1.
Texas hold 'em
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Texas hold em is a variation of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as the cards, are dealt face down to each player. The stages consist of a series of three cards, later a single card and a final card. Each player seeks the best five card poker hand from the combination of the community cards, if a players best five card poker hand consists only of the five community cards and none of the players hole cards, it is called playing the board. Players have betting options to check, call, raise or fold, rounds of betting take place before the flop is dealt, and after each subsequent deal. Texas hold em is the H game featured in H. O. R. S. E, in Texas hold em, as in all variants of poker, individuals compete for an amount of money or chips contributed by the players themselves. The game is divided into a series of hands, at the conclusion of each hand, the objective of winning players is not to win every individual hand, but rather to make mathematically and psychologically better decisions regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call—or fold. Ones pattern of betting may encourage opponents to bet or to fold, the winning poker players know how to enhance their opponents betting and maximize their own expected gain on each round of betting, to thereby increase their long-term winnings. Although little is known about the invention of Texas hold em, after the game spread throughout Texas, hold em was introduced to Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan gamblers and card players, including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim. This is when ace high was changed from the form in which aces were low. Addington said the first time he saw the game was in 1959 and they didnt call it Texas hold em at the time, they just called it hold em. … I thought then that if it were to catch on, it would become the game. Draw poker, you bet only twice, hold em, you bet four times and that meant you could play strategically. This was more of a mans game. For several years the Golden Nugget Casino in Downtown Las Vegas was the only casino in Las Vegas to offer the game, at that time, the Golden Nuggets poker room was truly a sawdust joint, with…oiled sawdust covering the floors. Because of its location and decor, this room did not receive many rich drop-in clients. In 1969, the Las Vegas professionals were invited to play Texas hold em at the entrance of the now-demolished Dunes Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. This prominent location, and the inexperience of poker players with Texas hold em. After a failed attempt to establish a Gambling Fraternity Convention, Tom Moore added the first ever poker tournament to the Second Annual Gambling Fraternity Convention held in 1969 and this tournament featured several games including Texas hold em
2.
Card game
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A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games, a small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules, but most are folk games whose rules vary by region, culture, and person. Many games that are not generally placed in the family of games do in fact use cards for some aspect of their gameplay. Similarly, some games that are placed in the game genre involve a board. Given the association of card games and gambling, the pope, Benedict XIV, a card game is played with a deck or pack of playing cards which are identical in size and shape. Each card has two sides, the face and the back, normally the backs of the cards are indistinguishable. The faces of the cards may all be unique, or there can be duplicates, the composition of a deck is known to each player. In some cases several decks are shuffled together to form a pack or shoe. The first playing cards appeared in the century during Tang dynasty China. The Song dynasty statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu has noted that playing cards arose in connection to an earlier development in the book format from scrolls to pages. During the Ming dynasty, characters from novels such as the Water Margin were widely featured on the faces of playing cards. A precise description of Chinese money playing cards survived from the 15th century, mahjong tiles are a 19th-century invention based on three-suited money playing card decks, similar to the way in which Rummikub tiles were derived recently from modern Western playing cards. The same kind of games can also be played with tiles made of wood, plastic, bone, the most notable examples of such tile sets are dominoes, mahjong tiles and Rummikub tiles. Chinese dominoes are also available as playing cards and it is not clear whether Emperor Muzong of Liao really played with domino cards as early as 969, though. Legend dates the invention of dominoes in the year 1112,500 years later domino cards were reported as a new invention. Playing cards first appeared in Europe in the last quarter of the 14th century, the 1430s in Italy saw the invention of the tarot deck, a full Latin-suited deck augmented by suitless cards with painted motifs that played a special role as trumps. Tarot card games are played with these decks in parts of Central Europe. A full tarot deck contains 14 cards in suit, low cards labeled 1–10, and court cards Valet, Chevalier, Dame, and Roi, plus the Fool or Excuse card
3.
