Poker is undoubtedly the most popular casino game today. Thanks to the recent trend of televised poker tournaments, world class contests such as the World Series of Poker and the super successful integration of several versions of poker in the online casino industry, the poker world has never been more diverse. Click for information on hand rankings, history, pot odds, strategy, terminology, freerolls and no deposit poker bonuses.
Poker is the most popular card game of a class of games called vying games. Vying games mean that players hold fully or partially hidden cards and make wagers into a central pot. This pot is awarded to the player who holds the best combination of cards at the end of the round.
There are hundreds of variations of poker, all which follow the same basic patterns of play. A few of the most common forms of poker which dominate the current casino scene are 5 card draw poker, 7 card stud poker, Omaha and Texas Hold’em. A solo-playing form of poker is also very popular, known as video poker.
The past decade has seen the rise of the online casino industry and with it the spread of online poker, which was titled the most popular online game in 2005. Online poker and video poker are played in dozens of forms and are offered on almost every online casino on the internet.
Origins of Cards – The Poker Tool
As opposed to other casino games, where the roots of the game can be traced to one or two specific areas and time periods, poker has its roots scattered all over the world and in several different centuries. While some argue that poker cannot be older than other card games because cards were only really invented in the 13th century in China, there is certainly evidence that they were invented a few centuries before.
Playing cards first reached Europe in about 1360 from the Islamic Mamluk Empire of Egypt, through the trading port of Venice. Mamluk cards differed from Chinese cards and bore closer resemblance to cards from India and Persia. Like cards today, they possessed a pack of 52 cards consisting of four suits of 13 ranks each.
In the fourteenth century, Europe experienced an explosion of differing styles and types of designs, suit-systems and formatting of playing cards. At the end of the century, a principal style of cards was formatted, known as the European suit system and brought with it a wide range of new games, including several forms of poker.
Early Ancestors of Poker
Pochen / Poque :
One of the closest early ancestors of poker is the German game known as Pochen or Pochspiel. This game is also equated with the 15th century game called Bocken. This game is given the title of the closest ancestor due to the similarity of the games’ names and the commonality of vying. The game included a specially designed staking board and consisted of three phases – payment of being dealt the best card, vying regarding which player has the best combination and playing the cards out.
The French relative of Pochen was called Poque and first appeared in the late 16th century. The game was also previously played under the name of Glic and was played in French territory well into the 19th century (and was sometimes also referred to as Bog.) Poque was a three-part game played by up to six players, with a 32 card deck. This differs from an earlier version of poker which was played in one part with a 20 card deck. The move from 20 to 32 cards can be based on the assumption that it developed naturally within a community of players that were already acquainted with the 20 card deck.
A card game that may have influenced the move from 20 to 32 cards was a French game called Bouillotte, which itself was played with a 20 card pack, by four players. This game involved three cards being dealt and the top card of the pack being turned up to allow for four of a kind.
As-nas:
A Persian five-card vying game by the name of As-nas was introduced to the French by Persian sailors. The resemblance between As-nas and 20-card poker is very close where the possible combinations of pairs, threes and 2 pairs were similar. The game which is said to have been popular around the 1700s, utilized rounds of betting and hierarchical hand rankings.
Brag:
Brag is an English vying game and still remains popular in Britain today, even though it has changed considerably in the past 100 years. Brag was first described by Lucas in 1721 as the central section of the three-part game – Post and Pair. It was very popular in the 18th century with certain sectors of society. Brag means to vie or to bluff and is a three-card vying game which ultimately got rid of the two other sections of the initial game to form an independent game. Edmond Hoyle took the game very seriously and went as far as to write a treatise on it, which was published in 1751.
The game is thought to have been played by five with a short pack of 22 cards, or by six with 26 cards. The first round of betting was followed by a draw to allow each player the option of improving a pair to a royal-pair or a single card to a pair, by discarding it and taking a new card from the stock.
Primero:
Primero dates back to 1526 and is often referred to as poker’s mother, as almost all historians agree that this was the first confirmed game to bear nearly exact resemblance to modern day poker. The game originated in both Spain and Italy, spreading to the rest of Western Europe and ultimately England. The game was played with a 52 deck of cards and consisted of similar betting options that are known in modern day poker.
