Card game
"Poker player" redirects here. For the magazine, see Poker Player
A game of Texas hold 'em in progress. "Hold 'em" 🌜 is a popular form of poker.
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand 🌜 is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, but in some places the rules may vary. 🌜 While the earliest known form of the game was played with just 20 cards, today it is usually played with 🌜 a standard deck, although in countries where short packs are common, it may be played with 32, 40 or 48 🌜 cards.[1] Thus poker games vary in deck configuration, the number of cards in play, the number dealt face up or 🌜 face down, and the number shared by all players, but all have rules that involve one or more rounds of 🌜 betting.
In most modern poker games, the first round of betting begins with one or more of the players making some 🌜 form of a forced bet (the blind or ante). In standard poker, each player bets according to the rank they 🌜 believe their hand is worth as compared to the other players. The action then proceeds clockwise as each player in 🌜 turn must either match (or "call") the maximum previous bet, or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all 🌜 further involvement in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also "raise" (increase) the bet. The betting round 🌜 ends when all players have either called the last bet or folded. If all but one player folds on any 🌜 round, the remaining player collects the pot without being required to reveal their hand. If more than one player remains 🌜 in contention after the final betting round, a showdown takes place where the hands are revealed, and the player with 🌜 the winning hand takes the pot.
With the exception of initial forced bets, money is only placed into the pot voluntarily 🌜 by a player who either believes the bet has a positive expected value or who is trying to bluff other 🌜 players for various strategic reasons. Thus, while the outcome of any particular hand significantly involves chance, the long-run expectations of 🌜 the players are determined by their actions chosen on the basis of probability, psychology, and game theory.
Poker has increased in 🌜 popularity since the beginning of the 20th century and has gone from being primarily a recreational activity confined to small 🌜 groups of enthusiasts to a widely popular activity, both for participants and spectators, including online, with many professional players and 🌜 multimillion-dollar tournament prizes.[2]
History [ edit ]
While poker's exact origin is the subject of debate, many game scholars point to the 🌜 French game Poque and the Persian game As-Nas as possible early inspirations.[3] For example, in the 1937 edition of Foster's 🌜 Complete Hoyle, R. F. Foster wrote that "the game of poker, as first played in the United States, five cards 🌜 to each player from a twenty-card pack, is undoubtedly the Persian game of As-Nas." However, in the 1990s the notion 🌜 that poker is a direct derivative of As-Nas began to be challenged by gaming historians including David Parlett. What is 🌜 certain, however, is that poker was popularized in the American South in the early 19th century, as gambling riverboats in 🌜 the Mississippi River and around New Orleans during the 1830s helped spread the game. One early description of poker was 🌜 played on a steamboat in 1829 is recorded by the English actor, Joe Cowell. The game was played with twenty 🌜 cards ranking from Ace (high) to Ten (low).[4]
In contrast to this version of poker, seven-card stud only appeared in the 🌜 middle of the 19th century, and was largely spread by the US military.[5] It became a staple in many casinos 🌜 following the second world war, and grew in popularity with the advent of the World Series of Poker in the 🌜 1970s.[6]
Texas hold 'em and other community card games began to dominate the gambling scenes over the next couple of decades. 🌜 The televising of poker was a particularly strong influence increasing the popularity of the game during the turn of the 🌜 millennium, resulting in the poker boom a few years later between 2003 and 2006. Today the game has grown to 🌜 become an extremely popular pastime worldwide.
Gameplay [ edit ]
Further information on betting rules: Betting in poker
In casual play, the right 🌜 to deal a hand typically rotates among the players and is marked by a token called a dealer button (or 🌜 buck). In a casino, a house dealer handles the cards for each hand, but the button (typically a white plastic 🌜 disk) is rotated clockwise among the players to indicate a nominal dealer to determine the order of betting. The cards 🌜 are dealt clockwise around the poker table, one at a time.
One or more players are usually required to make forced 🌜 bets, usually either an ante or a blind bet (sometimes both). The dealer shuffles the cards, the player on the 🌜 chair to their right cuts, and the dealer deals the appropriate number of cards to the players one at a 🌜 time, beginning with the player to their left. Cards may be dealt either face-up or face-down, depending on the variant 🌜 of poker being played. After the initial deal, the first of what may be several betting rounds begins. Between rounds, 🌜 the players' hands develop in some way, often by being dealt additional cards or replacing cards previously dealt. At the 🌜 end of each round, all bets are gathered into the central pot.
At any time during a betting round, if one 🌜 player bets, no opponents choose to call (match) the bet, and all opponents instead fold, the hand ends immediately, the 🌜 bettor is awarded the pot, no cards are required to be shown, and the next hand begins. This is what 🌜 makes bluffing possible. Bluffing is a primary feature of poker, distinguishing it from other vying games and from other games 🌜 that use poker hand rankings.
At the end of the last betting round, if more than one player remains, there is 🌜 a showdown, in which the players reveal their previously hidden cards and evaluate their hands. The player with the best 🌜 hand according to the poker variant being played wins the pot. A poker hand comprises five cards; in variants where 🌜 a player has more than five cards available to them, only the best five-card combination counts. There are 10 different 🌜 kinds of poker hands, such as straight flush and four of a kind.
