Poker is a card game in which players wager money on the cards they receive from a random distribution. The player with the highest-ranked hand wins the pot, though luck is a factor as well. It is sometimes viewed as gambling, but it is considered a game that requires some skill. It can be played socially for pennies or matchsticks, or professionally for thousands of dollars.
There are many variants of the game, but the basics of a hand of poker are similar across all games: each player places one or more chips in the center of the table, called the pot; the first player to act may raise the stakes. The player to his left must either call (put in the same amount as or more than the previous raiser) or drop his hand. The game is typically fast-paced and the betting continues around the table until a player has all of the chips or drops.
The name poker is thought to have been derived from the French word poque, meaning “to knock.” Its likely immediate ancestor was a German bluffing game called Pochen that became a French version known as Poque and was brought over to New Orleans where it was played on riverboats. By the mid-19th century it had developed into the form of poker that we now know, with a rule that enables players to improve their hands by drawing cards.
A hand of poker is scored by comparing the rank of each card to the ranks and suits of other cards in the same hand. A standard poker hand consists of a pair, three of a kind, four of a kind, and straight. In a tie, the higher unmatched cards break the tie; secondary pairs (such as two matching 4s or two matching 6s in a full house) also break ties.
There are variations in the game, notably in whether or not the highest and lowest hands win the pot, or in the number of cards dealt to each player. Some games are fixed-limit games, and in these a limit is set on the number of chips that can be raised during a betting interval.
In other cases, the player whose hand is best is awarded the pot by the rules of the game; this is a low-skill variation that is very popular among women. Some versions of the game are played on a limited set of cards and require players to discard any they do not wish to use. These games are often referred to as high/low games. Some versions of the game allow players to “call” a lower-ranked hand and keep their own in play. This is called a “high/low split” game.
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