The History of Poker

Poker is a card game in which players place bets on a single hand of five cards. The value of the hand is in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency; the more unusual a hand, the higher it ranks. The rules vary slightly between variants of the game, but all involve betting by one or more players and the awarding of the pot, which is the sum of all bets in a given round. A player may win the pot by having the highest ranking hand, or by bluffing when other players call his bet.

Poker has a long history, and early references exist for a wide variety of games with different number of cards. Many of these, however, were not closely related to modern poker and should be considered separate from it. The game of poker as we now know it probably originated in the 17th century and evolved from a game called Primero. It then spread to the United States, where changes were made during the American Civil War, including the use of the full 52-card English deck and the development of a flush.

In the earliest known form of the game, each player receives two cards. A round of betting follows, starting with the player to the left of the dealer. A player who wishes to stay in the pot must raise his stake by an amount equal to the total raised by the last player, or fold.