Draw Poker

Poker is by far the most popular card game throughout the world today, measured both by the amount of money that changes hands daily and by the number of players. Thirty years ago Poker was almost exclusively a man’s game; today more women than men play the game largely because so many interesting new Poker variations have sprung up during the past twenty years.
It is impossible to say that any specific earlier card game is the direct ancestor of Poker; it seems to have borrowed elements from many games. The basic principle of Poker is such an obvious one that its use must be very old. When my son John Teeko was about three years old, I gave him 20 shuffled cards, all the aces, kings, queens, jacks, and tens, and without any prompting on my part he separated them into those five groups. The first Poker in this country was played with just such a deck.
The first reference in print to poker which I have found is one by Jonathan H. Green, published in 1834. He gives the rules for what he calls a “cheating game” which was then being played on the Mississippi riverboats. He stated that this was the first time the rules had been published; he noted that the American Hoyle then current did not mention the game; and he called it Poker. The game he described was played with 20 cards – aces, kings, queens, jacks, and tens.

Two , three, or four players could play, and each was dealt five cards. Most dictionaries and game historians say that the world “poker” comes from an early eighteenth-century French game, Poque. Others say it is derived from an old German game, Pochspiel, in which the element of bluffing played a part and the players indicated whether they would pass or open by rapping the table and saying “Ich poche!” A few historians have tried to trace the world to poche, the French world for pocket, and I have even heard it argued Poker derives from the Hindu Pukka. I doubt all these theories. I believe it was originally underworld slang and came from the pickpocket’s term for pocketbook or wallet: poker.
The Mississippi Reiver sharpers who first called the Game of Poker may have gotten their original inspiration in New Orleans from sailors who played a very old Persian game called As-Nas, Whose basic structure is the same. Twenty cards were used, five being dealt to each player. Pairs and such combinations and sequences as form the melds at Rummy were winning combinations, and bluffing was an important factor. As-Nas may also have been the father of the Italian game of Primero and the French Gilet which during the reign of Charles IX (1560-74), became Breland and fathered its variants Bouillotte and Ambigu.

In Le Poker American, as the French play it today, brelan-Carre means four of a kind. The early published poker rules in this country also hinted at French antecedents; the 32 cards piquet pack was used; it was cut to the left; the cards were dealt from the bottom of the deck, and certain combinations of cards bore French names. The draw feature of Poker is found in Ambigu, and the blind, straddles, raise, table stakes, and freeze-out in the pre-Revolutionary Bouillotte. Bluffing and the use of wild cards were important features in the English game of Brag. In all these European games, however, a hand consisted of only three cards. The credit for the use of a five-card had and also the bluff must go to the Persian As-Nas, from which our world Ace may also have come.
In 1845 an early American edition of Hoyle included Twenty Card poker and also “Poker or Bluff.” Twenty years later the American hoyle added the game, calling it simply “bluff.” Perhaps a few players who may have confused it with the English Brag also called it that, but most players have always called it Poker. Game-book editors who do their research in previous game books sometimes still call it “Poker” or “Bluff,” although no player has used the latter term for nearly a century.
There are countless ways to play poker . All have some features in common, such as the rank of the hands and the basic fact that most Poker games eventually posses five cards on the showdown. But all have their points of difference that affect not only the playing rules but also the skill of the game. The selection of a game is not entirely a matter of taste or place. Some games are definitely more suitable to a particular group or a particular place (such as home, club, or casino) than other games. I will list the main subdivisions of poker and make some observations on their suitability for particular groups and places.
For all practical purposes, there are two main divisions or forms of Poker: (1) Draw, or closed, poker, in which all of the players’ cards are unknown to his opponents until the showdown; and (2) stud, or open, poker, in which some of the players’ cards are exposed to all players as the play of the hands progressives draw poker . The Poker rules set forth in this chapter and the next one are not according to Hoyle, but according to Scarne. They are based on modern conventions and conditions of play; have been devised for players who understand and love the game; and are based on exhaustive investigation of current practice. They have been tested in clubs, casinos, and private games throughout the world; are mathematically sound; recognize the realities of the play and are authoritative