Dead money
Dead money is chips already in the pot that belong to nobody still contesting it, which makes the pot larger without making it harder to win.
It arrives from folded blinds, from antes and from players who called and then gave up. Every unit of it improves the price of an aggressive line, because the reward for a successful bet grows while the risk stays the same.
The term is also used for a player whose money is expected to end up in other stacks, which is a different sense and worth keeping apart, because one describes the pot and the other describes a person.
an example
your cards
Two players limp for 1 big blind each and fold to your raise on the button. The pot already holds their 2 plus the blinds, and none of it was contested, so the raise wins 3.5 big blinds without a card being dealt.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find dead money in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
Ante
An ante is a small forced bet that every player contributes before the cards are dealt, on top of the blinds, so that th ...
Steal
A steal is a raise from one of the last seats made mainly to win the blinds uncontested rather than because the hand is ...
Isolate
To isolate is to raise with the aim of making everyone else fold, so you end up heads up against one particular player w ...
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Knowing the word is not the same as seeing it.
Forty hands against a bot, no account, and your own hand history at the end.