Poker is America's best known and most popular card game, played both at home and in the casino. The history of poker is a matter of some debate. The name of the game likely descended from the French 'poque', which descended from the German 'pochen' ('to knock'), but it is not clear whether the games named by those terms were the real origins of poker. It closely resembles the Persian game of 'as nas', and may have been taught to French settlers in New Orleans by Persian sailors.
It is commonly regarded as sharing ancestry with the Renaissance game of 'primero' and the French 'brelan'. The English game brag (earlier Bragg) clearly descended from 'brelan' and incorporated bluffing (though the concept was known in other games by that time). It is quite possible that all of these earlier games influenced the development of poker as it exists now.
Another belief is that a game similar to poker was first invented by the Chinese sometime before 969 A.D, when The Emperor Mu-tsung is reported to have played "domino cards" with his wife on New Years Eve.
Egyptians in the 12th & 13th centuries are known to have used a form of playing cards, and in 16th century Persia Ganjifa or Treasure Cards were used for a variety of betting games. A Ganjifa deck consisted of 96 elaborate cards, often made of paper thin slices of ivory or precious wood. The Persians played 'As Nas' which utilized 25 cards, rounds of betting and hierarchical hand rankings.
Another though is that the term "poke" probably came from "hocus-pocus", a phrase widely used by magicians. The game of Poker later evolved to include 32 cards, and eventually the modern day deck of 52 cards.
In 1834, Jonathan H. Green makes one of the earliest written references to Poker. In his writing, Green mentions rules to what he called the "cheating game" which was then being played on Mississippi riverboats. He soon realized that his was the first such reference to the game, and since it was not referred to in the current American Hoyle, he decided to name the game Poker.
The game he explained was played with 20 cards, using only the aces, kings, queens, jacks and tens. Two to four people could play, and each was dealt five cards. By the time Green wrote about it, poker had become the number one cheating game on the Mississippi boats, surpassing the ever popular game of Three-Card Monte. Most of the people that enjoyed playing Three-Card Monte thought the 20-card poker seemed to be a more legitimate game, and they played it more and more.
Soon after this spread, it was used the full 52-card English deck and it was introduced the flush. During the Wild West period of United States history, a saloon with a Poker table could be found in just about every town from coast to coast. During the American Civil War, many additions were made, including draw poker, stud poker (the five-card variant), and the straight.
Further American developments followed, such as the wild card (around 1875), low ball and split-pot poker (around 1900), and community card poker games (around 1925). Spread of the game to other countries, particularly in Asia, is often attributed to the U.S. military.
Since its humble beginning on the banks of the Mississippi, the popularity of this widely played game has grown in leaps and bounds to evolve numerous variations and sub-variations. The game and jargon of poker have become important parts of American culture and English culture. Such phrases as ace in the hole, beats me, blue chip, call the bluff, cash in, pass the buck, poker face, stack up, up the ante, when the chips are down, wild card, and others are used in everyday conversation even by those unaware of their origins at the poker table.
Three games successively dominated poker, mostly as limit-betting games in the USA, during the first century and a half of poker history: draw, seven-card stud, and hold'em, with each game cornering over 2/3 of the market during their ascendancy. Draw was far ahead in popularity until sometime in the early 20th century, when seven-card stud took the lead, which it kept until about 1980, thriving in the armed forces during WWII, and then during the rise of the Nevada casino industry in the fifties and sixties.
Five-card stud played a role as a major big-bet game from it's invention in the 1850's right up until hold'em really took off in the 1970's, but it was never as popular as either draw or seven-card stud, which are both excellent limit-betting games and as such appealed to a mass market which five-card stud does not suit.
In the late-seventies or early eighties sometime, hold'em overtook seven-card stud in popularity, helped on it's way to the top by the huge leap in status it gained through being used as the world championship game from the early seventies, and also by a surge in player numbers as US gambling laws were liberalized. Unlike seven-card stud and five-card stud, hold'em plays equally well with any form of betting from limit to no-limit. It quickly made five-card stud more or less obsolete, and steadily reduced seven-card stud's share of the market from about 70% in 1971, to less than 20% today.
While hold'em's huge success shows that it was an excellent choice as world championship game, it is interesting to speculate how different things might be today if no-limit seven-card stud had been invented in 1960 say, instead of 1998. Like hold'em, Mississippi plays equally well at any limit and it is arguable that if it had been an established game back then, it may well have been selected in 1971 to decide the world championship instead of hold'em.
After all, hold'em had been around for thirty or forty years in 1971, but even on it's home ground in the south-west of the USA it remained far less popular than seven-card stud until it was made world championship game.
Holdem partisans (and I like the game myself) may find that hard to swallow, but the case is, I believe, reasonable: no-limit hold'em was unknown to the vast majority (probably over 95%) of spectators and players in the early 1970's, while seven-card stud was by far the most popular game and was considered by the majority of players to be the best poker form.
As well as having a player base then probably fifty times the size of hold'em's, seven-card stud is a very interesting game to kibbitz and commentate because of the large number of exposed cards in every round of play, and the same can be said for no-limit Mississippi, in which there are even more exposed cards. Hold'em by contrast reveals very little to even a well-informed spectator, and is totally incomprehensible to non-players.
Being more widely understood and more interesting to watch and commentate would have ensured that no-limit seven-card stud attracted far more spectators than no-limit hold'em, if it had been played at the inaugural WSOP, when no one game was use to decide the championship. Seeing as drawing spectators to his casino was Benny Binion's aim in running the tournament, no-limit seven-card stud would have had a big edge over no-limit hold'em in the contest for championship status in the following years, if it had been available.
As it was, after a couple of years of experimenting with different multi-game formats it was decided to use just one game to decide the world championship, no-limit hold'em, and it has gone from strength to strength ever since. While hold'em's success is well deserved, if it hadn't been chosen as the world championship game it is questionable whether it's subsequent rise to the market domination it now enjoys would have occurred.
If the tables were turned, and no-limit seven-card stud had been declared the championship game in 1971 and gained all the status which goes with the job, hold'em, with it's then tiny market share, would have had a very difficult task in overtaking stud as the major form.
Over the years, poker has grown from a riverboat game to a back room game in every saloon to a highly televised event played by professionals. Presently, Poker is a carefully regulated game governed by many laws, and saloons have given way to casinos and card rooms, but Poker is played more than any other card game in the world. It has grown into a sporting event, with competitions and tournaments all around the world. Tournaments take place almost every week of the year somewhere in the world.
The most prestigious of these tournaments is The World Series of Poker. It is held annually in Las Vegas at the Horseshoe Casino. The buy-in for the main event game of Texas Hold'em is $10,000. Millions and the title are awarded to the champion. The most famous people to earn the honor are Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, and Johnny Chan; each of which has won at least twice.
