Muck means to return our hole cards to the dealer, usually without showing. Primarily this happens at showdown; our hand has lost and we slide our cards back to the dealer without showing the table. However, the term muck can also be used to describe a fold at any point in a hand (since we perform the same action of sliding our cards back to the dealer). The word muck is also used as a noun to describe the pile of cards that have been sent back to the dealer i.e. “he tossed his cards into the muck”.

Monster is a nickname for an extremely strong hand in poker. It usually implies that a holding is either the stone cold nuts or very close to it. The fear of constantly running into strong holdings made by our opponent is nicknamed monster under the bed syndrome.

A maniac is an extremely loose aggressive poker player. The majority of maniacs are losing players although occasionally a winning maniac will appear for example Patrick ‘Isildur1’ Blom. Most maniacs are losing because playing such a wide range of hands profitably requires a large amount of skill. It’s generally accepted that the way to counter a maniac is to use their own aggression against them.

Limit or fixed-limit is a type of betting structure that can be used when playing poker. Fixed-limit means that all betting and raising occurs in fixed betting increments (known as the big bet and small bet). Nearly all poker variants used to be played with a fixed-limit betting structure until more recent times when games with a no-limit betting structure surged in popularity to take the lead (largely thanks to no limit Hold’em). The term limit is also used frequently to describe the specific stakes used in a cash game.

LAG stands for “loose aggressive” and describes a style of playing poker. LAG players like to play lots of hands on the first betting round (hence ‘loose’) and follow up with lots of aggression on the later streets (hence ‘aggressive’). Good LAGs often make more money than tighter players, but it is generally accepted that there is more skill involved in playing a LAG style.

A kicker is one of the side cards included as part of a 5 card hand in poker. For example, two pair hands in poker have one kicker. One pair hands in poker have three kickers. Although the kickers are not the main component of a hand’s strength, they help determine the winner in situations where two players hole the same hand. AAKKQ beats AAKKJ because of the Queen kicker.