You are playing your favorite poker variation, texas holdem and you are in a winning streak, until you stop and wonder. You look at the cards in your hand and wonder where and how this game came about.
The origins of poker have been said to date back over ten centuries. It has evolved through other games with had the same principal of game play. You will be surprised to find that bluffing has always been in the regimen of the predecessors of poker.
The first known possible predecessor was said to have been played in China sometime in 969 A.D. by the Emperor Mu-tsung. According to the ancient records, he was playing domino cards with no other but his wife. The next civilization that used playing cards for recreation were the Egyptians in the 12th century.
The predecessors of poker and card games in general were also discovered in the 16th century of Persia. Here they had a game called "Ganjifa" which means Treasure Cards. This game deck consisted of 96 cards which were made out of thin ivory or wood slices.
When the card games in general came to Europe, there were several games that showed quite a resemblance to the poker game as we know it today. In the 17th and 18th century, two games became popular. "Poque" in France and "Pochen" in Germany were the names of the card games. Both card games were surprisingly derived from the so-called mother of poker, the Spanish 16th century game called "Primero." It was the Primero game that can be directly linked to modern day poker and Primero was played with three cards and the use of bluffing and high stakes betting to succeed in the game. Later on, the poker game spread through French-Canadian settlers to New Orleans and all the way up the Mississippi river and then eventually through the whole United States. The American Jonathan H. Green was the first person to write about poker. The card game he mentioned was the "cheating game" and he eventually made it formal and thus poker was born.
The Wild West period was when poker literally flourished. How can we forget all these Wild West movies where the cowboys are all playing around round poker tables and occasionally start fights over losing a game of poker. The last so-called update to the poker set up was the introduction of the joker as sort of wildcard, in 1875.
Now we can look back on the rich history of poker and look at the variations we can find now, and the most popular form of poker has been and always will be the texas holdem style.
