Make sure you know the house rules where you plan to play, and don't be afraid to ask - before you buy-in.

If you're playing in a major tournament at a casino, the casino's rules apply. If you play on Friday nights at your cousin's house, your cousin decides the house rules. Knowing the standard poker rules gives you a good foundation, but there are dozens of house rules that may be in effect, depending on where you play. There is no national or international regulating organization for the game of poker the rules are simply passed down through tradition and experience. Most poker games use a standard 52-card deck of playing cards. At some point, this Anglicized version of the word poque became 'poker.' The first written mention of 'poker' was in 1834. Con men who plied the riverboats adapted the game, using it to relieve their victims of their 'poke,' or cash. Most likely, these two games came to be melded together into one, and as travelers spread the game up the Mississippi River, they changed it to suit their own purposes.

Persian sailors, at port in New Orleans, taught the French settlers the Persian game called âs, which uses decks of cards comprised of five suits. Gaming has been popular in every culture throughout history, so it is likely that different versions of the playing-card deck were developed independently by different cultures at different times.Įarly French settlers who came to New Orleans played a card game called poque, which involved bluffing and betting. In Europe, Tarot decks used for fortune telling are an obvious link in the lineage of the playing card. Some say playing cards were developed by the Chinese as a variation on dominoes.

The origins of playing cards and poker are difficult to pin down.

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