Variants [ edit ]
2006 WSOP Main Event table
Poker 🌜 has many variations,[7][8] all following a similar pattern of play[9] and generally using the same hand ranking hierarchy. There are 🌜 four main families of variants, largely grouped by the protocol of card-dealing and betting:
Straight A complete hand is dealt to 🌜 each player, and players bet in one round, with raising and re-raising allowed. This is the oldest poker family; the 🌜 root of the game as now played was a game known as Primero, which evolved into the game three-card brag, 🌜 a very popular gentleman's game around the time of the American Revolutionary War and still enjoyed in the U.K. today. 🌜 Straight hands of five cards are sometimes used as a final showdown, but poker is almost always played in a 🌜 more complex form to allow for additional strategy. Stud poker Cards are dealt in a prearranged combination of face-down and 🌜 face-up rounds, or streets, with a round of betting following each. This is the next-oldest family; as poker progressed from 🌜 three to five-card hands, they were often dealt one card at a time, either face-down or face-up, with a betting 🌜 round between each. The most popular stud variant today, seven-card stud, deals two extra cards to each player (three face-down, 🌜 four face-up) from which they must make the best possible 5-card hand.
Draw poker Five-card draw: A complete hand is dealt 🌜 to each player, face-down. Then each player must place an ante to the pot. They can then see their cards 🌜 and bet accordingly. After betting, players can discard up to three cards and take new ones from the top of 🌜 the deck. Then, another round of betting takes place. Finally, each player must show their cards and the player with 🌜 the best hand wins.
Community card poker Also known as "flop poker," community card poker is a variation of stud poker. 🌜 Players are dealt an incomplete hand of face-down cards, and then a number of face-up community cards are dealt to 🌜 the center of the table, each of which can be used by one or more of the players to make 🌜 a 5-card hand. Texas hold 'em and Omaha are two well-known variants of the community card family.
There are several methods 🌜 for defining the structure of betting during a hand of poker. The three most common structures are known as "fixed-limit," 🌜 "pot-limit," and "no-limit." In fixed-limit poker, betting and raising must be done by standardized amounts. For instance, if the required 🌜 bet is X, an initial bettor may only bet X; if a player wishes to raise a bet, they may 🌜 only raise by X. In pot-limit poker, a player may bet or raise any amount up to the size of 🌜 the pot. When calculating the maximum raise allowed, all previous bets and calls, including the intending raiser's call, are first 🌜 added to the pot. The raiser may then raise the previous bet by the full amount of the pot. In 🌜 no-limit poker, a player may wager their entire betting stack at any point that they are allowed to make a 🌜 bet. In all games, if a player does not have enough betting chips to fully match a bet, they may 🌜 go "all-in," allowing them to show down their hand for the number of chips they have remaining.
While typical poker games 🌜 award the pot to the highest hand as per the standard ranking of poker hands, there are variations where the 🌜 best hand, and thus the hand awarded the pot, is the lowest-ranked hand instead. In such games the best hand 🌜 contains the lowest cards rather than the highest cards; some variations may be further complicated by whether or not hands 🌜 such as flushes and straights are considered in the hand rankings. There are also games where the highest and lowest 🌜 hands divide the pot between them, known as "high low split" games.
Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise 🌜 be referred to as poker. Video poker is a single-player video game that functions much like a slot machine; most 🌜 video poker machines play draw poker, where the player bets, a hand is dealt, and the player can discard and 🌜 replace cards. Payout is dependent on the hand resulting after the draw and the player's initial bet.
Strip poker is a 🌜 traditional poker variation where players remove clothing when they lose bets. Since it depends only on the basic mechanic of 🌜 betting in rounds, strip poker can be played with any form of poker; however, it is usually based on simple 🌜 variants with few betting rounds, like five card draw.
Another game with the poker name, but with a vastly different mode 🌜 of play, is called Acey-Deucey or Red Dog poker. This game is more similar to Blackjack in its layout and 🌜 betting; each player bets against the house, and then is dealt two cards. For the player to win, the third 🌜 card dealt (after an opportunity to raise the bet) must have a value in-between the first two. Payout is based 🌜 on the odds that this is possible, based on the difference in values of the first two cards. Other poker-like 🌜 games played at casinos against the house include three card poker and pai gow poker.
Computer programs [ edit ]
A variety 🌜 of computer poker players have been developed by researchers at the University of Alberta, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University 🌜 of Auckland amongst others.
In a January 2024 article[10] published in Science, a group of researchers mostly from the University of 🌜 Alberta announced that they "essentially weakly solved" heads-up limit Texas Hold 'em with their development of their Cepheus poker bot. 🌜 The authors claimed that Cepheus would lose at most 0.001 big blinds per game on average against its worst-case opponent, 🌜 and the strategy is thus so "close to optimal" that "it can't be beaten with statistical significance within a lifetime 🌜 of human poker playing."[11]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Literature [ edit ]
Parlett, David (2008), The Penguin Book of 🌜 Card Games, London: Penguin, ISBN 978-0-141-03787-5
