Poker is a card game played by a group of players around a table. It is a fast-paced game with bets placed continuously until one player has all the chips or everyone folds. The game requires skill, as the players must minimize their losses with poor hands and maximize their winnings with good ones. In addition, there is a considerable element of chance in Poker.
To play, each player places an initial contribution to the pot called an ante or blind bet. Then the dealer shuffles and deals each player his or her cards. The players can then place bets on their hands, based on the strength of the cards they have. The best hand wins the pot. Depending on the rules of the poker game, the players may also choose to bluff their opponents for various strategic reasons.
The earliest known references to Poker appear in J. Hildreth’s Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains (1836) and in the published reminiscences of two unconnected witnesses: Jonathan H. Green in Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling (1843) and Joe Cowell in Thirty Years Passed Among the Players in England and America (1829). It was in this form that the game was most commonly played on riverboats plying the Mississippi.
A good poker player must be able to read the tells of his or her opponents’ nonverbal behavior. He must be able to estimate how much of his opponents’ decisions are based on information that is available to all the players, and how much is based on uncertainty.
