Texas Holdem History | A Poker History Lesson

Poker originated in the United States sometime in the first two decades of the 1800’s. It was originally a five card game played with a 20 card deck, with all cards being distributed among four players. Poker quickly spread from its birthplace of Louisiana to ports all along the Mississippi River as gamblers played it in the gambling saloons of the Mississippi steamers that cruised its waterways.

Over the next 100 years the deck expanded to 52 cards, and variations of the game like Draw and Stud began to appear. The roots of Texas Hold’em are a little sketchy, but most people place the first known game in Robstown, Texas sometime in the early 1900’s.

Texas Hold’em spread to Dallas in 1925, but it remained a regional game until a group of road gamblers consisting of Doyle Brunson, Crandell Addington, and Amarillo Slim introduced it to Las Vegas in 1967.

Quickly seeing the potential popularity of the game, Benny and Jack Binion included Texas Holdem as one of five events in their 1970 World Series of Poker played at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino. The next year, they made it the main event, and it’s remained so ever since.

In 1978, Doyle Brunson demystified the strategy behind Texas Hold’em and a handful of other poker games with his revolutionary book, Super/System. But at a price of $100, it captured the attention of few beginners.

In 1998, the movie Rounders, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, gave outsiders a thrilling look into the sometimes seedy world of poker. Featuring a cameo appearance by two-time WSOP main event champion, Johnny Chan, the film glorified the pressure filled, high stakes nature of No Limit Hold’em.

Two almost simultaneous events provided the catalyst for Texas Holdem’s explosion in popularity. The first was the decision by television producers to add lipstick “hole cameras” to the coverage of televised poker. The additional information brought the full drama and excitement of a previously mystifying game to the viewer.

The second catalyst was Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 WSOP Main Event victory. Moneymaker, an amateur player, bested poker veteran Sam Farha for the title to earn the 2.5 million dollar main event prize. This upset convinced millions of viewers that anyone under the right circumstances could beat the world’s best players. As the saying goes, all you need is a chip and a chair.

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