Poker abbreviations are the shorthand players type instead of writing hands out longhand: seat names like UTG and BTN, actions like 3bet and cbet, stats like VPIP and bb/100. Learn about twenty of them and most forum threads become readable.
You open a thread on r/poker and the top reply says “UTG opens, HJ 3bets, BTN flats, hero OOP with a wet board”. Nothing there is complicated poker. It is ordinary poker written in shorthand, and the shorthand is what stopped you.
So here is the decoder ring, in the order you meet the letters: who was in which seat, what each player did and the stats people quote when they argue about it. Every entry links its full poker glossary definition if you want the long version, and the last section walks one real hand history line by line.
The 20 abbreviations that unlock most threads
| Short | Expands to | What it means at the table |
|---|---|---|
| UTG | Under the gun | First seat to act preflop, straight after the big blind |
| MP | Middle position | The seats between the early ones and the late ones |
| HJ | Hijack | Two seats right of the button |
| CO | Cutoff | One seat right of the button |
| BTN | Button | The dealer seat, last to act after the flop |
| SB | Small blind | The smaller forced bet, left of the button |
| BB | Big blind | The bigger forced bet, and the unit stacks are counted in |
| RFI | Raise first in | You are the first player in, and you raise |
| 3bet | Three-bet | The re-raise that answers an opening raise |
| 4bet | Four-bet | The re-raise that answers a 3bet |
| OOP | Out of position | You act before your opponent after the flop |
| IP | In position | You act after your opponent after the flop |
| cbet | Continuation bet | The preflop raiser bets the flop as well |
| MDF | Minimum defense frequency | How much of your range has to keep going against a bet |
| EV | Expected value | What a decision is worth on average over many repeats |
| bb/100 | Big blinds per 100 hands (hub) | The unit a cash win rate is quoted in |
| VPIP | Voluntarily put money in pot | How often a player pays to see a flop |
| PFR | Preflop raise | How often that player raises instead of calling |
| MTT | Multi-table tournament | The big-field tournament format |
| OESD | Open-ended straight draw | Four in a row, two ranks complete it |
Every expansion above links its full definition. Nineteen of the twenty have their own entry; there is no separate page for bb/100 yet, so that row points at the hub.
Positions
Seats get named because the same hand plays differently depending on how many players still act behind you. Threads name the seat instead of the player, so “HJ 3bets” tells you both what happened and who was where.
Everyone else gets to react to what this seat does.
Three players left behind it, so the range starts widening here.
Only the button and the blinds are still to come.
The reason button ranges are the widest at the table.
Posts the smaller blind and then plays the whole hand first.
Already has a bet in, so it defends far wider than any other seat.
Full ring adds two or three middle-position seats between UTG and the hijack. Nothing else about the order changes.
What does UTG mean in poker?
UTG is under the gun: the seat immediately left of the big blind, first to act before the flop. Everyone else at the table gets to see what that player does before deciding anything, which is why UTG raises are read as strong. In a thread it usually opens the story: “UTG opens to 3bb, folds to me in the CO.”
What does MP mean in poker?
MP is middle position, the seats sitting between the early ones and the late ones. A middle-position opening range is wider than under the gun and tighter than the cutoff or button, because some players have already folded but several still act behind. Full-ring games have two or three of these seats, 6-max has one.
What does HJ mean in poker?
HJ is the hijack, two seats to the right of the button, acting just before the cutoff. It is the first seat most players call late position. “HJ 3bets” means the second-last player before the button re-raised.
What does CO mean in poker?
CO is the cutoff, one seat to the right of the button and the last seat before the button acts. Only the button and the blinds are left behind you, so cutoff hands play more like button hands than middle-position ones.
What does BTN mean in poker?
BTN is the button, the seat that acts last on the flop, turn and river. That is the reason button ranges are the widest at the table: with only two players left to act and position for the rest of the hand, hands play far better from there. When a thread says “BTN flats”, the button called rather than re-raised.
What does SB mean in poker?
SB is the small blind, the forced bet posted immediately left of the button before any cards come out. It is usually half the big blind, and the seat acts first on every street after the flop, which is the harder half of the deal.
