Counterfeit

“Counterfeiting” refers to a situation in flop games like hold’em and Omaha in which a community card actually makes a player’s hand less strong even after technically improving that hand. Counterfeiting occurs especially frequently in Omaha thanks to the added possible combinations of hands.

For example, say you hold {6-Diamonds}{5-Diamonds} and reach the turn with the board showing {6-Clubs}{a-Diamonds}{j-Diamonds}{5-Spades}, giving you two pair (sixes and fives). Then the river brings the {j-Clubs}, which in truth improves your hand to a better two pair, jacks and sixes. The problem is, now any opponent holding an ace or jack now has you beat. A player with an ace has aces and jacks (a better two pair), and a player with a jack has trips.

Here’s another example: you have {7-Diamonds}{7-Clubs}, and the board runs out {4-Diamonds}{a-Diamonds}{8-Clubs}{8-Spades}{a-Clubs}. On the flop you had a pair of sevens, on the turn eights and sevens, and on the river aces and eights. But everyone else has at least aces and eights on the river, too — “counterfeiting” your hand — and your seven kicker likely doesn’t compare well to theirs.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