Texas hold 'em (also known as hold'em or holdem ) is a variation of the standard card game of poker. The game consists of two cards being dealt face down to each player and then five community cards being placed by the dealer -- a series of three ("the flop") then two additional single cards ("the turn" and "the river"), with players having the option to check, bet or fold after each deal.
Objective
In Texas hold 'em, like all variants of poker, individuals compete for an amount of money contributed by the players themselves (called the pot). Because the cards are dealt randomly and outside the control of the players, each player attempts to control the amount of money in the pot based on the hand the player holds.
The game is divided into a series of hands or deals; at the conclusion of each hand, the pot is typically awarded to one player (an exception in which the pot is divided between more than one is discussed below). A hand may end at the showdown, in which case the remaining players compare their hands and the highest hand is awarded the pot; that highest hand is usually held by only one player, but can be held by more in the case of a tie. The other possibility for the conclusion of a hand is when all but one player have folded and have thereby abandoned any claim to the pot, in which case the pot is awarded to the player who has not folded.
The objective of winning players is not winning every individual hand, but rather making mathematically correct decisions regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold. By making such decisions, winning poker players maximize long-term winnings by maximizing their expected gain on each round of betting.
History
Although little is known about the invention of Texas hold 'em, the Texas State Legislature officially recognizes Robstown, Texas as the game's birthplace, dating the game to the early 1900s.
After its invention and spread throughout Texas, hold 'em was introduced to Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan gamblers and card players, including Crandell Addington, Roscoe Weiser, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim. Addington said the first time he saw the game was in 1959. "They didn't call it Texas hold 'em at the time, they just called it hold 'em... I thought then that if it were to catch on, it would become the game. Draw poker, you bet only twice; hold 'em, you bet four times. That meant you could play strategically. This was more of a thinking man's game."
For several years the Golden Nugget Casino in Downtown Las Vegas was the only casino in Las Vegas to offer the game. At that time, the Golden Nugget's poker room was "truly a 'sawdust joint,' with... oiled sawdust covering the floors." Because of its location and decor, this poker room did not receive many rich drop-in clients, and as a result, professional players sought a more prominent location. In 1969, the Las Vegas professionals were invited to play Texas hold 'em at the entrance of the now-demolished Dunes Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. This prominent location, and the relative inexperience of poker players with Texas hold 'em, resulted in a very remunerative game for professional players.
After a disappointing attempt to establish a "Gambling Fraternity Convention", Tom Moore added the first ever poker tournament to the Second Annual Gambling Fraternity Convention held in 1969. This tournament featured several games including Texas hold 'em. In 1970, Benny and Jack Binion acquired the rights to this convention, renamed it the World Series of Poker, and moved it to their casino Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. After its first year, a journalist, Tom Thackrey, suggested that the main event of this tournament should be no-limit Texas hold 'em. The Binions agreed and ever since no-limit Texas hold 'em has been played as the main event. Interest in the Main Event continued to grow steadily over the next two decades. After receiving only 8 entrants in 1972, the numbers grew to over 100 entrants in 1982, and over 200 in 1991.
During this time, Doyle Brunson's revolutionary poker strategy guide, Super/System was first published. Despite being self-published and priced at $100 in 1978, the book revolutionized the way poker was played. It was one of the first books to discuss Texas hold 'em, and is today cited as one of the most important books on this game. In 1983, Al Alvarez published, The Biggest Game in Town , a book detailing a 1981 World Series of Poker event. The first book of its kind, it described the world of professional poker players and the World Series of Poker. Alvarez' book is credited with beginning the genre of poker literature and with bringing Texas hold 'em (and poker generally), for the first time, to a wider audience.
Interest in hold 'em outside of Nevada began to grow in the 1980s as well. Although California had legal card rooms offering draw poker, Texas hold 'em was prohibited under a statute which made illegal the now unknown game "stud-horse". However in 1988, Texas hold 'em was declared legally distinct from "stud-horse" in Tibbetts v. Van De Kamp , 271 Cal. Rptr. 792 (1990). Almost immediately card rooms across the state offered Texas hold 'em. (It is often presumed that this decision ruled that hold 'em was a skill game, but the distinction between skill and chance has never entered into California jurisprudence regarding poker.) After a trip to Las Vegas, bookmakers Terry Rogers and Liam Flood introduced the game to European card players in the early 1980s.
