现在是成为一个扑克玩家的最好时机。事实上，每天都会有大量新玩家加入到这种游戏。随着越来越多的人寻求机会来玩扑克，更多的扑克室和网上赌场相继开放。因此，扑克在一些电视和一些书籍的信息量增加，这反过来又使得更多的玩家加入到这一种游戏。如此循环下去，使得扑克迅猛普及。

　　本文将讨论许多关于扑克的基本知识。从纸牌游戏的扑克玩家的排名开始，到纸牌游戏的相关术语。但一切都得先从简单的开始，我们将先从扑克的历史入门。

　　扑克的起源很多人可能在西方电影看到玩扑克的场景，同时也有些人可能听说过密西西比河河船赌徒的故事，居于这些原因，很多人一直相信扑克是从1900年开始在美国流行的。其实，这两个假设都不成立。

　　实际的扑克起源无人知晓。有人说，早在公元十世纪，中国就已经开始玩扑克游戏了；考古学家研究cardlike项目，则认为扑克游戏在第十二或十三世纪出现在埃及，当然，我们不知道埃及人使用的是哪些牌，但它可能已成为第一种扑克形式。我们知道，在16世纪，印度人开始玩Ganjifa博彩游戏，这一种游戏使用了96张牌；而波斯人则在17世纪玩由五个玩家组成的纸牌游戏，这种游戏被称为NAS，使用25张牌。

　　目前欧洲国家都是玩52张牌的扑克游戏。在15世纪，法国推出了俱乐部，钻石，心形，并称为Poque游戏。扑克”这一个词很有可能就是从这个词中衍生出来的。然而，其他人则认为，“扑克”这一个词来自德国纸牌游戏pochspiel，或德国的唬人游戏pochen，其历史可追溯到十六世纪。

　　最终，在十八世纪后期，扑克在美国流行，并继续扩散到整个北美。

　　译文

       Poker BasicsRight now is the best time to be a poker player. In fact, new players are entering into the game every day in large numbers. As more people seek opportunities to play poker, more poker rooms and Web sites are opening up. As a result, the coverage of poker on television and the number of books and amount of information made available increases, which in turn bring more players into the game. This cycle continues to feed itself so that the popularity of poker is now at an all-time high.

　　This article will cover many of the basics of poker -- from rankings of poker hands to the card game's terminology. But to put everything in its proper context, we'll lead off with a quick primer on the history of poker.

　　Poker OriginsMany people were introduced to poker by seeing it played in the saloons in Western movies. Some people may also have heard stories of riverboat gamblers on the Mississippi River. For these reasons, a lot of people grew up believing poker began in America in the 1900s. Actually, both assumptions are false.

　　The actual origin of poker is not known. Some say the Chinese played with cards as early as the tenth century a.d. In another part of the world, archaeologists recovered fragments of cardlike items dating to the twelfth or thirteenth century in Egypt. Of course, we don't know what the Egyptians used these cards for, but it could have been the first form of poker. We do know that in the sixteenth century people in India played a betting game called Ganjifa, which used a deck of 96 cards; and in the seventeenth century the Persians played a five-player card game, which they called As Nas, using 25 cards in five suits.

　　The current 52-card deck is often credited to European countries. In the fifteenth century, France introduced the current suits of clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades in a game called Poque. It is quite possible that the word "poker" is derived from that word. Others, however, claim that the word "poker" comes from the German card game pochspiel or the German bluffing game pochen, which dates back to the sixteenth century.

　　Eventually, poker migrated to the United States in the late eighteenth century and continued to spread throughout North America. Variations of poque called "draw" and "stud" became popular during the Civil War. These terms are still used today.