Sky Poker has a vibrant and thriving Community section on the website. This is the section where Sky Poker players can post all about their poker experiences on the site and, arguably, it is one of the most under-valued resources on the 
site for new users.
We have already looked at why the Sky Poker Community section is somewhere that new Sky Poker players should check out and certainly, beginners should use the collective experience of the generally friendly Sky Poker community to help inform and improve their game.
You will come across some familiar faces too if you are a viewer of Sky Poker TV. Presenter Richard Orford, as well as resident expert Tony Kendall (better known as Tikay pictured below) are frequent posters on the forum, as well as Sky Poker’s resident professional Julian Thew.
There is also an extensive number of poker players from across the UK who contribute regularly to the forums within the Community section. This can be in the form of a poker diary, detailing their poker journey on Sky Poker, giving you updates of a challenge they have undertaken or simply giving advice on how a player could or should have played a particular hand to better effect.
For the beginner player, the community is potentially a rich resource of information that can quickly improve your poker skills and knowledge in a relatively short amount of time.
However, beginner players will encounter one small problem when they visit the site and that is simply the language used by posters on the site. Not that it is offensive, far from it, but simply that most players on the site are very experienced and as such, most of the posts will use terms and abbreviations that less experienced poker players will not have come across.
As such, even reading a generally simple reply to a question you may have posed can require you to do as much time researching what the person replying means, than it does reading the response in the first place.
So to help you out, here is a handy list of some of the common terms and abbreviations used on the Sky Poker forum and also on other sites with similar community threads and forums.
Remember, there is never a bad time to join Sky Poker, check out all the latest Sky Poker no deposit bonus offers on the aforementioned link to ensure you get your free £10 bonus when joining this popular site.
Sky Poker Community useful terms and phrases
BB – Big Blind
BH – Bounty Hunter
BR or BRM – Bank Roll or Bank Roll Management
C, D, H or S – Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts or Spades often denoted with the car value preceding as in Qh Ah would denote Queen of Hearts and Ace of Hearts.
CBET – Continuation Bet
CH/R – Check-Raise (when a player checks to incite a bet from another player and then raises that bet because they hold a strong hand)
Donk/Fish – A novice player whom it is usually easy for a more experienced player to get the better of.
Dry Flop/Board – When the flop or community cards shown do not seem to offer your opponents the chance to beat your hand.
D/S or DS – Deep Stack – A tournament where the player starts with more chips than usual
DYM – Double Your Money
FR – Freeroll
GL – Good Luck!
Hero – The person asking advice about the hand being discussed
HU – Heads Up, when you play against just one other opponent at a table.
IMO – In My Opinion
Maniac – A very aggressive player who bets aggressively with almost any hand and puts lots of chips into the pot.
NLH – No Limit Hold’em
Nuts – When a player holds the best hand possible at the table given the cards showing.
O – Offsuit. Often used when describing a pocket hand where the player has two cards of different suits (27o – means 2 and 7 offsuit)
Opps – Opponents or Opposition. The other players facing you at the table.
PF – Pre flop
PLH – Pot Limit Hold’em
PLO – Pot Limit Omaha
Pocket Cards – The two cards you have been dealt that no other player can see.
Position – Your place at the table relative to the dealer. The later your position at the table, the stronger your position at the table and the wider range of hands you can play.
SB – Small Blind
Tilt – A player who is angry or upset and is allowing to affect how they play is said to be playing ‘on tilt’.
Turbo – A tournament or sit & go game where the blinds increase more rapidly than in a standard tournament. A Super Turbo and Hyper Turbo sees the blinds increase even more quickly and thus encourages more action at the table. As a general rule of thumb, the faster the blinds increase, the shorter a tournament tends to be.
UL – Unlucky
Value Bet / Betting – This is when a player makes a bet in the hope that it will be called. This is because the player believes he holds the strongest hand at the table and thus wants to maximise the amount of chips they win with their hand.
Villain(s) – The player(s) in the hand that is being discussed that are opposing the player who played in the hand and made the post.
Weak Ace – A pocket hand where you have an ace paired with a low kicker card.
Wet Flop/Board – A flop or board where there is the potential for other players at the table to have made a hand which defeats yours.
WP – Well Played
X or x – used as a shortened form for ‘check’ when discussing betting options or can be used to state how many factors of the big blind a player would bet. For example, 2.5x or 4x means that the person is stating that they bet 2.5 times or 4 times the big blind.
While some of the language used by the more experienced poker players on Sky Poker can be a little confusing at times, and quite difficult to understand as a novice, it is worth persevering with as the insights gained from responses to questions and threads can be immensely helpful in helping you improve as a player.
Hopefully this little guide to some of the more common phrases used in the Sky Poker Community section will help you understand what is being discussed a little more easily.
