The game of official poker is played in thousands of cardrooms and countless casinos around the world. It can be enjoyed for pennies or matchsticks in home games, for big money in a casino poker room, or professionally for thousands of dollars at a tournament. The basic premise of the game is to minimize losses with poor hands while maximizing winnings with good ones. The game requires a tremendous amount of luck as well as a high level of skill.
In a modern casino, the game is almost always played with poker chips instead of cash or paper currency. Typically, the chips are color-coded with different values. The lowest-value chips are white, followed by red, blue, and green. Almost all casinos use the same chip denominations, although some have higher denominations for their tournament games. The value of a poker chip is not indicative of a real-world dollar amount, but it allows security systems to track stack sizes easily.
The author of this rulebook, Robert Ciaffone, is a longtime leader in the development of uniform rules for poker. He has drafted the rules for many large cardrooms, and has acted as a rules consultant to others. His philosophy is that a rule should clearly and concisely state the correct ruling, and should provide all the information needed for a decision-maker to make the right choice in any situation. He has used this philosophy in the selection of these rules, as well as in the format, organization, and wording of the text.