What does BB mean in poker?
BB is the big blind, the larger forced bet, normally twice the small blind. It doubles as the site’s unit of measurement: stacks, bets and win rates are all quoted in big blinds so a $2 game and a $200 game can be discussed in the same words. “100bb deep” means the stacks are a hundred big blinds tall.
What does OOP mean in poker?
OOP is out of position: you act before your opponent on every betting round after the flop. You are giving information away and getting none, which is why the same hand is worth less OOP than IP. Threads use it as a warning label: “hero OOP in a 3bet pot.”
What does IP mean in poker?
IP is in position, the other side of the same coin: you act after your opponent, so you always know what they did before you decide. Position is the reason the button opens the widest and the blinds defend the tightest.
Actions
These are the verbs. Preflop bets get counted rather than named, which is where the numbers in 3bet and 4bet come from.
It is posted before anyone acts, and it still counts.
Which is why nobody calls it a 2bet out loud.
Same action a limit player would call a re-raise.
And a 5bet after that, usually all in at 100bb.
What does RFI mean in poker?
RFI is raise first in: nobody has entered the pot, you are the first to put money in and you do it by raising. “UTG RFI 22%” means that player opens 22 percent of hands from that seat when the pot is still unopened. Charts labelled RFI are opening charts.
What does 3bet mean in poker?
A 3bet is the third bet in the sequence. Preflop the big blind counts as the first bet, the opening raise is the second, so the re-raise that answers it is the third: the 3bet. In practice it means someone raised and someone else raised over the top.
What does 4bet mean in poker?
A 4bet is the re-raise that answers a 3bet, one step further up the same ladder. At normal stack depths a 4bet is a serious commitment, so hands read “UTG opens, CO 3bets, UTG 4bets” as an unusually strong sequence.
What does cbet mean in poker?
A cbet, or continuation bet, is a flop bet made by the player who raised preflop. The name is the description: the preflop aggressor continues on the flop, whether or not the board helped. “Villain cbets 33% pot” means the preflop raiser bet a third of the pot on the flop.
What does fold mean in poker?
To fold is to give up the hand: you push your cards in, you put no more chips in and you cannot win the pot. It costs you whatever you already put in and nothing more, which makes it the cheapest correction available at a poker table.
What does call mean in poker?
To call is to match the biggest bet made so far on this round instead of raising or folding. You stay in the hand for exactly that price and the action moves on. In threads you also see “flats” and “flat call” for the same thing, usually when a raise could have been made instead.
What does check mean in poker?
To check is to pass the action along without betting, which is only legal when nobody has bet on this round yet. It keeps you in the hand for free. When there is a bet in front of you the options are fold, call or raise; checking is off the table.
Math and stats
Numbers get abbreviated hardest, because people quote them constantly. Four of the five below are stats about a player, and one is about your own range.
What does MDF mean in poker?
MDF is minimum defense frequency: the share of your range you have to keep playing against a bet so that your opponent cannot profit by bluffing with anything. It comes from the price they laid themselves, pot divided by pot plus bet, so a half-pot bet asks you to continue with about two thirds of your range and a pot-sized bet with half.
What does EV mean in poker?
EV is expected value: what a decision is worth on average if you made it over and over, counted in chips or money. A play with positive EV makes money in the long run even when this particular hand loses, which is why threads argue about the decision rather than the result. Poker writing splits it further into chip EV and money EV when the difference matters, like on a tournament bubble.
What does bb/100 mean in poker?
bb/100 is big blinds won per 100 hands, the standard way an online cash win rate is quoted. It exists so results compare across stakes and sample sizes: 5bb/100 means the same thing at every level, while “up $400” means nothing without knowing the game. Winning regulars in small online games live in low single digits.
What does VPIP mean in poker?
VPIP is voluntarily put money in pot: the percentage of hands where a player chose to put chips in preflop by calling or raising. Blinds do not count, since posting is not a choice. A tight player might sit near 20, a loose one near 40.
What does PFR mean in poker?
