The word 'poker' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to a card game played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards. For example, "I like to play poker with my friends on the weekend."
Sam, who wants to be an internet poker player, is torn between letting his younger sister win and risk me pointing out (meanly) that he can't be that good if he gets beaten by an eight year old.
This "casino" defied any evocation of poker machines, blackjack or roulette.
Although he has officially left home until he finds something to do that isn't playing online poker, he does pop home occasionally to stay the night.
And even if he had bothered to look up from it, he wouldn't have learned much: my attempts to lift the written text off the page and to breathe life into it as only a seasoned actor can were mostly drowned out by the noise of raucous laughter from a nearby editing suite, the inhabitants of which seemed to be enjoying a game of strip poker.
It's like in poker when you can tell if someone's cheating.
Nothing fancy – a bottomless pot of coffee, soft drinks, snacks from an old-fashioned snack machine filled with peanuts and candy – all were on offer to the local men who came by to shoot the breeze, play checkers or afternoon-long poker games.
"It's not as though people don't know I play poker.
So far, the children have spent most of their time together in the evenings playing poker under Sam's rather fierce instructions.
He's a former national poker champion who funnelled his winnings into his campaign.
He paid his way through law school by playing poker.
Perhaps not if he helped just a little around the house, if he was awake during the day instead of playing online poker all night, if he didn't disappear for a few days at a time and pitch up, having lost his keys again, at some random, inconvenient time.
