Poker

A full-house in the card game of poker.

Poker is a popular gambling card game played worldwide and often seen being played in saloons in American Western movies. It can be played in many different forms, and has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years with the advent of Texas Hold'em Poker events being shown on television.

Unlike other card games, the interaction does not involve playing cards in response to the opponents. Instead players make bets in turn, based on the strength of the cards in their hand and private guesses about their opponents hands. Winning is based on a ranking of different five-card sequences, but a cunning player may be able to win by bluffing, even with a weak hand of cards.

There are numerous versions of pokers. In some, players have a concealed hand of five cards, while in others some cards are visible on the table and players make up hands of five based on these and other cards in their hand. Although poker can be played for poker chips alone, it is more often played for money, either in casinos or privately among friends with smaller money stakes.

A poker is also the name given to a metal stick, often ornate, that was used to rearrange (literally poke) coals or wood when fires still burned solid fuels. Since the widespread usage of gas and electric fires, they are now seen as being more decorative than functional.