poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

, the strength of a

hand A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "h ...

(how likely it is to be the best according to the rules of the game being played) is often called its value; however, in the context of

poker strategy Poker is a popular card game that combines elements of chance and strategy. There are various styles of poker, all of which share an objective of presenting the least probable or highest-scoring hand. A poker hand is usually a configuration of fi ...

the term is more often used to describe a betting tactic, a bet for value. This bet (or raise) is intended to increase the size of the pot, by inducing opponents to call. A bet for value is in contrast to a ''

bluff Bluff or The Bluff may refer to: Places Australia * Bluff, Queensland, Australia, a town * The Bluff, Queensland (Ipswich), a rural locality in the city of Ipswich * The Bluff, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural locality * Bluff River (New ...

'' or a ''

protection Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...

bet'' (though some bets may have a combination of these motives). For a bet for value to be correct, a player must have a positive expectation, that is, they will win more than one bet for every bet they put in the pot.

Pot odds In poker, pot odds are the ratio of the current size of the pot to the cost of a contemplated call. Pot odds are compared to the odds of winning a hand with a future card in order to estimate the call's expected value. The purpose of this is to sta ...

do not matter in this situation, because the factor here is whether it is more profitable to ''raise'' or ''call'', rather than to ''call'' or ''fold''. Betting for value can apply to both

made hand The following is a glossary of poker terms used in the card game of poker. It supplements the glossary of card game terms. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon poker slang terms. This is not intended to be ...

and

drawing hand A poker player is drawing if they have a hand that is incomplete and needs further cards to become valuable. The hand itself is called a draw or drawing hand. For example, in seven-card stud, if four of a player's first five cards are all spad ...

situations, although in the latter situation it is less often correct, as the drawing hand's chances of winning are generally lower. Many made hands will win the pot more than 50% of the time, therefore a value bet is usually correct, even heads up. For example, in a game of

Texas hold 'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five Community card poker, communit ...

, a player has 8♣ 6♠ with a flop of 9♥ 7♦ 2♣, The player has an open-ended straight draw and so has eight outs (four 10s and four 5s). With 47 unknown cards, the player will make the straight approximately one time for every five times they don't, thus a bet is profitable if six or more of their opponents will call the bet (they will win once (+6 bets) and lose five time (-5 bets) out of every six hands like this, resulting in an expectation of +1 bet). If they think that fewer than six opponents will call the bet, they would lose money and must simply call.

See also