Poker terms you have made up 🤪

I'm rather new in playing poker seriously and I keep running in to new terms constantly . Suddenly some "fish" is "on tilt", another is "donking", a third is "slowplaying" and a fourth is "3-betting"Some sound like they mean something completely different. Maybe that's because english is not my native language.
I've actually made up some poker terms myself and I do find somewhat funny. (Sorry they are not in English and don't translate that well or are a bit of inside jokes) Do you have any self-invented terms?

donkenschnitzel - This is a donkey from germany.

I have a "fifth card" instead of a river at the beginning. I couldn't remember it for a long time.

Something I call a "sideswipe," for example you hold and the flop comes . There are two cards on the flop which are adjacent to your hole cards and in the same direction, both are higher or both are lower.

You"almost" made two pair but actually flopped nothing at all.

So... when bae gets rivered, to avoid an argument, I ask him carefully.. " What's wrong love? Oh no... did you get thingy'd?" LOL

Table f****ing - when the poker site starts repeatedly switching you between tables (to "balance tables") during a critical point of a tournament, with effects such as making you miss several hands, possibly placing you in position to get hit by the big blind twice in short succession, or just putting you at a much worse table such as where you can't get any bounties and are to the right of a much bigger stack.

Rebound - where a player who loses a big pot at showdown goes all in the very next hand with trash and sucks out on a premium hand that calls him, also can happen three hands later

Crush pattern (aka poisoned premiums) - when you win with the stone cold nuts (or folded a hand that would have been the stone cold nuts at showdown), and then are dealt a premium hand the very next hand that loses (gets set mined or outdrawn by another lower hand)

Big blind special - when players limp around to the big blind, who checks, and then outdraws all of them with a completely trash hand that would otherwise have folded if there was any kind of appropriate pre-flop betting action

Big stack special - when a small stack jams all in with aces, but is so short stacked relative to a much bigger stack that they are called and outdrawn by a completely trash hand held by the big stack

River Rage – that moment when you fold a monster only to see it hit on the river again and again throughout a session

tuitui said:

I'm rather new in playing poker seriously and I keep running in to new terms constantly . Suddenly some "fish" is "on tilt", another is "donking", a third is "slowplaying" and a fourth is "3-betting"Some sound like they mean something completely different. Maybe that's because english is not my native language.
I've actually made up some poker terms myself and I do find somewhat funny. (Sorry they are not in English and don't translate that well or are a bit of inside jokes) Do you have any self-invented terms?

Click to expand...

No, I don't come up with any terms because I don't see the need for it. But I clearly divide players into donkeys, fish, and those players who play well enough and pose serious competition for me.

Totally relatable 😄 Poker slang can feel like a different language at first—especially when English isn’t your native one. Words like fish, tilt, or donk sound funny, but once you play more, they actually become useful shortcuts for common situations.
I love the idea of inventing your own terms though. Poker is full of inside jokes and table-specific language, and that’s part of the fun. In my own games, we’ve had things like calling a bad beat a “tax payment,” or saying someone “activated god mode” when they spike a miracle river. Another favorite is “confidence bet” for a bluff that only works because it’s fired with zero hesitation.
Curious to hear yours too—those homemade terms often say more about the game than the official ones 😄

"Completely learn resistant drooler"

I have not played poker for very long, but long enough that positions should be crystal clear for me. But I must admit that I don't remember lojack, hijack and cut off (just had to google them), I just call them "somewhere in the middle". I do believe I have some sense about how to play from these positions though.

Personally, I have a whole zoo in this regard. There are deer, donkeys, moose, hamsters, hedgehogs, and, of course, woodpeckers

Big blind special

Crush pattern / post nut clarity

Teflon Donk

That’s totally normal — poker has its own language, and half of it sounds confusing (or even rude 😄) when you first hear it, especially if English isn’t your first language.
What helped me most was realizing that many terms started as jokes or slang and just stuck over time. Fish, tilt, donk, slowplay, 3-bet — none of them are meant literally, they’re just shorthand for patterns we see again and again at the table.
As for self-invented terms… yes 😅
I definitely have a few “private” ones I use with friends. For example:
A “confidence call” — when someone clearly shouldn’t call, but does because “it felt right.”
“Gym bluff” — a bluff that looks strong on the outside but has zero strength underneath.
“Ego stack” — chips lost not to bad cards, but to pride.
Those little inside jokes actually help me remember situations and leaks better.

Bluff buffet
A session where someone is bluffing so much it’s like an all-you-can-eat spread of deception.