Poker - what is it? Variations of poker
Poker is a quintessence of card game in which players bet on the value of the card combination ("hand") in their possession, by placing a bet into a chief pot. The winner is the one who holds the hand with the highest value according to an established hand rankings hierarchy, or otherwise the sportswoman who remains in the hand after all others have folded (the player who makes an un-called bet).
Variations
Poker has many variations, all following a comparable pattern of play and using the same hand ranking hierarchy. There are three main families of variants, largely grouped by the conventions of card-dealing and betting:
* "Straight" - A complete hand is dealt to each player, and players bet in one straightforward, with raising and re-raising allowed. This is the oldest poker family; the root of the game as currently played was a dissimulate known as Primero, which evolved into the game Three-card brag (very popular in Britain around the time of the Revolutionary War). "Above-board" hands of five cards are sometimes used as a final showdown, but poker is currently virtually always played in a more complex ritual to allow for additional strategy.
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