ABOUT THE GAME OF POKER
By: Satta king Poker is called the American national game. (It shares this distinction with baseball.) Actually, poker comes as close to being international as any card game possibly could. It probably originated in Persia; it developed in Europe; it did attain its present form in the United States—probably in the 1830s—but today it is played in every country in which playing cards are known. Nevertheless, since poker reached those countries from the United States and since it is internationally known as our national game, every American as a point of patriotic pride should know how to play an acceptable game of poker. No one knows surely where poker originated, when it originated, or how it got its name. The basic principle of poker is that the most unusual combination of cards is the winning hand. This is such an obvious basis for a game that there may have been ancestors of poker stretching back to the year 894 A.D., when playing cards were invented. (They were invented