Underused and Overused Poker Slang
As is with any great hobby, poker has its fair share of sayings. Whether it's "bad beat," "donk," or "big slick," the poker world has a diverse lexicon. Let's review some of the sayings that have worn out their welcome and others that are underutilized.
Underused
Slowplay: With the rise of aggressive poker, slowplaying has somewhat gone out of style in general. However, the term itself is solid and can be used for a variety of non-poker situations. Dating a girl who is secretly an heiress to a fortune but she doesn't reveal that until later in the relationship? Kind of a big hand there she didn't reveal (and congrats if you find yourself in this situation by the way).
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Overlay: Overlays are rare in the poker world. Pretty much all of the time, a poker room gets enough entrants to cover the guaranteed amount of money in a poker tournament. In the daily fantasy world, a lot of new sites are attracting customers using overlays, so this term is a bit more popular among those players.
Poker rooms can consider using overlays as a means to challenge PokerStars, as I suggested in a past weekly shuffle. Saying "there was an overlay" is also a way to express a good situation you might find yourself in general, instead of the overused "it's +EV."
Bink: Bink's a great word. It's also not used too much as indicated we never had a glossary definition for it when we built that glossary 8 years ago. Describing as hitting a big windfall is always fun, and people don't tend to use this word unless they actually win something worthwhile.
Overused
Donk: I can't stand this term. It's been overused for about 10 years now. First, bad poker players are necessary for the poker economy to even stand a chance. So calling people donks is just bad business for everyone. Second, can't people be a bit more creative in how they verbally belittle bad players? If all else fails, just say the person who bad beat you is a "bad player" if you can't think of anything else. But some suggestions could be using a different animal, like calling them a squirrel or something. You can also speculate that perhaps they are inbred or mentally handicapped or something....just don't call them a donk.
Bad Beat: Yeah yeah, we know you had some bad luck. The term bad beat can obviously be used to extend to non-poker situations as well. People just whine about bad beats too much that this term is no longer any fun. Losing a 66-33 type of situation just isn't bad enough luck to call it a bad beat. If you get stricken with cancer or lose to a 3 outer late in the WSOP Main Event, then you can say you had beat beat. Just don't use the term when someone hits their flush draw in $.50-$1 no-limit please.