The Origin of Poker - From the Wild West To Modern Times

Although there are controversies about where poker originated from - some claiming it has evolved from Brag of Britain, while others claim to have emanated from As-Nas' Persian game. However, the two claims were dismissed as today the popular idea is poker originated from a card game named “poque” in France in the 1400s.

Coincidentally, the “poque” is also played with 52 cards, just like today’s poker. The names are almost similar, and the name "poker" was Americanized during the colonial era. The poker game then began to gain ground in the United States in the 1700s and started spreading to other countries in the 1800s.

To the surprise of many, the poker game is a gambling game right from the start. This is one of the reasons it became so popular in online casinos today. One shocking fact about poker is that it used to be an outlawed game. However, with the popularity it has gained so far, it has now been slowly and steadily introduced into mainstreams, even to this day.

No doubt that the popularity of poker today is also due to the introduction of some strategies around Texas Hold'em. As a result, the first-ever poker book started after Texas Hold'em was passed into law. Then, new poker rooms began springing up, and it kept increasing ever since then.

In 1973, poker was first televised in the World Series of Poker event. Also, in 1998, poker went online, as the first-ever online poker room was launched. With people gradually gaining interest in poker initially and people now realising that the poker game can be played online, more people gained interest. However, this set of people encountered slow internet connection compared to today. Hence poker didn't grow as fast as expected.

In 2015, a particular poker machine named "Cepheus" was introduced to the public. This wasn't the first pioneer machine to be built though, but others did not gain traction, neither were the bots able to match human results. However, Cepheus, according to its creators, claimed to be undefeatable against it over any hand sample.

Even though it was performing quite well enough at that time, it cannot be compared to what we have today. After the introduction of Cepheus in 2015, a lot of researchers began building poker machines better than Cepheus. In a short while, Claudico, Libratus, and Pluribus were created.

Today, the most popular form of poker is Texas Hold'em. Other game variants include Seven Card Stud, Omaha, Five Card Draw, Razz, 10 Game Mix, and others.

Below, we'll discuss the most popular variant of the poker game.

Of all the poker variants, Texas Hold'em is the most popular available today. It is widely played across the world, both in-house and online. It is also easy to learn for beginners.

The basics of playing a Texas Hold'em is to know how to place a bet. Although some Texas Hold'em games force you to place a bet known as "ante" before entering a pot, most of the Texas Hold'em use a "blind bet". A blind bet is similar to an ante but is a rotating bet; it rotates around the table, and you only have to place a blind bet when it reaches your turn.

After this, you should know the betting limits also. This is divided into three namely; limit hold 'em, pot-limit hold 'em, no limit hold'em. For limit hold 'em, there are limits to the size of the bets, and you can't bet more than that. For pot-limit hold 'em, the amount in the pot determines the limit, while for no limit hold'em, you have no limit for the size of your bet. Read more on our betting guide if you wish to play the Texas Hold'em.

The poker game is great, and we hope that the information on this page helps you understand a little of the game - even if you're a beginner.