Expected value refers to the amount of money we can expect to win/lose on average after making a certain decision at the poker tables. It has the exact same meaning as expectation. A poker decision that is expected to make money in the long run can be described as a decision with a ‘positive expected value’ or “plus-EV” (+EV) for short. Although our results will rarely conform to our expected value in the short term, good poker players realise that the expected value of a decision is far more important than short term results.

Equity is our percentage chance to win a hand of poker assuming we are all-in. For example, in Hold’em, AA has 81.94% equity against KK. In practice, equity does not tell us the whole picture regarding how often we’ll win, because either we or our opponent could end up folding some of the time. Having a rough idea of our equity is still helpful however and will help us to increase the quality of our decisions at the table.

The term combination refers to one instance of particular holding in poker. For example, there are six different ways to be dealt pocket Aces preflop in Hold’em so we can say that there are six possible combinations of pocket Aces. There are also 12 different combinations of each off suit hand and 4 combinations of each suited hand. In most discussions, the term combinations is abbreviated to combos.

Ring Game is a term used to describe a cash game in poker (as opposed to tournament format). Since not all poker games are played with real cash, the term ring game might make more sense when describing such a format. In most cases however, ring game is used interchangeably with cash game; although cash game is used more commonly to describe this format (even for play money games).

Represent means that a certain action indicates a certain type of holding. For example, we might have a very weak hand but try to represent that we have a legitimate holding by making big bets. The term is also used when discussing the meaning of our opponent’s actions. For example, if our opponent is making a small bet on the river we might say something along the lines of ‘villain is representing a mid-strength value-hand’.

Rebuy means to purchase more chips to add to our stack. Rebuying is most commonly performed in cash games, but also makes an appearance in specific tournament formats. Rebuy tournaments allow players to purchase (rebuy) a new chip stack after running out of chips, but only while the rebuy period is still active.