Poker’s Origins in America
Brag is believed to have reached America in the late colonial period via English emigrants and British colonial officials. The game was played in the plantation colonies of the South – mainly Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas - and by the early 1800s it had reached New England. Its first official description in “The New Pocket Hoyle” in 1805 was faithful to the roots as laid out by Edmund Hoyle in the 1750s and continued to be reproduced throughout the 19th century, believing to have eventually merged into modern day poker.
Birth of Poker – The Real Thing
As with many of the early card games that were popular around the beginning and middle of the 1800s, poker became one of the common games on the Mississippi river boats. Gambling was a major pastime on these river boats and poker was a top contender for the card game entertainment slot.
Jonathan H Green made one of the earliest written references of poker in 1834. In his book “An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling”, Green described the spread of the game via the river boats on the Mississippi. Green referred to the game as the “Cheating Game”. He soon became enlightened to the fact that his was the first such reference to the game, and seeing as though it was not mentioned in the American Hoyle, he renamed the game ‘poker’.
The game, as described by Green, was played with twenty cards using only Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks and Tens. Between two to four people could play, each being dealt five cards. By the time that Green had written about it, poker was already the hottest cheating game on the Mississippi circuit, ousting long-standing Three-Card Monte as the most popular game. Many people at the time considered 20-card poker as a more legitimate game and it drew them to the river boats time and time again.
The Wild West and Poker Adaptations
No self-respecting Western movie would ever show a town of the Wild West without a game of poker being held in a saloon. These movies are not far from the truth, because poker spread in the Wild West like never before. A saloon with a poker table could probably be found at every town throughout the country.
Numerous changes and additions were introduced to poker at this time which generated the development of different versions of the game. Stud poker, a cowboy version of the game, is said to have been introduced around Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and first appeared in the American Hoyle in 1864. The introduction of Jackpots was also a new aspect of the game which meant that a player could not open unless they had a pair of Jacks or higher. This move was said to be part of a trend to drive away reckless players who were tempted to bet on anything and keep the more cautious players in the game.
Alternative versions of the game called Draw, Stud and Jackpots are all mentioned in the 1875 edition of the American Hoyle. Another new mention was Whiskey Poker which was a form of commerce-based poker with different combinations. At this time period, a full range of poker combinations were widely recognized and the 1875 edition of the Hoyle notes that four of a kind was the best hand when straights were not played.
Additional changes made during this period were the use of the 52-card English deck and the introduction of the flush. The concept of the straight was introduced and the superbly popular wild card which became official in about 1875.
Community Card Poker
In the first decades of the 1900s, a concept known as community card poker was introduced in the United States. In this version of the game, community cards are dealt face up to the middle of the table and they are shared with all the players. In addition, each player is dealt in incomplete hand, privately, which are in turn combined with the community cards to make a complete hand.
Two of the most popular versions of community card poker were developed in the 1920s and are still immensely popular today. These are Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hold’em. Each of these games differs slightly in the way that the cards are dealt, while the betting rounds and layout are identical. Other differences appear at showdown regarding the amount of cards used from a hand and the community cards.
Poker Jargon
As poker became deeply rooted in American culture, so did it begin to influence other aspects of society. One of the common areas of poker’s influence is the jargon and slang that have crept into American and British English and become accepted in mainstream language usage.
Common phrases include: ace up one’s sleeve; beats me; blue chip; call one’s bluff; cash in; high roller; pass the buck; poker face; when the chips are down; wild card and up the ante. Many of these are used in every day language without the speaker even knowing that they stem from poker.
World Series of Poker
The birth of tournament and professional poker secured the game’s title as being the most widely covered and comprehensive game in modern gambling history. Tournament play became popular in the 1970s after the World Series of Poker was launched. This tournament is the most prestigious poker contest in the world and was first held in 1970.
The brain behind the concept of the World Series of Poker was the casino owner and poker legend Benny Binion, along with his two sons, Jack and Ted. Binion contributed an immense amount to the world of poker, which was not very common in casinos during this period due to the difficulties in keeping cheaters at bay. Binion and his sons nurtured the idea of the World Series of Poker in the late 1960s and finally brought it to fruition with the first contest being held in 1970 at the Binion Horseshoe casino. This contest included five card stud, deuce to seven low-ball draw, razz, seven card stud, and Texas Hold-em.
