All About Poker

Podcast Transcript

One of the most popular card games in the world is poker.

The game was played in the old west among cowboys, by dogs on velvet paintings, and by the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise.

Poker is played informally among friends and family, yet it is also a high-stakes competitive game where millions of dollars can be won or lost.

It is a game that has origins that go back centuries, but its current manifestation is very modern.

Learn more about the game of Poker and how it became one of the most popular card games in the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Poker, one of the world’s most popular card games, has a rich and complex history that spans centuries and continents. While its exact origins are debated, poker has evolved significantly over time, influenced by various card games from Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

For those of you who might, for whatever reason, not know what poker is, poker is a strategic card game that combines skill, psychology, and luck, where players compete to form the best hand or bluff opponents into folding.

It is typically played with a 52-card deck and involves betting rounds where players place wagers based on the strength of their hands. The game has many variants, including Texas Hold’em, Five Card Drawn, and Seven-Card Stud, each with unique rules. Players use a combination of private and community cards, depending on the variant being played, to create the best five-card hand.

If you were to distill what poker is across all its variants, it would involve two elements: making the best five-card hand and the ability to bluff.

Poker’s roots can be traced back to several older card games originating in Europe and the Middle East.

Perhaps the oldest game that we can trace back to that could be considered an ancestor of poker is the Persian game of As-Nas.

As-Nas is a traditional Persian card game from the 16th and 17th centuries, played with a deck of 20 or 25 cards featuring unique designs like lions, suns, and other symbols instead of standard suits, As-Nas involves elements of bluffing and betting.

Each player is dealt five cards, and they wager based on the strength of their hand, with rounds of betting similar to modern poker. Players can raise, call, or fold, and the objective is to win the pot by having the highest-ranking hand or by bluffing opponents into folding.

While As-Nas has some glaringly obvious similarities to poker, it isn’t known exactly how the game moved west.

The game, which was a closer relative of poker, was the French game poque.

Poque was a popular French card game in the 17th and 18th centuries. Played with a 32-card deck, Poque involved betting, bluffing, and hand rankings, much like today’s poker.

Players were dealt a set number of cards and took turns betting on who had the best hand, with the option to raise, call, or fold—key mechanics that later influenced poker’s structure. Bluffing was an essential part of the game, as players could mislead opponents about the strength of their hands.

There was also a similar German game called pochen.

French settlers introduced Poque to Louisiana, which evolved into a five-card game played with a 20-card deck (Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks, and Tens).

What we know of the game and its spread largely comes from written accounts of travelers to the region. The English actor and author Joseph Cowell reported the 20-card version of the game being played in New Orleans as of 1829.

The game quickly spread through gambling saloons in New Orleans and onto Mississippi River steamboats, where riverboat crews played the game.

The river served as a conduit for spreading the game up and down the river to the various communities along its banks.

It was here that the French poque was Americanized into the word poker.

By the 1830s and 1840s, the 52-card deck became standard, allowing for more complex hands and betting structures.

The 52-card deck allowed for the poker hands that we know today.

There are nine types of poker hands. The value of a hand is dependent on the odds of getting it, with the lowest probability hands having the highest value.

In order from lowest to highest, the types of hands are:

High Card: If no player has a pair or better, the highest single card wins.

One Pair: Two cards of the same type.

Two Pair: Two sets of pairs.

Three of a Kind: Three cards of the same type.

Straight: Five consecutive cards of any suits. Aces can be high or low.

Flush: Five cards of the same suit, but not in sequence.

Full House: A combination of three-of-a-kind and a pair.

Four of a Kind: Four cards of the same type.

Straight Flush: Five consecutive cards of the same suit

The best possible hand is a Royal Flush, which is just a straight flush with an ace high.

It is interesting to note that in the first half of the 19th century, the Mississippi River was considered to be the backwater of the United States. This makes poker one of the first cultural trends to develop in this part of the country.

As people moved west, they often were introduced to the game and took it with them.

Some time, probably during the 1840s, the draw was introduced to the game. The draw simply meant that you could replace your cards after they were dealt and a round of betting.

The next big event that spread the game was the US Civil War. Soldiers had lots of free time on their hands and would often play cards in camp to keep themselves entertained.

One of the variants developed during the war was five-card stud. In five-card stud, each player is dealt a card face down, followed by a card face up. After a round of betting, another card is dealt face-up. This continues until five cards are dealt to each player, four of which are face up.

After the war, poker became a staple in frontier saloons across the Wild West. Poker then finally found itself in the book The Complete Hoyle, which served as a rulebook for many different card games.

