poker

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('kər) pronunciation
n.
One that pokes, especially a metal rod used to stir a fire.


pok·er2 ('kər) pronunciation
n.
Any of various card games played by two or more players who bet on the value of their hands.

[Origin unknown.]



Any of several card games in which a player bets that the value of his or her hand is greater than that of the hands held by others. Each subsequent player must either equal or raise the bet or drop out. The pot is eventually won by either the player showing the best hand when it comes to a showdown or the only player left when everyone else has dropped out, or folded. In this case the winner need not show his hand and could conceivably have won the pot with a lower hand than any other at the table. It is for this reason that poker is described as a game of bluff. Three principal forms of the game have developed: straight poker, in which all cards of the standard five-card hand are dealt facedown; stud poker, in which some but not all of a player's cards are dealt faceup; and community-card poker, in which some cards are exposed and used by all the players to form their best hand. In draw poker, the main variant of straight poker, cards may be discarded and additional cards drawn. The traditional ranking of hands is (1) straight flush (five cards of the same suit in sequence, the highest sequenceace, king, queen, jack, tenbeing called a royal flush), (2) four of a kind, (3) full house (three of a kind, plus a pair), (4) flush (five of a single suit), (5) straight (five in sequence), (6) three of a kind, (7) two pair, (8) one pair.

For more information on poker, visit Britannica.com.

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Idioms beginning with poker:
poker face

In addition to the idiom beginning with poker, also see stiff as a board (poker).

poker, card game, believed to have originated in Asia and first played in the United States in the 19th cent. A traditional cutthroat gambling game at first, it is now also an internationally popular social pastime.

Basic Rules

Poker is fundamentally a gambling game and is played either for money or for chips purchased from the game's banker. In all of the many variations there are betting rounds during which each player in the game must fold (stop playing the hand), call (equal the bet made), or raise (increase the bet made). All bets are placed together to form a pot. The object of all poker games is to win the pot either by holding the best hand or by inducing (bluffing) the others to drop.

The two basic forms are draw poker and stud poker, in both of which a deck of 52 cards is used and sometimes a joker added. Five players are said to make the best game, although from 2 to 10 are able to play at once. All suits are equal, and cards rank from the ace as high (it is also low) down through the two, or deuce. Often deuces are designated "wild," thereby counting (at the holder's option) for any other card.

There are 2,598,960 possible poker hands with 52 cards. In both draw and stud poker the player who holds in his hand the best combination of cards wins the game. The principal combinations rank as follows: straight flush (a five-card sequence in one suit, e.g., the ace, king, queen, jack and ten, also called a royal flush, the highest possible combination in the game), four of a kind (e.g., four aces), full house (three of a kind plus a pair), flush (five of one suit), straight (a five-card sequence regardless of suit), three of a kind, two pairs, and one pair. Below this, pots are won by the hand holding the highest cards.

Draw Poker

In draw poker five cards are dealt singly, face down and in rotation, to each player who has paid an ante to the pot before play began. Betting proceeds in clockwise fashion from the player at the dealer's left, who may either put up an opening wager or check (defer to the next player). Once a player has opened the betting, the others must call the opening player's bet to stay in the game. In jackpots, perhaps the commonest variety of draw poker, a player must have at least a pair of jacks to open.

At the conclusion of the first round of betting, a player may now stand pat (hold his or her five original cards) or draw from one to four cards from the stack (after discarding the same number from the hand). Another betting interval follows, beginning with the opener. If a bet is not met, the winner is not required to show his or her hand. When a bet is called, all hands are shown and the best hand wins.

Stud Poker

In stud poker, sometimes called open poker, each player is dealt singly one card down (the hole card) and one card face up. Each player looks at the card he or she has in the hole, but lets it remain face down. The player with the highest card showing starts a betting interval, and when all players have completed their betting, another card is dealt face up. This goes on until each player has four cards showing and one face down. After the final betting interval, the hole cards are exposed and the best hand wins. The many variations of poker include high-low poker, seven-card stud poker, and spit-in-the-ocean.

Bibliography

See A. H. Morehead, The Complete Guide to Winning Poker (1967); A. N. Darling, The Great American Pastime (1970); J. McManus, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker (2009).


A card game that involves strategy, bluffing, and luck, in which players bet that they hold the highest ranking hand. Although there are many variations, all include betting rounds during which each player can either call (place a bet equal to the current bet), raise (increase the current bet), or fold (forfeit the hand). All bets are placed in a central pot that is awarded to the player with the best combination of cards judged according to a predetermined ranking system.

SoundPoker Says: The great thing about poker is that it is simple enough for anybody to pick up but complicated enough that you can take a lifetime to master. It’s not like other games at the casino that rely completely on luck. Though luck obviously does play an important role, poker is still gambling after all, there is much that separates a good poker player from a bad poker player. This is perhaps what best separates poker from other gambling such as slots or roulette.

See Also: Poker Face, Texas Hold'em

A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce


n.

A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.


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  • Platform: IBM PC Compatible
  • Release Date: 2001
  • Genre: Traditional
  • Style: Gambling
Random House Word Menu:

categories related to 'poker'

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Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier
For a list of words related to poker, see:

  See crossword solutions for the clue Poker .
A game of Texas hold 'em in progress. "Hold 'em" is a popular form of poker.

Poker is a family of card games involving betting and individualistic play whereby the winner is determined by the ranks and combinations of their cards, some of which remain hidden until the end of the game. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or "community" cards and the number of cards that remain hidden. The betting procedures vary among different poker games in such ways as betting limits and splitting the pot between a high hand and a low hand.

