A Brief History of Poker

The exact origin of poker is unknown. However, its roots appear to lie in a 16th-century Persian card game called As Nas, and in the European card game of Primero, which was quite popular in Elizabethan England. As Nas was played with 20 cards and bluffing was an important element of the game. Primero, or Primera as it was called in Spain, involved betting and valued hands, including pairs, three of a kind, and three of the same suit, referred to as a “flux.” The derivative “flush” is the modern-day term for a suited poker hand.

By the 18th century, the betting and bluffing aspects of poker were present in several five-card games, including the English game of Brag, the German game of Pochen (the word “pochen” means “to bluff”), and the French game called Poque.

When French colonists arrived to settle the Louisiana Territory in the 1700s, they brought poque with them, and the name of the game was eventually modified to the American term “poker.” The game took hold around the city of New Orleans, and in the early 1800s, it began to spread north, as steamboats plied the Mississippi River, transporting goods and passengers to inland ports.

By the mid-1800s, poker had been adapted to a 52-card deck and was described in books about card games. Poker continued to spread as the West was settled, and its popularity mushroomed during the Civil War, when Union soldiers were exposed to the game as they moved southward. In fact, the word “stud” in seven-card stud may have come from adding additional horses to pull the canyons as the Union Army under General U.S. Grant headed down the Mississippi.

Poker was firmly entrenched in America by the turn of the Century and was played virtually everywhere throughout the United States, as well as in many foreign countries. The games played were draw poker, a form of closed poker, where all of the cards are dealt face down, and stud poker, where the hands are open — that is, some of the cards are dealt face up.

In the early 1900s, a new form of open poker began to appear. Known as Texas hold ’em, which is short for Texas hold them poker, it became widely played throughout the South, especially in the state of Texas. Although stud arrived in Las Vegas when gambling was legalized in the 1930s, hold ’em was not introduced in Nevada to any noticeable extent until the early 1970s.

Two catalysts were responsible for the rapid growth in popularity of this game. The first was the prestigious World Series of Poker, which in 1970 adopted Texas hold ’em as the game to determine the world champion. The second catalyst was a book titled Hold ’em Poker, written by noted gambling authority and poker expert David Sklansky. Published in 1976, this text was the first to quantify Texas hold ’em and thus make the game accessible to the average poker player.

As for draw poker, it faded away, except in California, where it was the only form of poker legal until 1987. Now that stud and hold ’em are also legal in the Golden State, high draw has become virtually extinct, and ace-to-five lowball draw is only occasionally played.

Currently, the two dominant forms of poker in the United States are seven-card stud and Texas hold ’em, although many additional types of poker are played in legal cardrooms across the nation, in other countries, and on the Internet. In its present format, poker is thought of as uniquely American, yet its appeal is international, and today, poker ranks among the most popular card games in the world.

And since we mentioned the Internet, we need to note that in 1999, Planet Poker, the first Internet poker room appeared. It only lasted a few years, as other Internet poker rooms with better software soon over took it. But today, more poker is played on the Internet than is played in live cardrooms, and of course participation is worldwide.