Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
I doubt all these theories, and I have my own. I believe it was
I doubt all these theories, and I have my own. I believe it was originally underworld slang and came from the pickpocket's term for pocketbook or wallet: poke.
The card sharps who evolved the twenty-card game as a cheating
The card sharps who evolved the twenty-card game as a cheating device to relieve the sucker of his poke may even have called it that among themselves, disguising it slightly by adding the r to make it "Poker" when using the term in front of their victims, some of whom might have been hep to underworld slang.