The following combinations of cards were decisive: three of a kind, a pair and three cards of the same suit. Later joker-like cards were added. At around 1700 the bluffing character was introduced becoming Brag in England and in German-speaking countries Pochen (to knock or rap). Pochen, in turn, originates in name and rules from an old German Bock game, the name being derived from the Bock card. Each player receives 5 cards and wins with 4 of a kind or 4 aces or complete numerical series. Both games require sharp observation of the competition, power of deduction, intuition, deceit and self-control.

 

Game researchers also trace poker back to the old German game of Pochen, in which bluffing is required. During the game you announce whether you pass or play (pochen). The French variation of Poque, from which the word poker may be derived, developed from Pochen in the early 18^th Century. Other less likely variations take the French word for pocket – poche, or even the Indian word pukka as the root of poker. Bock or Pochen or Poque were then brought to the New World by emigrants at the turn of the 19^th Century, to be refined into what we now know as poker. Around 1800 Poque was already popular in the then French parts of North America – in the areas around New Orleans. English-speaking descendants of former emigrants made poker out of it, the game being first mentioned in 1830.