The game of poker is one of the most popular card games in the world, enjoyed by millions of people in homes, at card clubs, and casinos. It has become the national card game of the United States, and its play and jargon permeate American culture.
Poker is a card game in which players place bets on the likelihood that they have the best five-card hand. Each betting interval, or round, begins when a player places a bet of one or more chips into the pot. The players to the left of that player can call that bet by putting in the same number of chips, raise it by betting more money than the previous player, or drop out (leave the table).
When all players are done with their action, there is a showdown, at which each remaining player reveals their cards. The player with the best hand wins the pot.
The earliest modern references to Poker come from the 1836 book Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains by J. Hildreth and two slightly later publications that mention it independently of one another. There are many different variations of the game, but all involve hidden cards, a betting phase, and a final showdown. The best-known variants are Texas hold ’em and seven-card stud. In each, the players reveal their cards and evaluate their hands in a showdown, with the player holding the highest-valued five-card hand winning the pot. In some games, there is a tie for the best hand; in this case, the players share the pot equally.