Poker Glossary

Cooler

A collision of two very strong hands where the chips were going in no matter what — set over set, flush over flush, kings into aces. By definition neither player made a mistake; the matchup, not the play, decided the money. Recognizing a cooler matters for the mental game: it belongs in the variance column, not the leak column.

At the table

You flop middle set with 8♠8♦ on Q♣8♥2♦; your opponent flopped top set with Q♠Q♥. All the money goes in, and it never could have gone differently.

House note

Coolers are the deck’s way of reminding you the script was sometimes written before you sat down.

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