A BRIEF HISTORY OF POKER PART I: ORIGINS TO THE MODERN AGE.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a gambling game that is more widely known and has been more influential on western popular culture than the game of poker. A cursory glance at some of the phrases we routinely use in the English language will convince anyone of this. Even people who have never played and may never play poker still use terms such as 'pass the buck', 'ace up the sleeve', 'when the chips are down' and 'up the ante', all of which come directly from poker, without even giving a second thought as to where they have originated from.

There is, to date, no official history of Poker, with differing views as to the games that should be regarded as progenitors of the modern game. Some look to the Persian card game nas, for which only sketchy details as to its precise origin exist. Others refer to Pochspiel, a fifteenth century German card game that, like poker, featured betting and bluffing.

More recently attention has been paid to the fifteenth century French games of brelan and poque, while the Italian primero and the English brag, are also thought to be common descendants of the same game that we call poker today.

Scholars have also suggest that poker as it is, had been played in the deep south of the U.S during the pioneer days, on riverboats that traversed the Mississippi river. This fact points to this period as also being one where the first seeds of commercial gambling were sewn. The game played back in those days is said to have included all the dynamics of poker as we know it today, several variations of which were widely known throughout the south, including both straight and stud, with a 20 card version also played by two players.

The next developments in the game were the flush, the draw, wild card, lowball and split-pot poker at around the turn of the last century. From the 1970's onwards certain key developments were made that pushed poker forward like never before, helping it to secure its place at the top of the gambling food chain. Perhaps most notable was the inception of the modern poker tournament, the biggest of which was to become the World Series of Poker. With people chomping at the bit to get a piece of the action a slew of books on rules and strategy began to enter the market place, this interest was also reflected in the media with films like Rounders being released and the World Series of Poker being syndicated in many countries across the planet. Poker had become a global phenomenon at this time, with one last piece of the puzzle waiting to be put into place.