Poker

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Poker is a card game, the most popular of a class of games called vying games, in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot, which is awarded to the player or players with the best combination of cards or to the player who makes an uncalled bet. Poker can also refer to video poker which is a single player game seen in casinos much like a slot machine, or to other games that use poker hand rankings.

1 Game play
2 History
3 Computer players
4 Quotations
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

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Game play

While the game of poker is played in hundreds of variations, most follow the same basic pattern of play.

The right to deal each hand typically rotates among the players and is marked by a token called a "buck" or "button". In a casino a house dealer handles the cards for each hand, but a button (typically a white plastic disk) is rotated among the players to indicate a nominal dealer to determine the order of betting.

For each hand, one or more players are required to make forced bets to create an initial stake for which the players will contest. The dealer shuffles the cards, he or another player cuts, and the appropriate number of cards are dealt to the players one at a time. After this 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. More details can be found in the article on betting.

At any time during the first or subsequent betting rounds, if any player makes a bet, all other players are required to match it or to surrender their cards and forfeit their interest in the pot. If one player bets and no other player chooses to match the bet, the deal ends immediately, the bettor is awarded the pot, no cards are shown, and the next deal begins. This is what makes bluffing possible, and is a primary feature of the game 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.

Details about the order of play and hand rankings for the most common variants can be found in the articles on betting, hand rankings, and poker variants. Most popular poker variants can be loosely classified as draw poker, stud poker, or community card poker (a.k.a. "widow games"); miscellaneous poker games exist as well. The most commonly played games in these categories are five-card draw, seven-card stud, and Texas hold 'em, respectively; each being a common starting point for learning games of the type.

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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. As it spread up the Mississippi and West during the gold rush it is thought to have become a part of the frontier, pioneering ethos.

Image:Truman poker chips.jpg

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, ace up one's sleeve, beats me, blue chip, call one's bluff, cash in, high roller, 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. Notable champions from these early WSOP tournaments include Johnny Moss, Amarillo Slim, and Doyle Brunson. 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. Because of this increasing coverage of poker events, poker pros are becoming more and more like celebrities, with poker fans all over the world entering into expensive tournaments for the chance to play with them. This increased camera exposure also brings about a new dimension to the poker pro's game - the realization that all of their actions, intended or not, can now be viewed by all of their opponents.

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Computer players

The game of poker (or at least most of the variants) is considered to be computationally intractable. However, methods are being developed to at least approximate perfect strategy from the combinatorial 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.

One major aspect of poker is being a game of imperfect information. Some cards in play are concealed, so the players cannot deduce the exact state the game is in. This fundamentally differs from games like chess where all information about the game's current state is public. 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. As a computer would not make any physical tells, playing against a computer would necessitate reading tells only from the bets placed. Once the 'mind' of the computer is known it can exploited.

Although you cannot read a computer opponent, playing against computer opponents can still help you sharpen your skills by learning how to count outs and play the percentages. With the advancing technology of artificial intelligence, computer players can be created to incorporate bluffs and other human-like decisions.

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Quotations

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Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring or hard and impersonal. It is fickle and elusive, but ultimately it is fair, and right, and just. — Lou Krieger

If you can't spot the sucker within the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. — common poker saying, as spoken by Matt Damon in Rounders; originally attributed to Amarillo Slim

Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life. — Anthony Holden (from Big Deal)

There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker... Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kindhearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a 'flush'. It is enough to make one ashamed of one's species. — Mark Twain

Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn't play poker. — Amarillo Slim

They anticipate losing when they sit down and I try my darnedest not to disappoint one of them. — Amarillo Slim

Poker is a game of people... It's not the hand I hold, it's the people that I play with. — Amarillo Slim

Hold 'em is to stud what chess is to checkers. — Johnny Moss

The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius. — Big Julie

Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died. — Steven Wright

Cards are war, in disguise of a sport. — Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia (1832)

Poker is a godless game, full of random pain. — Andy Bloch

You call this one and it's all over, baby. — Scotty Nguyen, during the 1998 World Series of Poker. Down to him and one other player, he said this to his opponent who called, and it was all over.

Luck favours the backbone, not the wishbone. — Doyle Brunson

Mae West: Is poker a game of chance? W.C. Fields: Not the way I play it. — My Little Chickadee

Sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand. — Cool Hand Luke, showing his stone-cold bluff after winning a 7-card stud pot

The game exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great. - Walter Matthau

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