Poker
is a game which people play with a normal set
(or deck) of 52 cards. Poker is a gambling game
which involves some luck, but also some skill.
When playing poker, the players bet against each
other depending on how good their cards are. They
bet on who has the best poker hand. Usually players
bet use plastic discs called chips. Players may
also bet with real money, but when playing they
usually use chips instead of money, because chips
are easier to pick up and count, then at the end
of the game players will swap their chips for
money.
There are many different kinds of poker. In draw
poker, each player keeps their five cards hidden
and gives away some number of cards, then takes
(draws) new cards. In stud poker, for example
seven-card stud, some of each player's cards are
exposed (face-up) on the table so that the other
players can see them. In community card poker,
for example Texas hold 'em, players share some
of their cards in the center of the table.
History
The
history of poker is a matter of some debate. The
name of the game likely descended from the French
poque, which descended from the German pochen
('to knock'), but it is not clear whether the
origins of poker itself lie with the games bearing
those names. It closely resembles the Persian
game of as nas, and may have been taught to French
settlers in New Orleans by Persian sailors. It
is commonly regarded as sharing ancestry with
the Renaissance game of primero and the French
brelan. The English game brag (earlier bragg)
clearly descended from brelan and incorporated
bluffing (though the concept was known in other
games by that time). It is quite possible that
all of these earlier games influenced the development
of poker as it exists now.
English actor Joseph Crowell reported that the
game was played in New Orleans in 1829, with a
deck of 20 cards, four players betting on which
player's hand was the most valuable. Jonathan
H. Green's book, An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries
of Gambling (G. B. Zieber, Philadelphia, 1843),
described the spread of the game from there to
the rest of the country by Mississippi riverboats,
on which gambling was a common pastime.
Soon after this spread, the full 52-card English
deck was used, and the flush was introduced. During
the American Civil War, many additions were made,
including draw poker, stud poker (the five-card
variant), and the straight. Further American developments
followed, such as the wild card (around 1875),
lowball and split-pot poker (around 1900), and
community card poker games (around 1925). Spread
of the game to other countries, particularly in
Asia, is often attributed to the U.S. military.
The game and jargon of poker have become important
parts of American culture and English culture.
Such phrases as ace in the hole, beats me, blue
chip, call the bluff, cash in, pass the buck,
poker face, stack up, up the ante, when the chips
are down, wild card, and others are used in everyday
conversation even by those unaware of their origins
at the poker table.
Modern tournament play became popular in American
casinos after the World Series of Poker began
in 1970. It was also during that decade that the
first serious strategy books appeared, notably
The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN 1880685000),
Super System by Doyle Brunson (ISBN 0931444014),
and The Book of Tells by Mike Caro (ISBN 0897461002).
Poker’s popularity has experienced an unprecedented
spike in recent years, largely due to the introduction
of online poker and the invention of the hole-card
camera which finally turned the game into a spectator
sport. Viewers can now follow the action and drama
of the game, and broadcasts of poker tournaments
such as the World Series of Poker and the World
Poker Tour have brought in huge audiences for
cable and satellite TV distributors.
Game
Play
The
game of poker is played in hundreds of variations,
but the following overview of game play applies
to most of them.
Depending on the game rules, one or more players
may be required to place an initial amount of
money into the pot before the cards are dealt.
These are called forced bets and come in three
forms: antes, blinds, and bring-ins.
Like most card games, the dealer shuffles the
deck of cards. The deck is then cut, and the appropriate
number of cards are dealt face-down to the players.
In a casino a "house" dealer handles
the cards for each hand, but a button (any small
item used as a marker, also called a buck) is
rotated among the players to determine the order
of dealing and betting in certain games. In a
home game, the right to deal the cards typically
rotates among the players clockwise, but a button
may still be used.
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. During a round of betting, there
will always be a current bet amount, which is
the total amount of money bet in this round by
the player who bet last in this round. To keep
better track of this, it is conventional for players
to not place their bets directly into the pot
(called splashing the pot), but rather place them
in front of themselves toward the pot, until the
betting round is over. When the round is over,
the bets are then gathered into the pot.
After the first betting round is completed (every
participating player having called an equal amount),
there may be more rounds in which more cards are
dealt in various ways, followed by further rounds
of betting (into the same central pot). At any
time during the first or subsequent betting rounds,
if one player makes a bet and all other players
fold, the deal ends immediately, the single remaining
player is awarded the pot, no cards are shown,
no more rounds are dealt, and the next deal begins.
This is what makes it possible to bluff.
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.
Computer
players
Methods
are being developed to at least approximate perfect
strategy from the game theory perspective in the
heads-up (two player) game, and increasingly good
systems are being created for the multi-player
or ring game. Perfect strategy has multiple meanings
in this context. From a game-theoretic optimal
point of view, a perfect strategy is a minimax
one that cannot expect to lose to any other player's
strategy; however, optimal strategy can vary in
the presence of sub-optimal players who have weaknesses
that can be exploited. In this case, a perfect
strategy would be one that correctly or closely
models those weaknesses and takes advantage of
them to make a profit. Some of these systems are
based on Bayes theorem, Nash equilibrium, Monte
Carlo simulation, and Neural networks. A large
amount of the research is being done at the University
of Alberta by the GAMES group led by Jonathan
Schaeffer who developed Poki and PsOpt.
A major part of the skill of live poker games,
however, is guessing at the strength of a player's
hand by identifying tells made by other players,
while concealing one's own, unlike, for example,
chess, where all information about the game's
current state is public. As a computer would not
make any tells, playing against a computer would
fundamentally change the nature of the game far
more than in games like chess. (Credit: Wikipedia).
