Poker

Poker & The Internet - A Brief Overview & History

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"Poker" is a card game played with a standard 52 card deck of playing cards. Most "poker games" are played with a poker hand of five final cards, although some poker variations play with four cards or even seven.

A Brief History of Poker

It is widely believed that the game of poker was invented in France sometimes in the 1600's and brought to New Orleans and the Mississippi River by French traders and settlers soon thereafter. This could explain the popularity of poker in the Southern United States including the Mississippi River delta region and most famously, in Texas, where the most popular poker game today was born -- Texas Hold'em.

Texas Holdem Poker has gained an amazing amount of popularity in the early 2000's with the advent and spread in the popularity of poker in television. It could be argued that the 2003 World Series of Poker tournament win by Chris Moneymaker, an amateur poker player and accountant, catapulted poker into the national spotlight in America. The advent of live action online poker a few years prior further increased the popularity and pop-culture phenomenon of playing poker for big money.

As a result of the incredible growth of poker in the United States, poker began to grow in popularity all across the globe, first starting in other English speaking countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. Poker soon spread throughout Europe and has begun to gain a foothold in Asia and South America.

The Internet and Poker Today

Today, poker has become a global phenomenon, with a large part of its success a direct result of the proliferation of poker on the internet. I would say that without poker websites and online poker, the game of poker would be nowhere near as popular as it has become. With an amazing amount of information about every topic conceivable, the internet has been an incredible catalyst for the spread of poker information and knowledge. I have personally seen the skill level of poker players skyrocket over the past five years since quality video training and poker strategy sites have become popular. The future of poker on the internet is going nowhere but up, and it should be a fun ride in the 2024's.