There are as many schools of thoughts and just as many countries making a dash for being the creators of poker as we know it today. The 15th century; German game Pochspiel incorporated bluffing, betting and hand ranking. Iranian As Nas comes very close to Poker as it consisted of dealing five cards to each player out of a twenty-card pack and was known to be popular in the 19th century. The French played a game similar to poker called Poque. The name poker could have either come from this French word poque or from the Irish Poca which is pronounced as Pokah and is derived from the German word pochen which means bragging or bluffing. The English card game of Bragg which descended from French card game Brelan and was part bluffing; too could have contributed and to sum it all up we can say each and every one of these could have constituted bits and parts of Poker as we know it today.

What is common in all these games is that none involves betting which is the corner stone of the Poker as we know it today. This poker came into existence much later in early or mid 18th century and was prevalent in Mississippi River region in US by 1800. At that time it was played with 52 cards and included both straight poker and stud poker. When it was played between just two players then the twenty-card pack was used.