Online poker chat confusing you? Sunday School will sort you out!

Handling online poker chat is something all online Texas Holdem players will have to cope with. It can be intimidating if you don't know what people are saying.

One school of thought is to ignore the garbage in online poker chat boxes and concentrate on your game.

But you may miss vital information. Some players reveal their weaknesses unconsciously when chatting. However, most of the time, people will be congratulating you on a winning hand (sometimes this is sarcastic though!).

Here is some common online poker chat shorthand. If you're in a chat room and you see this kind of chat, you'll know what they're on about and be able to respond. But if you don't feel like it, no worries.

Most online poker chat is a lot of rubbish, usually lectures from people who think they're better than you. You certainly should not get upset by anything said in online poker chat boxes. Report any serious abuse, such as racism or swearing, to your customer service department.

Chat box shorthand in plain English

• sb -- small blind
• bb -- big blind
• nh or gh -- nice hand/good hand
• vnh -- very nice hand (sometimes you get more than one v!)
• ty or t -- thanks
• nc or gc -- nice call/good call (sometimes nice catch*)
• nr -- nice river (means you were lucky)
• gf -- good fold (intimating you made a good laydown)
• wp -- well played
• fish -- poor player, calling station
• np -- no problem
• LAG -- loose and aggressive
• TAG -- tight and aggressive
• ul -- unlucky
• vul -- very unlucky (sometimes more than one v!)
• wtf -- what the f*ck?
• fuf -- f*ck you, fish
• stfu -- shut the f*ck up

*Nice catch is a negative comment. It means you hit a lucky card to win.

You can use your imagination to add to the swearing and insults, which is sadly common to online chat of all kinds.

How poker players talk to each other

If you happen to play poker in a real-world card room, at a friend's game or wherever, you may overhear poker players talking about a hand.

It's quite an art to decipher their meaning at times!

One thing to note is that poker talk is usually current tense. You will seldom hear players say: "I was dealt a pair of Aces." They will ususally say: "I've got Aces."

"I've flopped the nut flush and the guy's betting into me" is also fairly typical of how poker players speak.

Be prepared to hear a lot of bad-beat stories. These can get very elaborate. Many of them are impossibly complex (or just plain impossible).

When you first play poker and hang around with poker players, bad beat stories seem amazing. After a month or so, you will be really, really bored by them. Some players are so unlucky, it's amazing they're still alive to tell you about their bad beats!

Read enough about online poker chat?