Idiot's Bible For Playing with Karol and Dawn (Dawn)

Inspired by JAT ( who in a meta-blogging nightmare, was inspired by Karol, who was inspired by...oy....my head)

I present the first edition of our post of random poker vocabulary...we'll keep adding to this and someday alphabetize it.

"Braking through the yellow": calling with a shitty hand on the button because Phil Gordon says you're supposed to raise your button, but we chickened out cause the hand was so bad. The phrase is taken from a real world driving excursion where Karol kept screaming at me for stopping at yellow lights and then the one time I hesitatingly went through it, she kept screaming at me to go faster: "Guy, you either stop or speed up; there's no braking through the yellow."

"Not a Moment": Making a marginal fold only to have the next card make you sigh with relief and say "I folded those cards not a moment too soon."

"Twelve Cocos": A random pre-flop raise that just builds the pot. So named after a drunk Russian at the Hilton poker room who would preflop raise the 1-2 NL game to $12 and then fold if he didn't hit the flop. As a general rule, you like this guy at your table, but you don't wanna be that guy at your table.

"Back to battle" I recently found out this was stolen from Rounders, so it has the definition lifted from there: basically, we may be down, but we're not out!"

"Tap, tap, tap" or "Who has a hole in their arm?": Umm...I guess this is more of a visual. Physically tapping the inside of your elbow joint as if looking for a vein. Once you picture it, the meaning becomes self-evident. Poker = heroin habit. The hole in your arm part comes from that sick, sick, sick scene in Requiem for a Dream. Gag.

"Pulling a Karol": Proclaiming out loud "Whatever, I'm shortstacked, so fine, I'm all-in, I'll just rebuy" or "Fuck it, I'm all-in; if I lose I'm done." and then doubling up. Works in both poker and Blackjack. Note: you do not really have to be shortstacked for this to work. You just have to be Karol.

"Pulling a Dawn": Winning a big pot and cashing out immediately. This isn't so much true anymore because of ...see "Tap, tap, tap"...but in the early days it was my patented move.

"I've got the box checked": Folding to any bet. Comes from Party's wonderful "I'm not getting in any trouble with this hand" option.

"Toilet Flush" or flushing sound: Four to the flush.

"Color": Having five black or red cards...but not a flush.

"Still Crooked": Four to the straight.

"And how": Folding with authority.

"Fighting for scraps": playing at a table with way more good players than suckers and starting to feel that given the field, we're actually the suckers.

Leaning the head to one side: "I'm on tilt" or that guy is on tilt. As in when the shark at our table at Caesar's started to re-raise every hand after he folded pocket nines to a 200 dollar bet from the drunken fish big stack and then saw that the guy had pocket eights, Karol and I simultaneously leaned our heads to one side and then started laughing.

"Crack, crack, crack": The sound of some idiot hitting his K and 7 on the flop when I have pre-flop raised with pocket aces.

"We need a phrase" or "what's that phrase?": Missing the flop completely. It orignates from our desire to have a shorthand for everything (see previous words and definitions) but we could never come up with a phrase that adequately describes the sensation of having Q10 of clubs in your hand and looking at a flop of 443 all red cards. We once tried "I couldn't have missed that flop more than if I were Jay Feeley kicking a field goal with the Giants tied in Overtime" -- but I think the game after he whiffed that kick, he made the game winning field goal and it was no longer appropriate.

"Rule 45"- Dawn's rule that if you flop a straight, immediately fold it because anyone drawing to a better hand will inevitably gets there.

Update 5/22/06: "VSF" or I need a "very specific flop". This is used when you are calling with a marginal hand because you have position and/or pot odds.

Update 6/4/06: "Backdoor slammed"- This is from a White Stripes cover of a Blind Willie McTell song called "Lord, send me an angel." In it, the man singing the song warns his woman of what will happen if he walks into the front door and hears the backdoor slam. In pokerese, it means "well, I had middle pair on the flop and a backdoor flush draw" and then you don't actually pick up a draw on the turn.

Update 9/5/06: "Bi-racial Aces"- Pocket rockets, one red and one black. And, "hopin' ended straight draw"- Open-ended straight draw.