Poker Terms in the Language

Many terms in the English language come from the world of poker. People use these expressions all the time, often unaware of their origins.

Here are several from The Official Dictionary of Poker.

You hear people describing how something is done "according to Hoyle." Originally, with respect to the rules of poker, this adverbial phrase meant "proper" - that is, following the rules. The expression passed into general usage as a vague phrase invoking authority. If a company representative says the company did everything according to Hoyle, he means that they followed the rules, stayed within accepted guidelines, or otherwise did the right thing.

The term was named for Edmond Hoyle (1672-1769). An English barrister and codifier of rules of games, he wrote, in 1742, A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist, which set down the rules of the game. Subsequent editions of the book contained treat­ments of quadrille, piquet, and backgammon. Hoyle wrote other books about games, and earned a reputation as an expert on rules. Over the years, the phrase "according to Hoyle" came to be synonymous with "by the high­est authority." Although Hoyle never wrote a word about poker - in fact, the game was probably not played in his lifetime - his name has nonetheless come to be associated with the rules of poker. Since Hoyle's death, several rulebooks on card games in general have had his name in their titles, and those books have dealt with poker.

The following two phrases often heard in common speech come from the seamier side of poker.

Double-dealing is a cheating move in which a dealer of draw poker, at one time the main form of poker, gives more cards (usually two at a time rather than one, hence the term) to his confederate or himself than to the other players. The presumption is that the player with more than the requisite number of cards will form his best five-card hand, and then get rid of the one or more excess cards. The phrase has passed into gen­eral usage with the meaning of cheating someone or the public in general.

A term common 50 and more years ago and kept alive in the deathless world of old movies is a sobriquet for the sort of dastard who would today be called a lowlife. A four-flusher is a cheater. The term probably comes from one who tries to bluff when holding only a four-flush, or, more likely, who cheats by showing four cards to a flush and tries to claim the pot without showing the fifth. This is something that could happen in draw poker. A cheater would spread four cards quickly, perhaps holding them in his hand with just the four cards of one suit from the flush he had missed showing, grab the pot, and hurriedly discard his cards. The move might fool an unobservant player. The term four-card flush still describes the hand consisting of four cards to a flush, usually with respect to what the player was trying to make. The term is often shortened to just four-flush, whence came the old deprecating usage.

Originally, tip the hand meant to give away one's holdings by one's actions or some other tell. This phrase has passed into general usage with the meaning of giving away one's intentions or revealing a secret. Writers who now refer to someone having tipped his hand - say, a football coach who prematurely let the opposition know what play he was going to have his quarterback call or a company inadvertently revealing to the public the nature of its next product release - likely have no knowledge of the term's antecedents. And neither does someone who uses it to describe how a district attorney gave away his prosecutorial strategy to the defense team.

We all know what the term poker face means. It describes a poker player's supposed lack of facial expression, such that others cannot tell whether he is bluffing. Of course, in reality, few poker players remain expressionless during play. The wider usage for the term usually is for anyone's inscrutable expression.

Logophiles are always witnessing the evolution of the English language. Terms that were new or specialized only a few years ago constantly either enter the language or find expanded implementation. While many poker terms have already found their way into our daily speech, one may now be in only its migratory status. The term bad beat may be entering the language. We poker players know its specialized meaning, but it has begun appearing in news accounts to describe unanticipated bad results. (We poker players also regularly misuse the term, but that's a subject for another column.)

And along with that ongoing evolution, did this next term move from poker into general usage, or vice versa? Modern dictionaries define down and dirty as an adjective or adverb meaning:

1. Unvarnished - that is, free from any effort to soften or disguise, as in the expression "the down-and-dirty truth"

2. Made or done hastily: not revised or polished

3. Marked by fierce competition

4. Bawdy

5. Seedy

In poker, it's usually said aloud, and is what seven-card stud players think is a cute description for the final card, so called because it is dealt down and because it is hidden, and thus can change a particular hand's winning potentialities. In a home game, particularly, but also in a cardroom, the delivery of the river card is often preceded by a pronouncement from the dealer,
"Down and dirty."

As an etymologist, I'd like to know which came first, the symbolic chicken or the egg?

Michael Wiesenberg's The Ultimate Casino Guide, published by Sourcebooks, is available at fine bookstores and at Amazon.com and other online book purveyors. Send interrogations, invalidations, and intimations to [email protected].