Gambling
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Gambling is the wagering of money or something of value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning money or material goods. Gambling thus requires three elements be present, consideration, chance and prize, the term gaming in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. However, this distinction is not universally observed in the English-speaking world, for instance, in the United Kingdom, the regulator of gambling activities is called the Gambling Commission. Gambling is also an international commercial activity, with the legal gambling market totaling an estimated $335 billion in 2009. In other forms, gambling can be conducted with materials which have a value, many popular games played in modern casinos originate from Europe and China. Games such as craps, baccarat, roulette, and blackjack originate from different areas of Europe, a version of keno, an ancient Chinese lottery game, is played in casinos around the world. In addition, pai gow poker, a hybrid between pai gow and poker is also played, many jurisdictions, local as well as national, either ban gambling or heavily control it by licensing the vendors. Such regulation generally leads to gambling tourism and illegal gambling in the areas where it is not allowed, there is generally legislation requiring that the odds in gaming devices are statistically random, to prevent manufacturers from making some high-payoff results impossible. Since these high-payoffs have very low probability, a bias can quite easily be missed unless the odds are checked carefully. Most jurisdictions that allow gambling require participants to be above a certain age, in some jurisdictions, the gambling age differs depending on the type of gambling. For example, in many American states one must be over 21 to enter a casino, E. g. Nonetheless, both insurance and gambling contracts are typically considered aleatory contracts under most legal systems, though they are subject to different types of regulation. Under common law, particularly English Law, a contract may not give a casino bona fide purchaser status. For case law on recovery of gambling losses where the loser had stolen the funds see Rights of owner of money as against one who won it in gambling transaction from thief. This was a plot point in a Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Singing Skirt. Religious perspectives on gambling have been mixed, ancient Hindu poems like the Gamblers Lament and the Mahabharata testify to the popularity of gambling among ancient Indians. However, the text Arthashastra recommends taxation and control of gambling, ancient Jewish authorities frowned on gambling, even disqualifying professional gamblers from testifying in court. For these social and religious reasons, most legal jurisdictions limit gambling, in at least one case, the same bishop opposing a casino has sold land to be used for its construction. Although different interpretations of law exist in the Muslim world
4.
Psychology
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Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought. It is a discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioral, Psychologists explore behavior and mental processes, including perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. This extends to interaction between people, such as relationships, including psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas. Psychologists of diverse orientations also consider the unconscious mind, Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Psychology has been described as a hub science, with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the sciences, natural sciences, medicine, humanities. By many accounts psychology ultimately aims to benefit society, the majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a range of topics related to mental processes and behavior. The word psychology derives from Greek roots meaning study of the psyche, the Latin word psychologia was first used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century. In 1890, William James defined psychology as the science of mental life and this definition enjoyed widespread currency for decades. Also since James defined it, the more strongly connotes techniques of scientific experimentation. Folk psychology refers to the understanding of people, as contrasted with that of psychology professionals. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, historians note that Greek philosophers, including Thales, Plato, and Aristotle, addressed the workings of the mind. As early as the 4th century BC, Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders had physical rather than supernatural causes, in China, psychological understanding grew from the philosophical works of Laozi and Confucius, and later from the doctrines of Buddhism. This body of knowledge involves insights drawn from introspection and observation and it frames the universe as a division of, and interaction between, physical reality and mental reality, with an emphasis on purifying the mind in order to increase virtue and power. Chinese scholarship focused on the advanced in the Qing Dynasty with the work of Western-educated Fang Yizhi, Liu Zhi. Distinctions in types of awareness appear in the ancient thought of India, a central idea of the Upanishads is the distinction between a persons transient mundane self and their eternal unchanging soul. Divergent Hindu doctrines, and Buddhism, have challenged this hierarchy of selves, yoga is a range of techniques used in pursuit of this goal
5.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
6.
