Card games are a favorite past time in many places globally. Today, there are an
untold number of different card games in the world. Poker is perhaps the most widely
recognized card game, variations of poker have been played for hundreds of years.
But where did these games come from? The answer to that question is explored here
to better understand the origins of the card games of Poker and Texas Hold 'Em.
The development of Poker precede that of Texas Hold 'Em by about a millennium nevertheless,
there is no universally accepted consensus among historians as to the exact chain
of development that yielded modern society the card game we now call Poker and so
holds true for many of its variations. Still, some scholars believe they can trace
a rough history of Poker from seemingly disparate facts gathered from various regions.
The earliest accepted iteration of a Poker-like game appeared in China about 1000
years ago when the then-emperor commissioned the fabrication of specialized domino
pieces, and over the centuries similar alternative games crept up in places like
Germany and India. Perhaps, the closest modern ancestor of Poker was developed in
France during the 1800s. The reason it is considered the nearest modern ancestor
Poker is that it was the first such game to use actual cards. Card games quickly
spread to the United States, and by the time of the War Between the States, Poker
was already embedded into American culture. Civil War soldiers in both the Confederate
and the Union Armies were known to be infatuated with card games in general but
Poker, specifically. This one viable brief history of Poker itself is spotty and
uncertain – likewise that of Texas Hold 'Em.
The precise date of the invention of Texas Hold 'Em. It appeared around turn of
the century 1900, and had enjoyed a more or less steady incline in players since
then. The popularity which Texas Hold 'Em holds today is not undue to modern mass
media. Texas Hold 'Em can be seen played on cable television stations such as ESPN,
and when monetary gambling was allowed in the United States via the World Wide Web,
many a player fancied themselves a Texas Hold'Em aficionado The problem was that
too many people considered themselves Texas Hold'Em aficionados who actually were
not, and they lost plenty of money. Like any good self-delusional person, many tried
to win their money back only to lose more until some were not able to bear the cost
of living expenses like mortgage payments, rent, groceries, and utilities. Some
of these not-so-Texas Hold 'Em-aficionados turned to the government for redress,
and eventually, the government passed a law banning monetary gambling across the
World Wide Web in the United States.