POKER

a family of card games, almost invariably played as gambling games. Although played internationally, Poker is most popular in North America. A Poker hand usually consists of five cards. Players try for combinations of two or more cards of a kind, five-card sequences, or five cards of the same suit. (See below Rank of Hands.) Poker is played with a standard 52-card deck in which all suits are of equal value, the cards ranking from the ace high, downward through king, queen, jack, and the numbered cards 10 to the deuce. The ace may also be considered low to form a straight (sequence) ace through five as well as high with kingqueenjack10. Each deal is a separate game in which there is a pot, the aggregate of a preliminary ante and all bets made. There are one or more rounds of betting, and the pot is taken by the player with the best hand, or in some forms of the game it may be divided between two or more players. Additional reading See Oswald Jacoby on Poker (1947) for the game as played in the U.S.; M. Ellinger, Poker (1950), for the game as played in England. Other works include: A. Dowling, Great American Pastime: Notes on Poker, the Game and the Players (1970); Nesmith Askeny, Poker Strategy: Winning with Game Theory (1981).