What Exactly Is a Call? Various Poker Jargons: Shootout? Set-Mining? Semi-Bluff?

Shootout

In a competition known as a Shootout (or shoot-out for short), players at each table compete to choose a winner before moving on to the next round. The Shootout event that is held at each year’s World Series of Poker is the tournament that is the most common example of this format being used.

For instance, there may be 1,000 people competing at each of the 100 ten-handed tables. After that, all one hundred winners would join forces at another ten tables. The 10 players who came out on top at that table would combine their scores to form a single, decisive table.

It is also occasionally used as a synonym for freezeout, though this usage is far less common.

Short Stack

The player at the table who has the fewest chips is typically referred to as having a small stack. It may also be used to refer to a precarious scenario in which one finds themselves when sitting at the tables!

To give you an example, “I moved all in as the short stack, and doubled up!”

Set Mining Set mining is a strategy used in poker when a player holds a pocket pair and hopes to make a set on the flip. This strategy is utilized when the player has a pocket pair.

The following is an example: “I was set-mining when I called with pocket fives on the button wanting to see a flip.”

Side Bet

In poker, a side bet can refer to a wide variety of wagers, although the term is most commonly used to refer to any wager that is placed outside of the main pot. Players frequently wager on the possibility that the flop will be of a certain color or that a particular hand would emerge victorious.

Off the beaten path from the main action, players frequently engage in wagering competitions with one another on a wide variety of topics.

Semi-Bluff

As a result of the fact that the definition of a semi-bluff is sometimes context dependent, defining it precisely might be challenging. Typically, it refers to making a bet or a raise with a hand that may appear to be weak or inferior at the time, but has the potential to improve in the future.

The following is an illustration of a semi-bluff: “My bet with only ace-high was a semi-bluff because I could still build a backdoor flush.”

Smooth Call

In most cases, players that make a smooth call are doing so in order to conceal the strength of the hand they are holding. They are able to keep their opponent in the pot and have a better chance of winning more money off of them if they call when the typical line would be to raise.

In this example, “I flopped a set with pocket fives and merely smooth called the bet from my opponents in the hopes of getting more from them on later streets.”

The King of Suicide

The King of Hearts is none other than the Suicide King. This was given to it as a moniker due to the fact that on the cards, he seems to be stabbing himself in the king.

This phrase is taken from the book “The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time,” which recounts the well-known heads-up matches that Andy Beal competed in against some of the most skilled poker players in the world.