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ABOUT THE GAME OF POKER

No one knows surely where poker originated, when it origi­nated, or how it got its name. The basic principle of poker is that the most unusual combination of cards is the winning hand. This is such an obvious basis for a game that there may have been ancestors of poker stretching back to the year 894 a.d., when playing cards were invented. (They were invented by the Chinese.) At least four hundred years ago the Persians had a game called As Nas in which there was a twenty-card deck, four players, five cards dealt to each, and betting on which player had the best hand. Since no cards were left over, there could be no draw; and the idea of stud poker had not yet been thought of. As early as the late 1600s, the Germans had a game that they called pochen, their word meaning to "bluff," or "to brag," and from this game developed the early English game brag and the French game poque. It cannot be proved but it is irresistibly plausible that our name poker derived from this French name poque.

Until the Louisiana Purchase, in the year 1803, New Orleans and the entire Mississippi River and its valley were French territory. The people spoke French and if they played card games they played French card games. After the Louisiana Purchase thousands of English-speaking citizens of the new United States poured into the territory and took over the city of New Orleans and the Mississippi Valley, but they could not help being influenced by the French customs and terms that they found there. So they adopted the French game poque but changed its name to the familiar English word poker. That, at least, is the logical assumption; and while no one can prove it, all poker historians have accepted it.

We are all familiar with the prototype (and stereotype) of the Mississippi River steamboat game that arose sometime in the 1830s and prevailed at least until the Civil War. The rules were very simple. Each player was dealt five cards face down, and after the deal was finished everyone bet on whether or not he had the best hand. There was no limit and either of two customs governed the betting (it is hard, here, to differentiate between fact and legend): A man could bet anything he wanted to. His opponent, according to some stories, could always call ("have a sight") for as much money as he had with him; or, according to other stories, his opponent was always given twenty-four hours to raise the money required to call.

The entire history of poker since that time is the history of repeated efforts to pep up the game, to encourage players to stay in and to bet. Mathematically, a man playing straight poker (no draw) in a two-handed game should bet against his one oppo­nent if he has some such hand as a pair of fives. Psychologically it doesn't work out that way. The hand just doesn't look good enough. So first the element of the draw was added, giving a venturesome player hope of improving when he wasn't dealt a good hand originally; then a few extra winning hands, such as the straight, were added; then the ante was added, so that there would always be something in the pot for a player to shoot for; then came wild cards, and then stud poker, and then freak games of all kinds, and now it has reached a point at which there are probably thousands of different games called poker. These games are all related yet no two are exactly alike. Therefore you can make few general statements that apply to all games; in fact, you can make few general statements that apply to even two or three games.

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