Lindy Librarian

In and unopened or uncalled pot won by the blind or the big blind if there are two blinds, the players is said to have gotten a walk or a ‘walk in the park.’ In the South this is also referred to as a “Ground Skinner” or at least that is what tournament director par excellance Johnny Grooms calls it. Strictly speaking it is any uncalled pot won by the opener or the biggest blind. We have also heard it referred to as lemon juice but we can’t figure that one out.

Walk or walking also refers to a player being away from the table during a hand. Card rooms have different rules on how long you can “walk” for and many rooms also have the Third Man Walking rule, invented by tournament director Jimmy Sommerfeld. This rule simply says that the third player to leave a table, making that table severely short-handed, does not get the same allowable time to walk. Usually if you are the “third man” and are gone more than 5 minutes, your seat can be given away to someone on the wait list.

There are a couple of ways to “save” at the poker table. Tournament players will recognize the term because it is a way of insuring a win or a break even in the tournament. Often when the tournament gets close to the money the players will offer a save, which means that everyone gets there buy-in back. Say 9 players are left and 5 get paid. The players may agree to a “save” so that place 6 thru 9 will get their buy-ins back. This money usually comes out of the large first place prize or perhaps first and second.
In another tournament save, the final two players playing for $1,000 and $600 might agree to each take $700 as a save and then play it out for the remaining $200. Sometimes the card room has rules about how much must be left in for the first place winner and then there is always the trophy or ring or entry into a freeroll to play for.

Another from of “save” is where players agree say to “save the antes”, so each time you win a pot, you toss the other players in the agreement their antes. This is similar to the backline arrangement I discussed last time.

Backlining is a side bet or arrangement between two or more players at a table. One of the players usually maintains the backline or pool. When any of the players in the backline wins a pot, a cut of the pot is put on the backline. The backline pot is divided at some predetermined time; either after so many rounds or hours or when one of the players leaves the game.

The amount that goes into the backline pot could be as little as one chip for each pot. In a limit game, it could be one chip for each bet in the pot. For example, in a $5/$10 game, one chip goes on the backline for every $5 in the pot. The players may agree to “half it” putting only ½ the amount on the backline if they are heads up in a pot.

The idea of the backline, other than just another prop bet, is that when one of the players is running bad, he makes some money off his "partner's" good fortune. There is one drawback to the arrangement, the backline are chips in play from the “holder’s stack and if they get short they might be betting the backline stack. You need to know the backliner has a cash roll to make good or be sure he or she has enough chips on the table to never go into the backline pool.

A good tight player should try to make a backlining deal with a loose player. The loose player may lose money overall, but he wins more pots (because he plays more pots), and so the backline accumulates a nice stack. The loose player doesn't mind contributing when he's winning, and when he's losing, and his "partner" is lucky, he gets something from it. Backlining is another, more complex form of the “save” which is the next poker definition we will look at.

In a ring game, all the chips in play must remain on the table. If you want to take chips off the table then you are required to cash out all of your chips. To "Rathole" is to remove chips from play during a session.

The basic concept is fairness; if chips come to the table to be won, then they must remain on the table and in play until the player who has won them leaves the game and therefore claims those chips as winnings. This is clearly a much larger offense at a no-limit table, where a ratholing player can limit their losses by keeping their stack artificially short.

Players rathole chips because they don't want to chance losing them back but the only legitimate way to do this is to stand up from the table and cash out. Then, if the room permits, you can sit down again or move to another table. Most rooms will not allow a player to cash out and then buy back into the same game for less chips but most will allow you to cash out when moving between tables, unless you are in a “must move” situation.

Ratholing can also hide winnings from a backer and shield your winnings (and perhaps your skill) from new players at the table but the bottom line is that players should have the opportunity to win all of ‘your’ chips that were previously were ‘their’ chips, in play during a single session.

Ratholing in a tournament is a violation of tournament rules and will lead to, at least, those chips being taken out of play; if not outright disqualification of the ratholing player.

Hi

Rather than disclose a lot of personal information or talk about my bad beats, I thought I would try another theme and write about poker terminology or poker definitions.

I want to start with something I ran across just yesterday while playing at Foxwoods; its called an "action button." Now the action button is a lot like a "kill button" or a "kill bet" in hold'em but the betting action is different.

In a "kill" game the person who has met the standards for the kill; usually winning two consecutive hands, places a bet either 50% (half kill) or 100%(full kill) bigger than the big blind out on the button before the cards are dealt. The dealer announces the kill game and the opening bet has to match the kill bet and a raise must double it.

But an "action button", used in this case in a seven stud high/low game, works a bit different. This was a $5/$10 stud game with the low card bringing in for $1. The action button, who just won a scoop pot over $60, puts out the $5 action bet. Anyone acting before the "action button" could call the $1 bring-in or raise to $10; they could not call the $5. The "action button" acted in turn and if they checked (and everyone else did not raise); then when the action got back around to the early $1 callers, they could call the other $4 or raise to $10.

I was told that in some cardrooms the "action button" acts last but, in fact, they don't act last because even if they just check the bet, all the limpers for the bring-in bet had then to complete or raise.

It could be a bit complicated as you can see but it does add the "action" element into Stud, just as the "kill" does the same to Hold'em or Omaha. Its just a bit more complicated because of the bring-in bets and the lack of blinds in Stud.

Its called an "action button". Let me know if you have run into this in your cardroom. Next time, I will talk about another interesting poker term: "rathole".