When you start playing tournaments or tracking results, the biggest hurdle is often the jargon. This glossary is grouped into four themes, with a sentence or two of plain explanation for each term. Where a term deserves more, a link to the full guide is included.
Entry and fees
- Buy-in
- What you pay to enter an event. Usually listed as "$100 + $12", where the first part goes to the prize pool and the second is the fee.
- Fee
- The amount the organiser keeps, which never enters the prize pool. Its share of the total price decides how much better than average you must be to break even — see the true cost of a tournament.
- Re-entry
- Registering again after busting, with a new starting stack and a new seat. Each one is a separate cost.
- Rebuy
- Buying another stack during a set period when your chips are below a threshold, without changing seats.
- Add-on
- An extra stack available at a set point, usually the end of the rebuy period, whatever your chip count.
- Bullet
- Slang for one entry. "I fired three bullets" means you entered three times.
- Freezeout
- An event with no re-entry. When your chips are gone, you are out.
- Late registration
- The period after the start during which you can still enter, usually given in levels.
- Satellite
- A qualifier whose prize is a seat in a bigger event instead of cash.
- Guarantee (GTD)
- The minimum prize pool the organiser promises.
- Overlay
- The shortfall the organiser covers when entries do not reach the guarantee. For players it amounts to free extra prize money.
During play
- Blinds
- The forced small blind and big blind on every hand, which rise with each level.
- Ante
- Extra chips put into the pot before each hand. With a "big blind ante", the big blind pays the whole table's ante at once.
- Level
- A period during which the blinds stay the same, for example 20 minutes.
- Starting stack
- The chips each player receives at the start.
- Big blinds (BB)
- Stack size expressed as a number of big blinds. This reflects your real room to manoeuvre far better than the raw chip count.
- Structure
- The full plan of starting stack, blind levels and level length. See how to design a blind structure.
- Turbo
- An event with short levels: faster and more volatile.
- Deep stack
- An event with a deep start, usually 200 big blinds or more.
- Bounty / Knockout
- Part of each buy-in becomes a bounty on that player, paid immediately to whoever eliminates them.
- Colour-up
- Exchanging small-denomination chips that are no longer needed for larger ones.
- Chip leader
- The player with the most chips at that moment.
- Day 1 flights
- Large events split the first day into several sessions (1A, 1B and so on), with survivors combining on Day 2.
Prizes and places
- In the money (ITM)
- The finishing places that are paid, usually 10% to 15% of the field.
- Bubble
- The stage when one more elimination brings everyone into the money. The last player out before the money is said to "bubble".
- Min-cash
- The smallest prize, for just making the money — usually 1.5 to 2 times the buy-in.
- Final table
- The stage when only one table of players remains. Prize jumps become large from here.
- Payout structure
- The table showing what share of the prize pool each place receives.
- Deal / Chop
- An agreement among the remaining players to divide the remaining prize money instead of playing to the end.
- ICM (Independent Chip Model)
- A model that converts chip stacks into expected prize money, often used for deals and bubble decisions. Its central idea: in a tournament, chips are not worth a constant amount, so doubling your stack does not double your expected prize.
Tracking and statistics
- Bankroll
- Money set aside only for playing, separate from living costs. See tournament bankroll management.
- ROI (return on investment)
- (Total prizes − total cost) ÷ total cost. See how to calculate poker ROI.
- ITM rate
- Cashes ÷ entries. See ITM vs ROI.
- Hourly rate
- Net profit ÷ total hours. See how to calculate your hourly rate.
- Variance
- How far short-term results stray from the long-term average. See variance and sample size.
- Sample size
- The number of events you have played. The more there are, the more your statistics can be trusted.
- Downswing
- A stretch during which your bankroll falls from a peak. A normal expression of variance.
- Shot
- An occasional event above your usual level.
- Staking
- Someone else funding part or all of your entry in return for an agreed share of any prize. See staking and team profit splits.
- Markup
- The multiple above cost at which shares are sold. At a markup of 1.2, 10% of your action costs 12% of the entry.
- Makeup
- In a long-term staking deal, accumulated losses that must be cleared before later profits are shared.
- Tilt
- A state in which emotion degrades your decisions. See tilt control and stop-loss rules.