In the first chapter dedicated to the most
famous poker game of the moment, we are going to delve into the origins of its
history. To start looking into Texas Hold'em, we have to go back to Texas
City in 1900. However, it wasn't until 1970 that tournaments became popular
in US casinos after the start of the World Series. The Binion Horseshoe casino
was the first to host a Texas Hold'em poker tournament.
Countless Texas Hold'em tournaments have been
played to this day, but there is one name that started it all: Johnny Moss,
recognized as the first Texas Hold'em poker world champion. Obviously,
before him, others would win massive games and tournaments of greater or lesser
level (surely the citizens of Texas themselves), but Johnny Moss has been
considered the first official winner of a poker tournament of this modality.
Texas Hold'em and its history span almost the
entire 20th century and remains popular to this day, both at the physical
tables and in prolific online play. Over the years, more and more poker fans
have become interested in the game, which has become the most played poker
game in the world.
The World Series of Poker has become a global
showcase that has demonstrated the solid foundations of this form of poker to
create games of increasing interest as it develops. Such was its popularity
that Las Vegas quickly outgrew Texas Hold'em, expanding to other parts of
the world to become one of the most acclaimed games of all time.
However, there is a lot of confusion about the
origins of poker because, although we know that the beginning of the 20th
century was the birthplace of Texas Hold'em, in reality poker was played much
earlier. Some say that poker emerged in China as early as 969 AD, when a
card game is believed to have been played in a manner very similar to dominoes.
Another theory suggests that poker actually
originated in Persia,
whose people played a very similar card and gambling game during the 17th
century. This game was called Ace Nas and consisted of 25 cards, with each
player being dealt five. What does seem clear is that the tradition of poker
came to Europe via the Middle East, and from that point onwards the people of
Europe were introduced to card games.
An alternative theory states that poker stems
from a 15th century game called Il Frusso, which in the 16th century would be known as La
Primera or Primero in Spain, and in France and Germany was known as Poque
and Poche, respectively.
Before Texas Hold'em took a prominent place in
the history of poker, the most famous form of the game was called Five Card
Draw, also known as "the five-card draw game". The game enjoyed enormous
popularity after the Second World War, when the casinos in Las Vegas were in
their golden age. Later, in the 1940s, Caribbean Stud Poker, in which
the player duels hand-to-hand with the dealer, also became popular.
But the appearance of Texas Hold'em at the
beginning of the 20th century and its popularization in the following decades,
arriving in Dallas around 1925, meant that great personalities of the time such
as Benny Binion, creator of the World Series of Poker, consciously or
not, promoted the projection of this variant. A few decades later, Texas
Hold'em was already one of the most played poker variants and has maintained a
hegemonic position at all levels, being the preferred option for both novice
and professional players, battling with the best players in the world in Texas
Hold'em games.
Some references already make it clear that
poker was already being played in North America since at least 1829 (the term appears in literary works
such as Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains, by J. Hildreth and published
in 1836), and in fact it is possible that other states were already familiar
with the game before that. In the case of states such as Louisiana, poker was
already a very popular game in 1830 and, in fact, it is estimated that the freighters
that sailed on the Mississippi River had a lot to do with its popularization,
since people used to kill time playing poker inside them.
From the middle of the 20th century, given the
enormous popularity and love of the game that had been carried over from the
post-war period, Texas Hold'em made its way onto the gaming tables of numerous
casinos, and many of those located on the Strip incorporated it into their
tables as soon as they realized the enormous interest it aroused. This
gradually led to the legalization and regularization of this variant of poker
(which took place in some states at a much later time than might be expected;
in California, for example, Texas Hold'em was recognized as an official variety
of poker in 1988).
Over time, the competitions have grown to include more and more fans and spectators. The regularization of Texas Hold'em and the history behind it encouraged WSOP organizers to create the so-called HORSE, a competition combining Hold'em, Omaha, Razz, Stud and Eights of Better Stud into one, which debuted at the World Series of Poker in 2002.
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