Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, but in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game was played with just 20 cards, today it is usually played with a standard 52-card deck, although in countries where short packs are common, it may be played with 32, 40 or 48 cards. Thus poker games vary in deck configuration, the number of cards in play, the number dealt face up or face down and the number shared by all players, but all have rules that involve one or more rounds of betting.
Texas hold 'em is the most popular variant of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt face up in three stages. The stages consist of a series of three cards, later an additional single card, and a final card. Each player seeks the best five-card poker hand from any combination of the seven cards: the five community cards and their two hole cards. 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. The player who has the best hand and has not folded by the end of all betting rounds wins all of the money bet for the hand, known as the pot. In certain situations, a "split pot" or "tie" can occur when two players have hands of equivalent value. This is also called "chop the pot". Texas hold 'em is also the H game featured in HORSE and HOSE.
Doyle Frank Brunson was an American poker player who played professionally for over 60 years. He was a two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion, a Poker Hall of Fame inductee, and the author of several books on poker.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the final table of each tournament.
Johnny Chan (Chinese: 陳金海; is an American professional poker player. He has won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, including the 1987 and 1988 World Series of Poker main events consecutively.
Howard Henry Lederer is an American professional poker player. He has won two World Series of Poker bracelets and holds two World Poker Tour titles. Lederer has also contributed to several books on poker strategy and has provided commentary for poker programming. He is known by poker fans and players as "The Professor" and is the older brother of professional poker player Annie Duke.
Dan Harrington is a professional poker player, best known for winning the Main Event at the 1995 World Series of Poker. He has earned one World Poker Tour title, two WSOP bracelets, and over six million dollars in tournament cashes in his poker career. He is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.
Lyle Arnold Berman is an American professional poker player and business executive.
Johnny Moss was a gambler and professional poker player. He was the first winner of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, at the time a cash game event in which he was awarded the title by the vote of his peers in 1970. He also twice won the current tournament format of the WSOP Main Event in 1971 and 1974. He was one of the charter inductees into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.
Barry Greenstein is an American professional poker player and former mathematics postgraduate student. He has won a number of major events, including three at the World Series of Poker and two on the World Poker Tour. Greenstein donates part of his profit from tournament winnings to charities, primarily Children Incorporated, earning him the nickname "the Robin Hood of poker". He was elected into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2011.
Daniel Negreanu is a Canadian professional poker player who has won seven World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, independent poker ranking service Global Poker Index recognized Negreanu as the best poker player of the previous decade.
Michael Richard Sexton was an American professional poker player and commentator. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2009.
Anthony Ivan Holden was an English writer, broadcaster and literary critic, particularly known as a biographer of artists including Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky, the essayist Leigh Hunt, the opera librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte and the actor Laurence Olivier, and of members of the British royal family, notably Charles, Prince of Wales. He also published translations of opera and Ancient Greek poetry, as well as several autobiographical books about poker. In 2009, he was elected the first President of the International Federation of Poker (IFP).
Michael Matusow is an American professional poker player residing in Henderson, Nevada. Matusow's nickname of "the Mouth" reflects his reputation for trash-talking at the poker table.
Chau Tu Giang is an American professional poker player who is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and a three-time final tablist of the World Poker Tour with over $3 million in live tournament winnings alone.
PokerStars is an online poker cardroom. It is the largest real money online poker site in the world, controlling over two-thirds of the total online poker market, and can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.
Russell Aaron Boyd, commonly known as Dutch Boyd, is an American professional poker player from Culver City, California.
Eric Drache is a professional poker player, former cardroom manager and consultant for NBC. Drache is best known for his management contributions to the poker world, and he is also a notable seven-card stud player. He finished second in World Series of Poker stud events in 1973, 1981, and 2009.
Bigger Deal: A Year Inside the Poker Boom is Anthony Holden's follow-up to his 1990 book Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player. The book follows Holden's return to professional poker fifteen years after his last adventure ended. The book begins with the WSOP 2005, following him around the world to eventually return to Las Vegas for the WSOP 2006.
Big Deal or The Big Deal may refer to:
