Poker is the most popular card game in the world now; it dwarfs gin, cribbage, canasta, bridge or any other popular card game you can think of. It wasn’t always like this, but in this specific era of poker history, it happens to be the most popular game you can play with a deck of cards. This is partially because of the television boom and partially because poker is just a fun game to play to begin with. Throughout the history of poker, there are ups and downs in terms of its popularity as well as other factors of consideration. One thing is certain though; the history of poker is littered with a number of very interesting periods of time.

Pre-Poker

Before poker was invented as a specific game with specific rules that apply to all of the different variants, there needed to be something around as a pre-cursor. The beginnings of poker are hazy, although it is believed that there was a version of poker or something similar at any rate played in ancient India by the Kings and Emperors that ruled over the country during the time in the BC era. That is completely speculation however and the main thing to be aware of is that the first known pre-cursor to poker was a game known as poque. It was played with a deck of 20 cards and while it didn’t not closely resemble the game of poker as we know it today, there were definitely similarities to be had.

Early Times

The early times of poker consisted of the rules and hand rankings being fleshed out so that all would know what they were. The earliest poker game to really be successful was the five card draw variant. The movie Maverick starring Mel Gibson as well as a number of other western themed movies have scenes where players are playing five card draw and even now that more people know about poker, the five card draw image is what is most commonly associated with the name of poker.

20th Century

The 20th century brought the establishment of the old guard of poker and set the stages for the boom that would follow. It is the century during which all of today’s popular poker variants were developed, including Texas Hold ‘Em. Texas Hold ‘Em, as the name implies, was invented in Texas by a group of players including world famous poker legend Doyle Brunson. It was brought to Vegas and over time experienced peaks and valleys in its popularity. It wasn’t until the 21st century that it became the hugely popular game it is today.

21st Century

In 2003, the poker world was turned upside down. A young man named Chris Moneymaker qualified for the World Series of Poker main event by winning a satellite online. He parlayed that satellite entry fee of less than $50 into a seat at a $10,000 tournament and then went on to win that tournament and the first place prize of $2.5 million. When that happened, everybody figured that they could do it too and in the years that followed (2004-2006), poker boomed to huge levels. It has become so popular that the online poker sites estimate that 50 million people play it worldwide; a huge number considering that just counts online players and not the players that play in casinos only. The future of poker looks bright for the next period of time and while the peak of the boom might have already been hit in 2006, you can be sure that the effects of the boom are going to be around for a long time to come.