Poker Shorthand

If you read about poker, you'll come across several abbreviations for the various hands and situations you commonly find in the game. These will be used at different websites, in poker books, on message boards and even in the chat boxes of the online poker tables. If you are unfamiliar with the poker shorthand as it is commonly used, much of this conversation will go unappreciated. Because I use poker shorthand here at Online Poker Rules I wanted to put up a short primer on how to decipher this poker code.

When Describing Cards

The ranks are A, K, Q, J, T (for tens), 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. The suits are s for spade, h for hearts, d for diamonds and c for clubs. Here are some examples:

Tc - Ten of clubs
Qd - Queen of diamonds
2s - Two of spades
5h - Five of hearts

When Decribing a Hand

The small s turns from "spades" into "suited". Many poker authors will describe hands as ATs, which means Ace-Ten of the same suit. Which particular suit they are doesn't matter, the shorthand only means they are of the same suit.

Also, the letter o signifies cards are "offsuit". ATo would mean Ace-Ten each of a different suit. Once again, the particular suits do not matter, only that they are not of the same suit.

The last letter thrown in at this point is x. It stands for any small card. Often players will play an Ace with any other suited card hoping to make the nut flush. This is described in shorthand as Axs, an Ace with a small card of the same suit.

Examples of some quality starting hands include:

AKs - Ace-King of the same suit
AQo - Ace-Queen of different suits
TT - A pair of Tens
QJo - Queen-Jack of different suits
Kxs - King-small card of the same suit

When describing hands, the card of the higher value is placed first. This makes writing and reading charts of starting hands easier.

Poker Situations

Other shorthands describe various situations at the poker table. These include:

sb - small blind
bb - big blind
utg - under the gun, or the first to act
ep - early position
mp - middle position
lp - late position
pf - pre-flop
HU - heads up, when only two players are involved in the pot

after the flop the following hands can be seen abbreviated . .
TP/TK - Top Pair/Top Kicker. And example of this is a person who holds As Jc with a flop of Js, Tc, 3d. The player has the top pair on the board with the best possible kicker.

betting is sometimes descried as . . .
units of bb - 3bb, 7bb, etc. This unit is big blinds. When someone raises 3bb pre-flop, they mean the size of their bet was 3 times the size of the big blind at the time.

some types of games include . . .
SnG - sit and go tournaments
MTT - multi-table tournaments
nl - no limit betting style lhe - limit betting style - texas holdem as the game
pl - pot limit betting style

and they can be described as . . .
TAG - tight/agressive. players play premium starting hands, and bet aggressively.
LAG - loose/agressive. players play a wide variety of starting hands, and bet agressively.

Also seen on message boards . . .
YMTC or YMTP - You Make the Call or You Make the Play. These posts invite others to post their decisions at this point in a poker hand. This king of post is usualy accompanied bya HH, or hand history. At least a partial one so that others can read the situation enough to develop an opinion on it and post what they would do in that situation.

On message boards, words are often abbreviated after their first mention. A post may ask about suited connectors and refer the them as SC's through the rest fo the post.

I am sure you will come across more abbreviations in your poker travels, but knowing several of these can help demystify some of the message board posts, and even articles written by authors and posters who use these common poker shorthand techniques.