History of Texas Hold’em
Texas Hold’em received its name because the origin is believed to have taken place in Robstown, Texas sometime in the early 1900s. Unbelievably as popular as it was in Texas the game wasn’t played in Las Vegas until the late 1960s, when a group of Texas card players introduced the game. For years the Golden Nugget Casino “truly a sawdust joint,” was the only place in Vegas that you could play Hold’em.
In 1970 Benny and Jack Binion renamed the Gambling Fraternity Convention to World Series of Poker, in which the main even was No-Limit Texas Hold’em and to this day remains the main event. Thus has been the cause for its tremendous popularity to date. In the early 1980s Hold’em was introduced to card players in Europe and in the 21st century, Texas Hold’em has exploded in popularity worldwide. This incredible interest in Hold’em has been contributed to the increased television publicity of the World Series of Poker with all the tournament players making it rich and online poker has also played a factor. What is really neat is that the casino poker chips and also the WSOP playing cards they use in the tournaments can be purchased for you to use in your own home tournaments.
Hold’em is considered a community card game because instead of holding a separate individual hand the players share five community cards, with the exception of each player’s two, hole cards. Because of the way that Hold’em is played it is an exemplarily game for teaching mathematical and strategic analysis. When playing Hold’em your objective is not simply winning every hand but instead making mathematically correct decision on when to bet, how much to bet and when to raise, call or fold. Making these decisions accordingly, is what leads to maximized long-term winnings. Hold’em is divided into a series of deals, in which at the conclusion of each hand the pot is awarded to the player with the highest hand, unless there is a tie in, which the pot is then divided between the winning players.
There are several variations of the game; the most popular are Limit Hold’em, No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Hold’em, Limit Hold’em being the most played in the casinos. Maybe you can get to a casino near you and see which variation you like the best, if you performed well enough maybe you could even advance to play in the WSOP.