888poker Team
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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.
The term hole cards refers to any cards that players must keep secret from the rest of the table. Almost all poker variants make use of hole cards. The most common example is in the game of Hold’em. Players are each dealt 2 hole cards on the first betting round which they used in conjunction with ‘community cards’ to make a hand.
Jam in poker is an expression which means to “raise all-in”. It can be used in any situation where we raise all-in regardless of the street. Its usage is more or less identical to the term shove which also means to raise all-in.
Jackpot generally refers to the largest possible prize in a certain game. In the context of poker it usually refers to the bad beat jackpot. The bad beat jackpot is awarded when a sufficiently strong hand (usually good four of a kind or better in Hold’em) loses to an even stronger hand after the chips go all in. Since such losses are very rare, the jackpotpayout is usually very large.
Insurance is a side bet (often made with other players at the table) that our hand won’t hold up after all the chips have gone in. It functions very much like any insurance policy. If our hand holds up we pay a small fee for the policy. If our hand gets sucked out on, the granter of the insurance will typically pay us the value of our equity in the pot (or possibly even the entire pot, depending on exactly what was agreed).