Over the next few years new events were added to the main event and since then, many events have been added and removed. The tournament has always been played in Las Vegas – primarily at the Binion and thereafter at Harrah’s Entertainment’s Rio Hotel, after their purchase of the Binion.
Winners of the World Series of Poker have become semi legends and very coveted for a number of reasons. The first is the large cash prize that is part of the attraction and second is the legendary gold bracelet that winners are awarded with. Some of the WSOP legends are Johnny Chan and Chris Moneymaker.
Televised Poker Tournaments
The trend towards the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty first century was the launch of the hole card camera which turned poker into a spectators’ game. Suddenly, through satellite and cable TV, poker became to be considered one of the sports that spectators watched on ESPN and other sporting channels. Satellite airing of poker tournaments spread the concept of tournament poker around the world and many more countries and nationalities were exposed to the concept.
As a result of the sudden globalization of poker and poker tournaments, sponsorships and advertising suddenly became a very important aspect of the game. Tournaments were sponsored by big brand names and potential winners were branded with caps, T-shirts and the like. The ‘sport’ of poker suddenly became a money-making enterprise, and not only for those who were at the poker table. Fans crowded the screens of their TVs at home in order to watch the drama unfold at the poker tables – the beauty was that they could see what the other players could not see and were witnesses to the making and breaking of poker giants.
Along with televised poker tournaments, came the creation of poker celebrities. These former unheard-of poker champions were suddenly thrown into the limelight when their poker table was filmed on an internationally broadcasted satellite viewing of the tournament. With viewers watching each and every move of these players, these pros became celebrities on the one hand, but also had to watch their moves, on the other hand. The increased camera exposure made these players aware that their every move could be captured and broadcasted on screen to billions of viewers.
Online Casinos: Further Globalization of Poker
The spread of poker was not only limited to the satellite and cable broadcasts of the late 20th century. Another major catalyst for the globalization and international spread of poker was the birth of the online casino industry. The online casino industry managed to do in ten years what the game developers tried to do in a few centuries.
In the late 1990s the online casino industry was launched, along with a selection of games that all the new remote gambling sites planned to offer. Poker was one of the primary features of all online gambling sites because of its immense popularity and appeal to people from around the world. The online casino industry was primarily launched out of Northern America and this market segment was the chief target. Poker, of course, had become as American as apple pie, so there were no surprises when the game was placed on top of the game list on most of the sites.
There are dozens of versions of poker being offered at online casinos. The most popular versions are those that originated in the Wild West at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, namely Texas Hold’em, Omaha and Stud. Within these games there are also sub division such as Omaha High and Omaha Low. Other types of poker offered are also 7 Card Stud and 5 Card Draw. Video poker is also an alternative version of the game, which is played like slots, with one person playing against the machine.
Due to the nature of poker, requiring gamblers to play against one another, the concept of a virtual poker room had to be formulated in order to facilitate playing poker online. Online casinos which cater only for poker are the most popular choices for poker fans because they allow the wider choice of games, and a huge choice of poker rooms with the click of a mouse. It is not uncommon to find an experienced player being ‘located’ in a number of virtual poker rooms simultaneously.
Virtual poker rooms have created an entire sub-culture of their own, and have actually turned into a major social scene for players who frequent the same virtual poker rooms on a regular basis. Requiring an identity to sit at a poker table, the player can scan and see who is at the table before deciding whether to play there or not. Players can also chat to each other through chat programs provided by the online casinos and a new chat language has been created by these virtual poker players. It has even been reported in recent years that a number of couples have met through these virtual poker rooms and even resulted in marriage.
In the past few years, online casinos have been linking up with the top poker tournaments, because the two institutions have realized that there are so many players out there, that there was no need to be competing against each other. Online casinos offer satellite tournament with buy-in options which could allow a player to win a seat at one of the top tournaments. This phenomenon attracted much attention at the World Series of Poker in 2003 when Chris Moneymaker, a previously unheard of poker player managed to win the tournament after landing a seat in the tournament for only $39 from a remote satellite contest hosted by an online casino.
The online casino industry has managed to swell the amount of the devout poker players to the billions. Poker was awarded the title of the top online game in 2005 and by looking at the results of the online casinos that focus solely on poker; it looks like it will be awarded this title in 2006 as well. Watch this space!
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