Omaha hold 'em
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Omaha uses a 52-card French deck. Limit Omaha hold em 8-or-better is the O game featured in H. O. R. S. E, both limit Omaha/8 and pot limit Omaha high are featured in the 8-Game. Omaha Holdem gets its name from two types of games, in the original Omaha poker game, players were only dealt two hole cards and had to use both to make a hand combined with community cards. This version of Omaha is defined in the glossary of Super/System as being interchangeable with Tight Holdem, across all the variations of the game, the requirement of using exactly two hole cards is the only consistent rule. The Omaha part of the name represents this aspect of the game, Holdem refers to a game using community cards that are shared by all players. In North American casinos, the term Omaha can refer to several poker games, the original game is also commonly known as Omaha high. A high-low split version called Omaha Hi-Lo, or sometimes Omaha eight-or-better or Omaha/8, is also played, in Europe, Omaha still typically refers to the high version of the game, usually played pot-limit. Pot-limit Omaha is often abbreviated as PLO, Pot-limit and no-limit Omaha eight-or-better can be found in some casinos and online, though no-limit is rarer. It is often said that Omaha is a game of the nuts, i. e. the best possible high or low hand, because it frequently takes the nuts to win a showdown. It is also a game where between the cards in his hand and the community cards a player may have drawing possibilities to multiple different types of holdings, for example, a player may have both a draw to a flush and a full house using different combinations of cards. At times, even seasoned players may need time to figure what draws are possible for their hand. The basic differences between Omaha and Texas hold em are these, first, each player is dealt four cards instead of two. The betting rounds and layout of community cards are identical, at showdown, each players hand is the best five-card hand made from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of the players own cards. Unlike Texas hold em, a player cannot play four or five of the cards on the board with fewer than two of his own, nor can a player use three or four cards to disguise a strong hand. A player with 2♠ 3♠ K♦ J♦ can play the spade flush, the same thing applies to straights. In Omaha, a player use only one hole card. For example, with a board of 5♠ 6♥ 7♦ 8♥ A♠, a player with J♦ J♠ 4♦ 9♠ or J♦ J♠ 9♦ 9♠ cannot play a straight. But a player with J♦ J♠ 4♦ 3♠ can play a straight from 3 to 7, a player with J♣ 2♣ 9♠ 10♠ can use his J-9 to play the full house J♠ J♦ J♣ 9♠ 9♦
7.
Slot machine
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A slot machine, informally fruit machine, puggy, the slots, poker machine or simply slot, is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed. Many modern machines are equipped with a legacy lever in addition to the button. Slot machines include a currency detector that validates the money inserted to play, the machine pays off according to patterns of symbols visible on the front of the machine when it stops. Modern computer technology has resulted in variations on the slot machine concept, Slot machines are the most popular gambling method in casinos and constitute about 70 percent of the average US casinos income. The slot machine term derives from the slots on the machine for inserting and retrieving coins, fruit machine comes from the traditional fruit images on the spinning reels, such as lemons and cherries. Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York, U. S. developed a machine in 1891 which was a precursor to the modern slot machine. It contained five drums holding a total of 50 card faces and was based on poker and this machine proved extremely popular and soon many bars in the city had one or more of the machines. Players would insert a nickel and pull a lever, which would spin the drums and the cards they held, the player hoping for a good poker hand. To make the better for the house, two cards were typically removed from the deck, the ten of spades and the jack of hearts. The drums could also be rearranged to further reduce a players chance of winning, the bell gave the machine its name. Three bells in a row produced the biggest payoff, ten nickels, Liberty Bell was a huge success and spawned a thriving mechanical gaming device industry. Even when the use of these devices was banned in his home state after a few years. The Liberty Bell machine was so popular that it was copied by many slot machine manufacturers, thus in 1907, manufacturer Herbert Mills from Chicago produced a slot machine called the Operator Bell. By 1908 lots of bell machines were installed in most cigar stores, saloons, bowling alleys, brothels, early machines, including an 1899 Liberty Bell, are now part of the Nevada State Museums Fey Collection. Other early machines, such as the trade stimulator, gave out winnings in the form of fruit-flavoured chewing gums with pictures of the flavours as symbols on the reels, the popular cherry and melon symbols derive from this machine. The BAR symbol now common in slot machines was derived from a logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company. In these cases, a mint vending machine was declared to be a device because by chance the machine would occasionally give the next user a number of tokens exchangeable for more candy. Despite the fact that the result of the next use would be displayed on the machine, the courts ruled that he appealed to the players propensity to gamble
8.
