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Poker face

Poker FaceSeptember 2012, Academic work

27.55”x17.68”Water color, processed by PS and AI

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Poker is a family of card games involving betting and individualistic play whereby the winner is determined by the ranks and combinations of their cards, some of which remain hidden until the end of the game. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or "community" cards and the number of cards that remain hidden. The betting procedures vary among different poker games in such ways as betting limits and splitting the pot between a high hand and a low hand.

In most modern poker games, the first round of betting begins with one of the players making some form of forced bet (the ante). In standard poker, each player is betting that the hand he or she has will be the highest ranked. The action then proceeds clockwise around the table and each player in turn must either match the maximum previous bet or fold, losing

the amount bet so far and all further interest in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also "raise," or increase the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either matched the last bet or folded. If all but one player fold on any round, then the remaining player collects the pot and may choose to show or conceal their hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, the hands are revealed and the player with the winning hand takes the

pot. With the exception of initial forced bets, money is only placed into the pot voluntarily by a player who, at least in theory, rationally believes the bet has positive expected value. 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 gained in popularity since the beginning of the twentieth century, and has gone from being primarily a

recreational activity confined to small groups of mostly male enthusiasts, to a widely popular spectator activity with international audiences and multi-million dollar tournament prizes.English actor Joseph Crowell[who?] reported[where?] that the game was played in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1829, with a deck of 20 cards, and four players betting on which player's hand was the most valuable.[citation needed] Jonathan H.

Green's book, An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling (G. B. Zieber, Philadelphia, 1843), described the spread of the game from there to the rest of the country by Mississippi riverboats, on which gambling was a common pastime. As it spread north along the Mississippi River and to the West during the gold rush, it is thought to have become a part of the frontier pioneer ethos.Soon after this spread, the full 52-card English deck[citation needed] was used and the flush was introduced. The draw was added prior to 1850 (when it was first mentioned in print in a handbook of games).[1] During the American Civil War, many additions were made including stud poker (specifically five-card stud), and the straight. Further American

developments followed, such as the wild card (around 1875), lowball and split-pot poker (around 1900), and community card poker games (around 1925).Modern tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began, in 1970.[2] Notable champions from these early WSOP tournaments include Johnny Moss, Amarillo Slim, Bobby Baldwin, Doyle Brunson, and Puggy Pearson. Later in the 1970s, the first serious poker strategy books appeared, notably Super/System by Doyle

Brunson (ISBN 1-58042-081-8) and Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro (ISBN 0-89746-100-2), followed later by The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN 1-880685-00-0). By the 1980s, poker was being depicted in popular culture as a commonplace recreational activity. For example, it was featured in at least 10 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a weekly event of the senior staff of the fictional ship's crew.[3] In the 1990s, poker and casino gambling

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