The Norwegian poker community is world class and I love it. But can we please stop translating poker terms to English when the Norwegian equivalent has the same meaning? 

I have very few complaints after spending a week in Bratislava playing the Norwegian Poker Championship (Poker NM). Some hiccups were expected when thousands of Norwegians were moved to a city and to a casino that had never hosted this type of event before; but as far as I could see, it was smooth river sailing from start to finish.

I said the same after playing Poker NM in Dublin last year; the fun and friendliness of the Norwegian poker community is unrivalled in the poker world.

EXPLOITABLE POKER TRANSLATION

However, this column is called Tilted Tales and I’m clearly not writing it to kiss anyone’s ass. The first edition of the column was about the world’s worst casino experience in Genting Highlands in Malaysia.

And of the things to get tilted by, I didn’t expect it to involve people translating words. After all, I am the founder of a company called All-in Global that translates poker and iGaming content in pretty much any language.

But I noticed one thing when talking to players and watching the tournament action streamed on YouTube: There is a tendency to use more English words than before when talking poker in Norwegian. Don’t get me wrong, this is not something new, and I am not referring to the use of “suit”, “range”, “flop”, “turn”, “river” and “ante”.

We don’t really have good translations from English to Norwegian for those poker terms – I imagine it’s the same for many languages – and they are perfectly acceptable anglicisms if you ask me.

I am talking about words like exploitable, reward, represent, delay and to “jam”.

EXPLOITATIVE VS. GTO IN POKER

I’ve been playing poker for more than 20 years and it was only last week that I realised that I belong to the old school. I have never had much of a theoretical approach to poker but I guess I can be described as a fearless 😎 player who tries to be exploitative – I seek to find holes in other players’ games and use them to my advantage.

Younger players nowadays are leaning more towards the Game Theory Optimal (GTO) poker strategy, which seeks complete balance and where the aim is to become unexploitable by your opponents.

There was a lot of talk about this during the championship and before the next poker NM in October, I have plans to learn more about GTO. But I wanted to strike a blow for avoiding the use of the anglicisms “exploitable” and “exploitative” when speaking Norwegian in that “utnyttbar” og “utnyttende” means pretty much exactly the same thing.

I am obviously fully aware that English is the most common language in poker, but I want to be an advocate of preserving languages in a form that is not washed out.

LINGUISTIC ODDITIES IN NORWEGIAN POKER

Another linguistic oddity I noticed was how players and video presenters used words that are partly Norwegian and partly English. Some examples include “rewarda” where you have a Norwegian ending to the English word “rewarded”. “Belønnet” is a word that all Norwegians understand which means exactly the same as “rewarded”.

The same goes for “representa” where “representerte” is a perfectly good although not very creative translation of “represented”. “Delay” is a word frequently used in poker but in Norwegian, let’s say “forsinkelse”, please.

And instead of using “jamme” – to go all-in – I prefer “få det på”. Then again, I would raise my eyebrows pretty high up if someone said “alt inn” (Norwegian for all-in) because that just sounds super weird. It really is a fine line and very subjective, but at All-in Global we take great pride in leading the way when it comes to language solutions you can bet on.

ACES VS. THE WSOP CHAMPION

The YouTube channel for poker NM did an amazing job covering the hectic event schedule in Bratislava. One of my favourite parts of the stream was when former European poker champion Sverre Krogh Sundbø discussed interesting hands with the players. The interview below is a good example of the many anglicisms I am talking about.

The hand in question was in a Fixed Limit Hold’em tournament between Jonatan Wedde, who had aces, against current WSOP Main Event Champion Espen Uhlen Jørstad. How would you play it?

Poker streaming has been popular for many years and streamers are often speaking English, even if this isn’t their native language, in order to reach a wider audience. The fact that the younger generations are watching more content in English is clearly a factor why there is an increasing use of anglicisms when they speak in their mother tongue.

These challenges are the very essence of what we do at All-in Global. We were the first company to develop translation engines specifically for iGaming content. By combining AI, almost two decades of translated content in 80+ languages, and the skills of world class human translators, we are able to quickly deliver translations that are correct according to iGaming terminology and have a good flow. Who knows, maybe one day we will be able to provide subtitles to livestreams almost instantly.

DICES, TARTAR AND BUKOWSKI BAR

A good example of a poker stream with Norwegians speaking English is weddepoker on Twitch. It’s hosted by two brothers and I played with both of them in Bratislava. They talk a lot about GTO vs. exploitative poker strategy and I for one will turn in when they live stream on Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays.

As for my results at the 2023 Poker NM, I reached a money prize in one of the turbo tournaments and came close in the North Masters Main Event. In the third tournament I played in I busted out in the 2nd hand with 99 vs KK. Luckily I had a great run at the cash tables at the Coolbet hotel one night, although some of the winnings got lost at the roulette table.

Another highlight on the trip was when we went to Bukowski Bar and rolled dices for who had to drink Absinthe while reading poems. Some people might argue though that the biggest risk I took that week was ordering a beef tartar at the casino. But it was spectacular! Moral of the story? Ride your life to perfect laughter, it’s the only good fight there is.