Blackjack
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Blackjack, also known as twenty-one, is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. Blackjack is a card game between a player and dealer, meaning players compete against the dealer but not against other players. It is played one or more decks of 52 cards. The player or players are dealt a hand and add together the value of their cards. Face cards are counted as ten points, a player and the dealer can count an ace as 1 point or 11 points. All other cards are counted as the value shown on the card. After receiving their first two cards, players have the option of getting a hit, or taking an additional card, in a given round, the player or the dealer wins by having a score of 21 or by having the higher score that is less than 21. Scoring higher than 21 results in a loss, a player may win by having any final score equal to or less than 21 if the dealer busts. The dealer must hit until the cards total 17 or more points, Players win by not busting and having a total higher than the dealers. The dealer loses by busting or having a lesser hand than the player who has not busted, If the player and dealer have the same total, this is called a push, and the player typically does not win or lose money on that hand. If all available players bust, the hand ends automatically without the dealer having to play his or her hand, Blackjack has inspired other casino games, including Spanish 21 and pontoon. Blackjacks precursor was twenty-one, a game of unknown origin, the first written reference is found in a book by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, most famous for writing Don Quixote. Cervantes was a gambler, and the characters of his tale Rinconete y Cortadillo. They are proficient at cheating at ventiuna, and state that the object of the game is to reach 21 points without going over, the game is played with the Spanish baraja deck, which lacks eights and nines. This short story was written between 1601 and 1602, implying that ventiuna was played in Castilla since the beginning of the 17th century or earlier, later references to this game are found in France and Spain. When twenty-one was introduced in the United States, gambling houses offered bonus payouts to stimulate players interest, One such bonus was a ten-to-one payout if the players hand consisted of the ace of spades and a black jack. This hand was called a blackjack, and the name stuck to the even though the ten-to-one bonus was soon withdrawn. In the modern game, a blackjack refers to any hand of an ace plus a ten or face card regardless of suits or colours, at a casino blackjack table, the dealer faces five to seven playing positions from behind a semicircular table
9.
Casino
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A casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. The industry that deals in casinos is called the gaming industry, casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions. There is much debate whether or not the social and economic consequences of casino gambling outweigh the initial revenue that may be generated. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertainment events, such as comedy, concerts. The term casino is a confusing linguistic false friend for translators, Casino is of Italian origin, the root casa originally meant a small country villa, summerhouse, or social club. In modern-day Italian, the term designates a bordello, while the gambling house is spelled casinò with an accent. Not all casinos were used for gaming, the Copenhagen Casino was a theatre, known for the mass public meetings often held in its hall during the 1848 Revolution, which made Denmark a constitutional monarchy. Until 1937, it was a well-known Danish theatre, the Hanko Casino in Hanko, Finland—one of that towns most conspicuous landmarks—was never used for gambling. Rather, it was a hall for the Russian nobility which frequented this spa resort in the late 19th century and is now used as a restaurant. In military and non-military usage in German and Spanish, a casino or kasino is an officers mess, in Italian—the source-language of the word—a casino is either a brothel, a mess, or a noisy environment, while a gaming house is called a casinò. The precise origin of gambling is unknown and it is generally believed that gambling in some form or another has been seen in almost every society in history. From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Napoleons France and Elizabethan England and it was closed in 1774 as the city government felt it was impoverishing the local gentry. In American history, early gambling establishments were known as saloons, the creation and importance of saloons was greatly influenced by four major cities, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco. It was in the saloons that travelers could find people to talk to, drink with, during the early 20th century in America, gambling became outlawed and banned by state legislation and social reformers of the time. However, in 1931, gambling was legalized throughout the state of Nevada, Americas first legalized casinos were set up in those places. In 1976 New Jersey allowed gambling in Atlantic City, now Americas second largest gambling city, most jurisdictions worldwide have a minimum gambling age. Customers gamble by playing games of chance, in cases with an element of skill, such as craps, roulette, baccarat, blackjack. Most games played have mathematically determined odds that ensure the house has at all times an overall advantage over the players and this can be expressed more precisely by the notion of expected value, which is uniformly negative
10.
Probability
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Probability is the measure of the likelihood that an event will occur. Probability is quantified as a number between 0 and 1, the higher the probability of an event, the more certain that the event will occur. A simple example is the tossing of a fair coin, since the coin is unbiased, the two outcomes are both equally probable, the probability of head equals the probability of tail. Since no other outcomes are possible, the probability is 1/2 and this type of probability is also called a priori probability. Probability theory is used to describe the underlying mechanics and regularities of complex systems. For example, tossing a coin twice will yield head-head, head-tail, tail-head. The probability of getting an outcome of head-head is 1 out of 4 outcomes or 1/4 or 0.25 and this interpretation considers probability to be the relative frequency in the long run of outcomes. A modification of this is propensity probability, which interprets probability as the tendency of some experiment to yield a certain outcome, subjectivists assign numbers per subjective probability, i. e. as a degree of belief. The degree of belief has been interpreted as, the price at which you would buy or sell a bet that pays 1 unit of utility if E,0 if not E. The most popular version of subjective probability is Bayesian probability, which includes expert knowledge as well as data to produce probabilities. The expert knowledge is represented by some prior probability distribution and these data are incorporated in a likelihood function. The product of the prior and the likelihood, normalized, results in a probability distribution that incorporates all the information known to date. The scientific study of probability is a development of mathematics. Gambling shows that there has been an interest in quantifying the ideas of probability for millennia, there are reasons of course, for the slow development of the mathematics of probability. Whereas games of chance provided the impetus for the study of probability. According to Richard Jeffrey, Before the middle of the century, the term probable meant approvable. A probable action or opinion was one such as people would undertake or hold. However, in legal contexts especially, probable could also apply to propositions for which there was good evidence, the sixteenth century Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano demonstrated the efficacy of defining odds as the ratio of favourable to unfavourable outcomes
11.