Another variant that arose during the post-war period was seven card stud. Seven-card stud is like five-card stud, except each player is given two cards down, four cards up, and one card down.

It wasn’t until the early 1900s that the most popular variant of poker was developed: Texas Hold’em.

The origin of Texas Hold’em is claimed to have originated in Robstown, Texas, where it was first played before spreading across the state.

Unlike traditional poker games that relied solely on a player’s private cards, Texas Hold’em introduced community cards, adding more strategy and depth to the game.

In Texas Hold’em, players receive two private cards, known as “hole cards,” and use five shared community cards to make the best five-card hand.

The game has four betting rounds:

The first is the Pre-Flop when players receive their hole cards and place bets.

The second round is the flop, when three community cards are dealt face-up.

The third round is the Turn when a fourth community card is revealed.

The final round happens after the River, which is the fifth and final community card that is dealt.

Players can check, bet, call, raise, or fold during each round. When all of the betting is completed, whoever has the best five-card hand wins.

Texas Hold’em remained a regional game until the 1960s when Texas gamblers like Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, and Crandell Addington brought it to Las Vegas.

It was introduced at the Golden Nugget Casino in 1963, and by 1967, it was being played at the Dunes Casino, where it attracted high-stakes players.

The game gained national recognition in 1970 when Benny Binion made Texas Hold’em the featured event of the first World Series of Poker.

The World Series of Poker revolutionized poker by transforming it from a niche gambling pastime into a globally recognized competitive sport. The World Series of Poker introduced the concept of a structured poker tournament, bringing together the best players to compete for the title of world champion. The event gave poker a main stage, attracting media attention and inspiring new players.

In 1973, CBS Sports aired a World Series of Poker event, making it the first-ever televised poker tournament.

Starting in 1976, the World Series of Poker began awarding a bracelet to the winners of their various events. A bracelet is the most prestigious non-monetary award that can be earned in the world of competitive poker.

Doyle Brunson’s Super/System, a book detailing poker strategy, was released in 1979 and helped establish the WSOP as the ultimate proving ground.

Stu Ungar, one of the most talented poker players ever, won back-to-back WSOP Main Events in 1980 and 1981.

The 1991 World Series of Poker Main Event saw a record first-place prize of $1 million, and ESPN began broadcasting World Series of Poker events in the 1990s, increasing public interest.

However, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the popularity of poker really took off.

It was a combination of several events which all took place around the same time, which caused its popularity to explode.

The first was the rise of online poker. This allowed people to play competitively for money from the comfort of their own homes without having to visit a casino or find a game. Not only did this spread the game, but it allowed more players to quickly increase their skills by playing more hands more quickly.

The second was the creation of the World Poker Tour in 2002. Instead of a once-a-year event, the WPT had a series of tournaments around the world that were all televised, allowing for poker to develop a following even if you didn’t play.

I remember when the WPT was launched, and I thought to myself at the time that this was the dumbest thing I had ever heard of…..which goes to show just how much I know.

Online poker and the WTP were the tinder for the spark that ignited it in 2003. That spark was an amateur player named Chris Moneymaker, who won the World Series of Poker Main Event after qualifying through an online tournament.

He only paid a $39 entry fee, which he turned into $2.5 million dollars for his win.

Moneymaker proved that anyone, even an online player with no live tournament experience, could become a world champion.

His win inspired millions to take up poker, leading to a surge in online poker participation, record-breaking World Series of Poker fields, and increased media coverage.

This became known as the Moneymaker Effect.

The number of World Series of Poker entries in the main event in 2003, the year Moneymaker won, was 839.

By 2006, it had exploded to 8,773. In 2024, there were over ten thousand.

Since the 2000s, competitive poker has expanded internationally, fueled by the rise of online poker, televised tournaments, and major global events. The World Series of Poker launched WSOP Europe in 2007 and later WSOP Asia-Pacific in 2013, bringing the prestigious tournament series beyond Las Vegas.

The World Poker Tour also expanded, holding events across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, making poker a truly global sport.

The rise of poker hasn’t been without some setbacks.

On April 15, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice shut down major online poker sites, severely impacting the industry. This event became known as “Black Friday.”

Since then, online poker has been slowly re-legalized in certain states and is only available in some countries.

Poker has seen a tremendous amount of growth and change over the last 200 years. It has gone from an obscure French game played by riverboat crews on the Mississippi to dusty saloons in the Old West to glitzy Las Vegas Casinso to becoming a worldwide internet and television phenomenon.