The standard 52-card pack, sometimes with the addition of one or two jokers, is used. There is plenty of luck in Poker, but the game requires incredibly great skill as well, and each player is the master of his own fate. Poker can be played socially for pennies or matchsticks, or professionally for thousands of dollars. There are hundreds of versions of Poker, and the game is played not only in private homes, but also in countless Poker rooms at famous casinos.
A variation - Stud Poker - appeared at about the same time. During the Civil War, the key rule about drawing cards to improve one's hand was added. In the 1830s, the game was refined further and became known as Poker. As early as the sixteenth century, Germans played a bluffing game called 'Pochen.' It later developed into a French version, called 'Poque,' which was eventually brought over to New Orleans and played on the riverboats that plied the Mississippi.
