Pochen
A German bluffing and betting game — the Pochspiel — whose name is another leading candidate for the direct linguistic root of the word 'poker.'
Coming soon — not yet playable
Rules
Pochen (from the German verb "pochen," to knock or boast) refers to a family of historical German card and board games, most notably "Pochspiel," played from at least the 15th century onward. Alongside the French Poque, Pochen is one of the two leading etymological candidates historians point to as the direct source of the word "poker."
Historical Pochspiel was often played on a special board marked with suits and combinations (a "Poch board"), where players placed stakes on the board matching cards they held, then played out a trick-taking and betting hybrid round; the exact mechanics varied significantly by region and century, blending elements of card matching, staking, and bluff-driven betting rather than mapping cleanly onto a single fixed modern ruleset.
The core through-line connecting Pochen to modern poker is the betting and bluffing behavior baked into its name — "pochen" carries a connotation of boastful, confident betting (bluffing) that traveled into French and English card-game vocabulary and, most historians agree, into the word "poker" itself alongside (or instead of) the French Poque.
Strategy notes: Like Poque and Primero, Pochen is best understood as part of poker's linguistic and cultural prehistory rather than a game with one settled modern rule set — its inclusion here is about tracing where the "bluffing bet" idea, and possibly the very name of the game, actually came from.
Common house rules
Simplified card-only version
Since the historical Poch board isn't something most home games have on hand, most tables that want to try Pochen simplify it to a plain betting-and-bluffing card round (deal a hand, bet in rounds, best hand or last player standing wins), same simplification used for Poque.
Two competing etymologies, both worth knowing
Historians differ on whether 'poker' derives more directly from French Poque or German Pochen (or both, via overlapping migration and trade routes) — worth mentioning at the table as a genuinely open historical question rather than presenting either as definitively 'the' answer.
Educational round, not for real stakes
As with Poque and Primero, treat this as a historical curiosity to round out a dealer's-choice session's understanding of poker's roots, not a game to bet seriously on.
Related games
Based on shared category, origin, and rules that reference each other.
Glic
One of the oldest recorded European vying games, dating to at least 1454 — its French name is considered the most direct linguistic root of 'Poque,' and by extension 'poker.'
Learn the rules →Poque
The 17th-18th century French bluffing and betting game most often credited as the direct namesake and ancestor of the English word 'poker.'
Learn the rules →Primero
A Renaissance-era Spanish card game — one of the oldest documented ancestors of poker, in which players compete to form the best of several fixed hand types from four cards.
Learn the rules →Lansquenet
A German banking game named after 15th-16th century mercenaries, first referenced by Rabelais in 1534 — a direct precursor to Faro and Baccarat, and ancestor of Italian Zecchinetta.
Learn the rules →