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History of Poker

Poker is without doubt the most successful and popular betting and bluffing game in existence. The earliest known ancestor of Poker was a German game, called Boeckels. A French derivative of this, "Poque" is overwhelmingly the most likely etymological source for the term "Poker" which appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century and so the most obvious and likely theory for the link from the old card games to the new is simply that Poker, invented in French America, was derived directly from the French game of Poque.

The second most likely theory for the creation of Poker is that it comes from the old Persian game of "As-Nas" and inherited only the name from the French connection.

Poker was invented in New Orleans, part of the old French territory of what is now the USA. New Orleans is famous for its Mississippi leisure steamers and the game first appears to have become popular in the smokey saloons of those notorious boats. Two former gamblers have described the game existing at least as early as 1829.

The early pioneers described the game as it was then - we can call it "20 Card Poker". It was a four player game played with a 20-card pack (Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks and Tens only), so that all the cards were dealt out. There was no draw and the five scoring combinations were melds only - i.e. no flushes or straights (runs). So the game was quite a different affair to modern Poker games and the best hand - four Aces was unbeatable.

The first reasonable description of the 52 card version of the game turned up in an 1850 version of "Hoyles book of Games" and within a decade the 20 Card game was evolved out of history and virtually disappeared. Like American Pool, this has happened a lot to different Poker versions to this day - the most recent example being that of Texas Hold'Em completely eclipsing the formerly popular game of Stud Poker.

The version played with 52 cards allowed some creative thinking in terms of the rules and permitted a variety of new additions to the rules after around 1850 including The Draw, The Flush, The Joker, The Straight and The Jackpot.

None of these concepts, except the Jackpot was original to Poker and so it is clear that Poker mainly evolved by borrowing useful concepts from other games.

Stud Poker, formerly "Stud Horse Poker" is supposedly a cowboy invention that occurred around Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. In this new variant, the Draw which had previously been a single one-off affair of 1, 2 or 3 cards for each player each hand, was stretched out to 4 draws of a single card for each player each hand. The reason for this is readily apparent - more draws means more rounds of betting and since betting and bluffing have always been the primary motivation for Poker, this must have appealed. The first documentary evidence for the game is an 1864 Hoyle.

Read more about the history and Origins of Poker at the Online Guide to Traditional Games.