservative player who rarely makes large bets (in a no-limit game) or rarely initiates the betting or raising (in a limit game), and then usually only with a strong hand.

(n) See nut (definition 4).

(n phrase) Four cards to the nut straight.

(adv) 1. Rocked up, that is, describing a very tight game, one full of nuts players (see nuts player). 2. Having made the nuts. “Just my luck: trying to bluff a rock when he’s nutted up.”