The term “playing the board” can be used to describe a situation where a No-limit Hold’em player does not use ⚾️ any of his hole-cards to formulate a hand. Imagine the board reads as follows:
Board: T♠J♠Q♣K♣A♦
This is an example where all ⚾️ players at the table are forced to “play the board”. This is because it is impossible to improve on the ⚾️ strength of an Ace-to-Ten straight by utilizing hole-cards.
Playing the board applies mostly to Hold’em, since playing the board in variants ⚾️ such as Omaha is mostly impossible. This is due to the “tight hold’em” rule which forces players to always use ⚾️ exactly two of their hole-cards when formulating a hand in Omaha. On the above board texture, Omaha players would need ⚾️ to have two cards between Ace and Nine in order to make a straight (not including A9xx).
Example of Board used ⚾️ in a sentence -> We open raised preflop in Hold’em and the board came down Ace-high dry.