Poker History - Texas Holdem History
Most people know why Texas Hold’Em is so popular. More people know how to play the game, but not all people know where the game came from. And I bet only a handful knows of the controversy between Texas Hold’em and another game very similar to Hold’Em called Stud-Horse.
The exact when, where and who behind Texas Hold’Em could not accurately be pointed out, but the increasing popularity of the game enabled Poker fanatics to draw some line along the dots.
Where to Begin
Based on the name itself, most people could easily conclude that the game originated from the Lone Star State, Texas. Later Robstown, Texas was recognized as the place where the game begun. No exact date, month or year could be pointed out as the time when a group of people started playing Hold’Em on the poker table, but it was approximated that the game came to being sometime in the 1900s.
The game was pretty well known in Texas before it reached one of the casinos in Las Vegas. It was in the year 1967 that it was first initiated in a Las Vegas Casino. The Golden Nugget Casino was the only casino remembered to introduce Texas Hold’Em in the Las Vegas Casino Community.
Texas Hold’Em took center stage when Binion’s Horseshoe hosted a poker convention known as the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 1970. During the introduction of the “Main Event” in the convention, it was agreed that the event would be Texas Hold’Em. After then, there was never a huge poker convention or tournament without a game of Texas Hold’Em.
Steps to Popularity
There was no doubt that Texas Hold’Em became very popular especially after the success of the World Series of Poker. Its popularity as a game of skill and character was later intensified when great poker legend, Doyle Brunson, discussed the beauty of the game in his revolutionary book Super/System.
Later, Texas Hold’Em became the staple game at tournaments, and when the Internet came as an addition to the poker culture, it was also the most common game played online. When the “Moneymaker effect” started and made its toll, Texas Hold’Em was the game that made its mark.
Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth, Jr., the poker prodigy who owns the most number of WSOP bracelets, also considers Texas Holdem as his game of choice. All of his bracelets were won while playing the game. And as a matter of fact, he seems to play only one Poker game in the WSOP, and that is Texas Hold’Em.