In most modern poker games, the first round of betting begins with one of the players making some form of forced bet (the ante). In standard poker, each player is betting that the hand he has will be the highest ranked. The action then proceeds clockwise around the table and each player in turn must either match the maximum previous bet or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all further interest in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also "raise," or increase the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either matched the last bet or folded. If all but one player fold on any round, then the remaining player collects the pot and may choose to show or conceal their hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, 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, at least in theory, rationally believes the bet has positive expected value. 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 gained in popularity since the beginning of the twentieth century, and has gone from being primarily a recreational activity confined to small groups of mostly male enthusiasts, to a widely popular spectator activity with international audiences and multi-million dollar tournament prizes.

Contents

History

English actor Joseph Crowell[who?] reported[where?] that the game was played in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1829, with a deck of 20 cards, and four players betting on which player's hand was the most valuable.[citation needed] 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. As it spread north along the Mississippi River and to the West during the gold rush, it is thought to have become a part of the frontier pioneer ethos.

Soon after this spread, the full 52-card English deck[citation needed] was used and the flush was introduced. The draw was added prior to 1850 (when it was first mentioned in print in a handbook of games).[1] During the American Civil War, many additions were made including stud poker (specifically five-card stud), 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).

Modern tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began, in 1970.[2] Notable champions from these early WSOP tournaments include Johnny Moss, Amarillo Slim, Bobby Baldwin, Doyle Brunson, and Puggy Pearson. Later in the 1970s, the first serious poker strategy books appeared, notably Super/System by Doyle Brunson (ISBN 1-58042-081-8) and Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro (ISBN 0-89746-100-2), followed later by The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN 1-880685-00-0). By the 1980s, poker was being depicted in popular culture as a commonplace recreational activity. For example, it was featured in at least 10 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a weekly event of the senior staff of the fictional ship's crew.[3] In the 1990s, poker and casino gambling spread across the United States, most notably to Atlantic City, New Jersey.[4]

Poker's popularity experienced an unprecedented spike at the beginning of the 21st century, largely because of the introduction of online poker and hole-card cameras, which turned the game into a spectator sport. Not only could viewers now follow the action and drama of the game on television, they could also play the game in the comfort of their own home.

Following the surge in popularity, new poker tours soon emerged, notably the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour, both televised and the latter sponsored by online poker company PokerStars. Subsequent tours have since been created by PokerStars, such as Latin American Poker Tour and Asia Pacific Poker Tour, as well as other national tours.

In 2009 the International Federation of Poker was founded in Lausanne, Switzerland, becoming the official governing body for poker and promoting the game as a Mind Sport. In 2011 is announced plans for two new events. The Nations Cup, a duplicate poker team event, to be staged on the London Eye on the banks of the River Thames, and “The Table”, the invitation only IFP World Championship, featuring roughly 130 of the world’s best poker players, in an event to find the 2011 official "World Champion".

Gameplay

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 and 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, one that distinguishes it from other vying games and from other games that make use of 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, the best five cards play.

Variants

WSOP Main Event Table

Poker has many variations, all following a similar pattern of play 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
A complete hand is dealt to each player, face-down, and after betting, players are allowed to attempt to change their hand (with the object of improving it) by discarding unwanted cards and being dealt new ones. Five-card draw is the most famous variation in this family.
Community card poker (also known as flop poker)
A variation of Stud, 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 most well-known variants of the community card family.

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.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Henry G. Bond (ed.), Bohn's New Handbook of Games, Henry F. Anners (1850)
  2. ^ "World Series of Poker: A Retrospective". Gaming.unlv.edu. 2007-10-22. http://gaming.unlv.edu/WSOP/history.html. Retrieved 2009-03-20. 
  3. ^ Poker News article
  4. ^ "United States of Poker: New Jersey". Pokerplayernewspaper.com. http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com/viewarticle.php?id=289. Retrieved 2009-03-20. 

External links


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Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - ildrager

2.
n. - poker

idioms:

  • poker face    pokeransigt

Nederlands (Dutch)
pook, kachelpook, pokerspel

Français (French)
1.
n. - tisonnier, pique-feu

2.
n. - poker (jeu de cartes)

idioms:

  • poker face    visage impassible

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Feuerhaken, Schüreisen

idioms:

  • poker face    Pokergesicht

2.
n. - Poker

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - σκαλιστήρι φωτιάς, τσιμπίδα, μασιά, (χαρτοπ.) πόκερ

idioms:

  • poker face    ανέκφραστο πρόσωπο

Italiano (Italian)
attizzatoio, gioco di carte

idioms:

  • poker face    faccia impassibile, faccia da poker

Português (Portuguese)
n. - pôquer (m), bisbilhoteiro (m), atiçador (m)

idioms:

  • poker face    cara-de-pau

Русский (Russian)
кочерга

idioms:

  • poker face    каменное лицо

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - atizador

idioms:

  • poker face    cara inmutable

2.
n. - póker

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - poker (kortsp.), eldgaffel

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 戳的人, 击球人, 拨火棒, 火钩, 火钳

idioms:

  • poker face    一本正经的面容, 面无表情的人

2. 扑克牌游戏

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 撲克牌遊戲

2.
n. - 戳的人, 擊球人, 撥火棒, 火鉤, 火鉗

idioms:

  • poker face    一本正經的面容, 面無表情的人

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 찌르는 사람[물건] , 낙화도구

2.
n. - 포커(카드놀이의 일종)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 火かき棒, ポーカー

idioms:

  • poker face    無表情な顔つき, ポーカーフェース

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) مذكي النار, البوكر : لعبه ورق الشدة, قضيب معدني لإذكاء النار‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מחתה, מוט-גחלים‬
n. - ‮פוקר, משחק קלפים‬


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