PFR is preflop raise percentage: how often that same player raises rather than calls. The two numbers are quoted together, and the gap between them is the read.
| The line | What the numbers say | How it usually plays |
|---|---|---|
| 22/20 | Small gap, few hands played | Raises nearly everything they enter with |
| 35/8 | Big gap, a third of hands played | Comes along for the ride, rarely leads |
Old poker writing draws the boundary loosely: around one hand in five or fewer is tight, around a third or more is loose. Treat the exact cutoffs as a habit rather than a law, and read the gap first.
Formats and hand shorthand
The last group is what the hand itself is written in: the game, the cards and the draws.
What does MTT mean in poker?
MTT is a multi-table tournament: everyone starts with the same stack, the blinds rise as the event goes on and tables break and combine as players bust until one table is left. Advice tagged MTT assumes you cannot reload, so busting ends your day.
What does OESD mean in poker?
An OESD is an open-ended straight draw: four cards in a row that finish with either of two ranks. That is eight cards in the deck, the standard “eight outs” you see quoted in draw discussions. A gutshot, by contrast, needs one specific rank.
How hands and cards are written
Two letters and a suffix describe a starting hand: AKs is ace-king of the same suit, AKo is ace-king of different suits, and a plus means “and better”, so 88+ is every pair from eights up. Board cards are written with a suit letter each, like Kh 9c 4d. When both the turn and the river have to cooperate to make a hand, threads call it runner-runner.
Read one real hand history
Here is a full hand in forum shorthand. It is six-max, 100bb deep and nothing in it is unusual.
UTG opens 3bb, CO 3bets to 9bb, folds to UTG who flats IP. Flop Kh 9c 4d, UTG checks, CO cbets 5bb, call. Turn 2s, check, check. River Ts, UTG bets 14bb into 28bb, CO folds.
Line by line, that reads: the first player to act raised to three big blinds. The cutoff re-raised to nine. Everyone else folded, and the original raiser called the re-raise while acting after it, so the pot went to the flop with two players.
Wait. If the cutoff re-raised, and the cutoff sits to the left of the seat that opened, who is actually in position here?
Show the answer
The cutoff is in position, and the shorthand above has it wrong: the player who opened under the gun acts first on every street, so they are OOP for the rest of the hand. That is exactly why the check on the turn and the bet on the river matter. Shorthand is written by people at 2am, and “IP” is one of the labels they get backwards most often. When the seats and the label disagree, trust the seats.
The rest is ordinary: the preflop re-raiser bet the flop, both players checked the turn and the original raiser bet a third barrel on the river once a second broadway card arrived. Once the letters resolve, the only question left is the poker one.
What to read next
- The full poker glossary for the long definitions behind every term above.
- How to play UTG for what to actually do from the first seat.
- What is a 3-bet for when to make one instead of just recognising it.
Frequently asked questions
What does OOP mean in poker?
OOP means out of position: you act before your opponent on the flop, turn and river. You have to commit chips without seeing what they do, and they get to decide with your action already in front of them. IP, in position, is the reverse and the reason the button is the best seat at the table.
What is the difference between a 3bet and a re-raise?
A 3bet is a re-raise, named by counting instead of describing. Preflop the big blind is the first bet, the open raise is the second and the re-raise over the top is the third, so it gets called the 3bet. The same counting is used after the flop, where a bet, a raise and a re-raise make the third one a 3bet as well. So every 3bet is a re-raise, and the number tells you where in the sequence it sat.
What does bb/100 mean in poker?
Big blinds won per 100 hands. It is the unit online cash results are quoted in, because it compares across stakes and sample sizes in a way a dollar figure cannot: 5bb/100 describes the same result at every level. There is no glossary entry for it yet, so the decoder table links the hub for that row.
Why do poker forums use so many abbreviations?
Speed, mostly. A hand history written out longhand runs to a paragraph per street, and the people answering read dozens a day. Seat names, bet counts and stat lines compress that into one line each, and the shorthand is stable enough that a thread from 2011 still reads the same way. The cost is that a new player cannot follow the first sentence, which is what this page is for.