Poker

Thus, while the outcome of any particular hand significantly involves chance, the long-run expectations of the players are determined by their actions chosen on the basis of probability, psychology and game theory.

Poker has increased in popularity since the beginning of the 21st century, and has gone from being primarily a recreational activity confined to small groups of enthusiasts to a widely popular activity, both for participants and spectators, including online, with many professional players and multimillion-dollar tournament prizes.

However, in the 1990s the notion that poker is a direct derivative of As-Nas began to be challenged by gaming historians including David Parlett.

What is certain, however, is that poker was popularized in the American South in the early 19th century, as gambling riverboats in the Mississippi River and around New Orleans during the 1830s helped spread the game.

One early description of poker was played on a steamboat in 1829 is recorded by the English actor, Joe Cowell.

The game was played with twenty cards ranking from Ace (high) to Ten (low).

[4] In contrast to this version of poker, seven-card stud only appeared in the middle of the 19th century, and was largely spread by the US military.

[6] Texas hold 'em and other community card games began to dominate the gambling scenes over the next couple of decades.

Straight flush In casual play, the right to deal a hand typically rotates among the players and is marked by a token called a dealer button (or buck).

Poker has many variations,[7][8] all following a similar pattern of play[9] and generally using the same hand ranking hierarchy.

For the player to win, the third card dealt (after an opportunity to raise the bet) must have a value in-between the first two.

In a January 2015 article[10] published in Science, a group of researchers mostly from the University of Alberta announced that they "essentially weakly solved" heads-up limit Texas Hold 'em with their development of their Cepheus poker bot.

The authors claimed that Cepheus would lose at most 0.001 big blinds per game on average against its worst-case opponent, and the strategy is thus so "close to optimal" that "it can't be beaten with statistical significance within a lifetime of human poker playing.