B is for Badugi, Bluffing and Bottoms

Backdoor. This one conjours up all kinds of sexual connotations and I’ll those to your overly active imaginations to figure out. In poker, backdoor typically refers to requiring two or more rounds to complete your hand. For example, catching if you catch two consecutive cards in two rounds of Texas hold ‘em or seven-card stud to make up your straight or flush. The backdoor part referring to the fact that you sneaked it in when no one was looking - an unlikely scenario that usually pisses a few people off.

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Badugi is a draw poker game with similar hand values to lowball poker. It came from Korea originally and is now becoming more common, showing up in come online poker rooms. To play Badugi, players’ are given four cards at any one time. In each of the three drawing rounds, you can trade all or one of your cards for new ones, the obvious goal being to make the best hand to win the pot. The question here is WTF is Badugi!!! This is best answered by showing what the best hand in Badugi is. The best possible hand is A-2-3-4 all of different suites. In opposition to this is the worst hand K-K-K-K.

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If you don’t know what a bad beat is you’ve not been playing enough poker! Bad beats suck really hard (see photo opposite). Typically you can call it a bad beat when you seemed to be a sure thing to win, then the gremlins of fate decided to deal a ridiculously non-mathematically obvious scenario where you lose with your last gasp of breath on The River.

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The term bankroll refers to the amount of money that a player for playing poker. It’s common for this stash to be kept separate from other money and to be used exclusively for playing poker. The idea being to watch it grow and to play within certain limits allowed by your bankroll. When your bankroll grows from successful play, you gradually step up in limits to allow you to progress.

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Blind stud is a stud style poker game where all of your cards are dealt face down. I’ve personally never heard of anyone playing it, but apparently it was popular in California for a time. Doesn’t sound like the most skillful of games but it could be fun. Can also be used (see photo) to describe a hot guy who can’t see.

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Bluffing is poker speak for bullshitting and lying. Pretending you have something that you don’t (sounds very much like a Bangkok ladyboy - or is that the exact opposite?). It’s an essential part of the game of poker and an element that’s guaranteed to get your blood pumping. In fact it’s a classic tell when you can see the bulging pumping veign in someone’s neck when they are bluffing. Although you need a certain amount of skill to detect this.

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Bottom pair (hiding my eyes from the photo) refers to having a pair with the lowest card on the board. So if the flop was 2s Qd Ac and you had Kh 2d - you would be holding bottom pair (the 2’s or deuces). It’s not a favourable situation unless you are heads up in which case it can mean you are ahead by hitting anything. But more importantly, that is a smashing pair of bottoms in the photo. Sadly, very sadly, it also refers to the last 2 remaining contestants in a show such as “So you think you can dance” - where the ones who suck the most are clasified as the “bottom pair”. Lame.

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From the show “Bottom”. Pretty much the funniest video ever.

a bounty in poker is a cash prize or incentive applied to the game (separate from the regular prize structure) that pays you money if you eliminate a particular player. It’s common in online poker rooms to run bounty tournaments where a number of pro players have bounties on their heads. It makes the game really fun as you’ll get people gunning for those with bounties, making ridiculous plays to try and knock them out.

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The “Bubble” is the absolute worst finishing position in poker tournaments. It’s the last finishing position that doesn’t make it into the payout structure of the tournament. So if out of 1000 players, the top 100 “pay out” - being “on the bubble” is when there are 101 players left. As soon as this player is eliminated, everyone else breaths a sigh of relief as they have made it to the money, and the last player eliminated before the money is the official bubble boy or girl. It’s the worst position because it pays exactly the same as going out first (fuck all) and means you wasted exactly the maximum amount of time playing with zero payoff.

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