| The History of
Poker |
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There seem to be differences
of opinion on the origin of Poker .
Moreover, there seems to be no clear or direct
early ancestor of the game. It is more likely that
Poker derived its present day
form from elements of many different games. The
consensus is that because of it's basic principal,
its birth is a very old one.
Jonathan H. Green makes one of the earliest
written references to Poker in
1834. 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
mentioned in the current American Hoyle, he chose
to call the game Poker .
The game he described 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,
receiving even more action than Three-Card Monte.
Most people taken by Three-Card Monte thought the
20-card poker seemed more a legitimate game, and
they came back time and time again. It would
certainly appear, then, that Poker was
developed by the cardsharps.
The origin of the word Poker is
also well debated. Most of the dictionaries and
game historians say that it comes from an
eighteenth-century French game, poque. However,
there are other references to pochspiel, which is
a German game. In pochspiel, there is an element
of bluffing, where players would indicate whether
they wanted to pass or open by rapping on the
table and saying, "Ich Poche!" Some say
it may even have derived come the Hindu word,
pukka.
Yet another possible explanation for the word poker
, is that it came from a version of an
underworld slang word, "poke," a term
used by pickpockets. Cardsharps who used the
20-card cheating game to relieve a sucker from his
poke may have used that word among themselves,
adding an r to make it "poker." The
thought was that if the sharps used the word
"poker" in front of their victims, those
wise to the underworld slang would not surmise the
change.
There are those who also believe that
"poke" probably came from
"hocus-pocus", a term widely used by
magicians. The game of Poker later
evolved to include 32 cards, and eventually the
modern day deck of 52, not counting the two
Jokers.
The game of Poker has evolved
through the years, through many backroom games to
the present day casinos around the world. Its
history is rich with famous places and characters.
For example, 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.
Today, Poker is carefully
regulated by gambling laws, and saloons have given
way to casinos and cardrooms, 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.
If you compare the prizes of major sporting events
around the world, you will find that the monetary
outcome of any given event in Poker would
(pardon the pun) stack up. Poker today
is one of the fastest growing, but hardly
recognized sporting events. The pinnacle of the
poker world, The World Series of Poker ,
attracts players from all over the world every
year to compete for money and titles as the
world's top Poker players.
Poker will always be around and
will continue to grow and flourish like so many
other past times. There will always be a game to
play, money to be won, and crowns to be worn.
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