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Welcome to the GGPoker Poker Glossary — your complete reference for poker terms and concepts. Use the jump links below to navigate, or browse the full list alphabetically.

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Daily Guarantees | Dark | Darth Vader | Dead Blind | Dead Hand | Dead Man’s Hand | Dead Money | Deal It Twice | Dealer | Dealer’s Choice | Dealer Button | Deep Stack | Delay C-Bet | Deuce | Dirty Stack | Discard | Disconnect Protection | Dog | Dolly Parton | Dominated Hand | Donk Bet | Donkey | Door Card | Double Belly-Buster | Double Barrel | Double Suited | Double Up | Down Card | Downswing | Doyle Brunson | Draw | Draw Poker | Drawing Dead | Drawing Live | Drawing Thin | Drop | Dry Ace | Dry Board | Ducks

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Daily Guarantees	A select group of GGPoker-specific daily tournaments in a variety of styles in which prize pools are guaranteed.
Dark	To take an action before looking at your cards/the next street is dealt.
Darth Vader	A starting hand consisting of 4s 4c, the black fours. “The dark side of the force.” It’s a Star Wars pun. Get it?
Dead Blind	A blind posted by a player who missed their turn (e.g., after sitting out). Unlike a live blind, a dead blind does not give the poster the option to raise if the action comes back to them unraised.
Dead Hand	A hand that is no longer eligible to win the pot, often due to a foul such as exposed cards, an incorrect number of cards, or being timed out by the clock.
Dead Man’s Hand	A hand consisting of 2 black aces and 2 eights (the suit of the 8’s is unclear, but generally presumed to also be black). It was named after the hand Wild Bill Hickok allegedly was holding at the time he was shot and killed.
Dead Money	Chips in the pot contributed by players no longer competing for it, such as antes, forfeited blinds, or bets from folded players. Also used to describe a tournament player with little realistic shot at winning.
Deal It Twice	An agreement among two or more players to deal the remaining community cards multiple times, once all betting action is complete and at least one player is all-in. Usually run twice, though more runs are possible. Splits the resulting pots proportionally, reducing variance. Requires unanimous consent from all players involved. Also see Run It Twice.
Dealer	The person responsible for distributing cards. In a casino, a dedicated dealer handles this while the button rotates around the table to indicate the nominal dealer position for betting purposes.
Dealer’s Choice	A game in which the dealer (player in the dealer position) chooses the specific variant of poker to be played in the current round. This usually only occurs in home games or private cash games. Bugs or Wild Cards can be specified in this variant.
Dealer Button	See Button
Deep Stack	Having a large chip stack relative to the size of the current blinds, typically 100 big blinds or more. Deep stack play rewards post-flop skill, since there’s more room to maneuver and implied odds carry more weight.
Delay C-Bet	A continuation bet made on the turn or river after checking the flop or flop and turn, rather than betting immediately following a preflop raise. Used when the flop texture is unfavorable for your range, when a turn card improves your perceived range or adds a credible scare card, or to balance your flop-checking range with hands that carry real equity. More deceptive than an immediate c-bet and increasingly standard in GTO-influenced play, where a check on the flop no longer signals weakness automatically.
Deuce	Any of the four 2 cards in a deck.
Dirty Stack	A chip stack with different denominations mixed together rather than sorted by value. It’s considered poor etiquette in live play, since it makes it hard for opponents and dealers to estimate a player’s chip count. If done deliberately to conceal your stack size, it’s a form of angling and is frowned upon. Dealers may ask players to clean up a dirty stack.
Discard	In draw poker games, the card or cards a player returns in exchange for new ones from the deck. In certain poker variants, like Pineapple, the card each player removes from their hand prior to community cards being dealt.
Disconnect Protection	A feature in online poker that protects a disconnected player’s chips already in the pot, rather than folding their hand due to inactivity. This prevents unfair losses from a connection issue, though the feature has a history of abuse and is often limited to a small number of uses per player.
Dog	See Underdog.
Dolly Parton	A nickname for a hand consisting of a 9 and a 5. It is a reference to Parton’s song, “9 to 5.”
Dominated Hand	A hand that shares a card with a stronger hand and has very little chance of winning against it. For example, K-J is dominated by K-A. If both pair their Kings, the Ace kicker beats the Jack kicker, leaving K-J with almost no way to win.
Donk Bet	A bet made by an out-of-position player at the start of a street, into the player who held the betting lead on the previous street. Often considered a weak move, it does have legitimate strategic applications.
Donkey	An informal term for a player making poor decisions – calling when they should fold, folding when they should call, and generally playing in ways that don’t hold up under scrutiny.
Door Card	The first face-up card in a player’s hand in stud poker games.
Double Belly-Buster	A straight draw with two separate inside (gutshot) draws, needing either of two different ranks to complete a straight. For example, holding J-9 on a board of 7-10-K needs an 8 or a Q. Also called a Double Gutshot. It gives 8 outs, equivalent to an open-ended straight draw, but is harder for opponents to read.
Double Barrel	A bet on the flop, followed by a bet on the turn.
Double Suited	An Omaha starting hand where two cards share one suit and the other two cards share a different suit. Gives the hand two separate flush draws. It is one of the stronger starting hand configurations in Omaha.
Double Up	Winning a pot that doubles the player’s chip stack.
Down Card	A card dealt face-down, visible only to the player holding it. In Hold’em, both hole cards are down cards. In Seven-Card Stud, players receive a mix of down cards and face-up cards throughout the hand. See also: Up Card.
Downswing	A stretch of results that run below expectation, regardless of whether it’s from bad luck, poor play, or a combination. In poker, downswings are a normal part of variance, though the length and depth vary.
Doyle Brunson	A hand consisting of a 10 and 2. It is named after the legendary poker player, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, who won back-to-back World Series of Poker Main Events with this hand.
Draw	1) A hand with the potential to improve into something considerably stronger by hitting the required card or cards on the flop, turn, or river. Also called a ‘come.’ 2) To discard one or more cards and receive new cards in certain poker variants, such as 5-Card Draw
Draw Poker	One of several common poker variants in which players can discard and draw new cards to try to make a stronger hand. The most common variants include Five-Card Draw and Badugi. Draw poker is the earliest accepted variation of poker, first recorded around 1850.
Drawing Dead	When a player is drawing to a hand that can no longer win the pot. Also, the name of the first GGPoker-exclusive novella by Paul Seaton, which follows the adventures of Sam “NASA” Houston.
Drawing Live	A drawing hand that still has a chance to improve and win.
Drawing Thin	Having outs, but very few of them.
Drop	An older term meaning to fold a hand.
Dry Ace	An Ace in hand not accompanied by a second card of the same suit. On a board with flush possibilities, holding a dry Ace doesn’t give you a flush draw yourself, but it does block the nut flush. It functions mainly as a blocker, while offering a small chance of backing into a flush later.
Dry Board	A flop or set of community cards which contain cards of different suits and ranks that are not consecutive or matching, making it less likely for players to have made strong hands. Opposite of a Wet Board.
Ducks	Slang term for Pocket Twos. Names because the shape of a 2 resembles a duck.

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About the Author: Shawn Altbaum has been writing and editing in the online gaming industry since 2007, reporting live from the WSOP Main Event and conducting interviews with professional players. An active poker player, he combines industry expertise with firsthand knowledge of the games he covers. He currently serves as Global Head of Copywriting at NSUS Group, overseeing brand voice and content strategy across GGPoker.