Poker is a family of card games, played worldwide. It is popular in casinos, clubs, and private homes. There are hundreds of variations of the game. The rules are generally the same, but the outcome is significantly affected by chance.

The flop is the first set of three cards placed face up after the first round of betting. The kicker is the highest ranking card remaining in the deck in a hand.

The razz is a lowball variant of poker. The goal is to play the lowest possible hand. Traditionally, the ranking of the cards doesn’t apply. However, the aces are treated as the low card in many cases.

The dealer is the person who shuffles the cards. Each player receives a pair of cards from the deck. Those cards are then dealt clockwise around the table. During each hand, each player can discard up to three cards.

The game of poker is often referred to as the national card game of the United States. It has been a fixture of American culture for many decades. The earliest known form of poker was played with 20 cards. The game was later introduced to French settlers in New Orleans by Persian sailors. It has not been recognized as an Olympic sport yet.

The name poker is thought to come from the Italian word poque, which means a card deck. It is also believed to have ancestry with the French word brelan.