Primero
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Primero, is a 16th-century gambling card game of which the earliest reference dates back to 1526. Primero is closely related to the game of primo visto, if not the same and it still seems uncertain whether the game of primero is of Spanish or Italian origin. His work entitled Capitolo del Gioco della Primiera, published in Rome in 1526, according to David Parlett, the games card-point system is found in other Italian games but nowhere else. The game is very much played in central Europe and Spain with Italian-suited cards, under the name of goffo or bambara. This old game of cards was called prime in France, primera in Spain, all names derived from the Latin primarius, first. In English literature, besides the use of the foreign names. Primero is actually a Spanish word, meaning first or chief, according to Stephen Skinner, primero and prima-vista are one and the same game. As for John Minshew, primero and prima-vista, are two different games of cards, so, as the Italian writer Berni said, The game is played differently in different places. The cards used are marked as at present, although they differ from those of modern times for being narrower and longer. Eight of the lie on the table with the blank side uppermost, for the cards at that time had blank backs. A particular in this painting is one of the players is seen showing his cards, which are, the jack of hearts. This particular shows that the then used were at least sometimes obtained from France. The money on the table, together with considerable heaps of gold and silver, appears to be coins of Edward VI, a passage in an old play by Robert Greene has been quoted by several writers as evidence that primero was a gambling game. But a person who objects to cards, might make such a remark with respect to any card game, judging from the partial descriptions of the game which remain to us, it might seem that primero was played for either large or small stakes, as agreed upon. John Florio describes primero played by two persons for one shilling stake and three rest, in Minsheus Spanish Dialogues, four play, the stake is two shillings and the rest, eight. The text is self-explanatory, explaining also the meaning of the name primero. Already during the reign of Henry VII, notices of money issued several times for the Kings losses at cards appear in the Remembrances Office, dated December the 26th, in the ninth year of his reign. There, an entry is made of one hundred shillings paid at one time to him for the purpose of playing at cards, the private expenses of Princess Mary, Henry VIIIs daughter and later Queen, also contain numerous items of money for the playe at cardes
12.
History of poker
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Poker is a family of card games that combine gambling, strategy, and skill. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or community cards, the number of cards that remain hidden, and the betting procedures. In most modern games, the first round of betting begins with one or more of the players making some form of a forced bet. In standard poker, each player bets according to the rank they believe their hand is worth as compared to the other players. The action then proceeds clockwise as each player in turn must either match, or call, a player who matches a bet may also raise, or increase the bet. The betting round ends when all players have called the last bet or folded. If all but one player folds on any round, the player collects the pot without being required to reveal their hand. If more than one remains in contention after the final betting round, a showdown takes place where the hands are revealed. By the 1990s some gaming historians including David Parlett started to challenge the notion that poker is a derivative of As-Nas. There is evidence that a game called poque, a French game similar to poker, was played around the region where poker is said to have originated. The name of the game likely descended from the Irish Poca or even the French poque, yet it is not clear whether the origins of poker itself lie with the games bearing those names. It is commonly regarded as sharing ancestry with the Renaissance game of primero, the English game brag clearly descended from brelan and incorporated bluffing. It is quite possible that all of these earlier games influenced the development of poker as it exists now, the unique features of poker have to do with the betting, and do not appear in any known older game. In this view poker originated much later, in the early or mid-18th century and it was played in a variety of forms, with 52 cards, and included both straight poker and stud. 20 card poker was a variant for two players, the development of poker is linked to the historical movement that also saw the invention of commercial gambling. English actor Joseph Crowell reported that the game was played in New Orleans in 1829, with a deck of 20 cards, and four players betting on which players hand was the most valuable. As it spread north along the Mississippi River and to the West during the gold rush, soon after this spread, the full 52-card French deck was used and the flush was introduced. The draw was added prior to 1850, during the American Civil War, many additions were made including stud poker, and the straight
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