This week’s term is aces and spaces which, quite simply, is a five-card hand that consists of a pair of aces—and nothing else; just three, worthless cards.

This week’s term is Darth Vader which, quite simply, is a nickname for 4♠ 4♣. The dark fours—”dark force”—ha ha, get it?

By the way, Luke, he is your father.

This week’s term is cooler. In poker, a cooler describes when you are dealt a very strong hand only to run up against an opponent with an even better hand. Even though you think you ought to get out of the hand, you just can’t. Essentially, in a cooler situation, you might play your hand perfectly; however, you lose because of the luck of the draw.

This week’s term is lollipop hand. A lollipop hand is A, Q, so named because it “looks so sweet but often gets licked.”

This week’s term is GTO which, in the poker vernacular, stands for Game Theory Optimal which, basically, is the optimal way to play a hand per Game Theory which is the study of how rational decision-makers use mathematics to create an optimal way to approach a problem—or to play no-limit hold’em. In other words, GTO is a playing style in which you attempt to play perfect poker and exploit your opponents’ weaknesses.

This week’s term is aces up. Quite simply, aces up refers to two pair with one of them being aces.

This week’s term is bounty. Some tournament have a bounty on players. Thus, knocking out any player with a bounty awards the person who knocked him/her out, the amount of the bounty. In other words, the person who knocked the player out is rewarded for eliminating said player. Bounties are almost always cash instead of tournament currency.

This week’s term is blocker. In a community poker game such as Texas Hold’Em and Omaha, a blocker is a card an opponent needs to complete his/her hand such as a blocker to his/her straight or flush.

This week’s term is bullets, and it has several definitions in poker. For one, bullets can refer to pocket aces. Making a bet is also called firing a bullet. Bullets can also refer to the number of times a player has re-bought/re-entered a tournament. Finally, when a player escapes a hand where an opponent has many outs is referred to dodging a bullet.

This week’s term is buy-in. For tournaments, the buy-in is a predetermined amount of money for a predetermined number of starting chips. For example, our Monday-Friday 12:10pm OneDay tournaments have a $150 buy-in for 15,000 in starting chips.

For cash games, the buy-in is typically the minimum needed to play that particular game. For example, a $1/$2 no-limit hold’em game might have a $100 minimum buy-in.