Popularity
Texas Hold Em is one of the most popular forms of poker. Texas Hold 'em's popularity surged in the 2000s due to exposure on television, the Internet and popular literature. During this time hold 'em replaced 7 card stud as the most common game in U.S. casinos. The no-limit betting form is used in the widely televised main event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the World Poker Tour (WPT).
Hold 'em's simplicity and popularity have inspired a wide variety of strategy books which provide recommendations for proper play. Most of these books recommend a strategy that involves playing relatively few hands but betting and raising often with the hands one plays. In the first decade of the 21st century, Texas hold 'em experienced a surge in popularity worldwide. Many observers attribute this growth to the synergy of five factors: the invention of online poker, the game's appearance in film and on television, the 2004–05 NHL lockout, the appearance of television commercials advertising online cardrooms, and the 2003 World Series of Poker championship victory by online qualifier Chris Moneymaker.
Television and film
Main article: Poker on televisionPrior to poker becoming widely televised, the movie Rounders (1998), starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton, gave moviegoers a romantic view of the game as a way of life. Texas hold 'em was the main game played during the movie and the no-limit variety was described, following Doyle Brunson, as the "Cadillac of Poker". A clip of the classic showdown between Johnny Chan and Erik Seidel from the 1988 World Series of Poker was also incorporated into the film. More recently, a high-stakes Texas Hold'em game was central to the plot of the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale , in place of baccarat which was originally the casino game central to the story in the novel from which the film was based.
Hold 'em tournaments had been televised since the late 1970s, but they did not become popular until 1999, when hidden lipstick cameras were first used to show players' private hole cards on the Late Night Poker TV show in the United Kingdom. Hold 'em exploded in popularity as a spectator sport in the United States and Canada in early 2003, when the World Poker Tour adopted the lipstick cameras idea. A few months later, ESPN's coverage of the 2003 World Series of Poker featured the unexpected victory of Internet player Chris Moneymaker, an amateur player who gained admission to the tournament by winning a series of online tournaments. Moneymaker's victory initiated a sudden surge of interest in the World Series, based on the egalitarian idea that anyone – even a rank novice – can become a world champion.
In 2003, there were 839 entrants in the WSOP Main Event, and triple that number in 2004. The crowning of the 2004 WSOP champion, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, a patent attorney from Connecticut, further fueled the popularity of the event among amateur (and particularly internet) players. In the 2005 Main Event, an unprecedented 5,619 entrants vied for a first prize of $7,500,000. The winner, Joe Hachem of Australia, was a semi-professional player. This growth continued in 2006, with 8,773 entrants and a first place prize of $12,000,000 (won by Jamie Gold).
Beyond the World Series, other television shows – including the long running World Poker Tour – are credited with increasing the popularity of Texas hold 'em. In addition to its presence on network and general audience cable television, poker has now become a regular part of sports networks' programming in the United States.
Literature
Twenty years after t
Daily Kos: 'Sacked: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Rush Limbaugh'
'Sacked: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Rush Limbaugh' ... by Dave Checketts, Chairman of the St. Louis Blues hockey ... R.J. Matson, St. Louis Post Dispatch:: :: "The end ...
The Complete Idiot's Guide To Taking Pictures On the Computer ...
The Complete Idiot's Guide To Taking Pictures On the Computer ... Hockey Player
Amazon.com: The Complete Idiot's Guide To Amazing Sex (2nd Edition ...
The Complete Idiot's Guide To Amazing Sex (2nd Edition ... Like the first edition, The Complete Idiot's GuideA (R) to Amazing ... usually derogatory; tonsil hockey; suck someone
SJSports Online Bookstore
The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Hockey. Coaching Youth Hockey. Complete Conditioning for Ice Hockey. Complete Hockey Instruction. Fischler's Illustrated History of Hockey
Docudharma:: 'Sacked: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Rush Limbaugh ...
JekyllnHyde:: 'Sacked: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Rush Limbaugh' ... Dave Checketts, Chairman of the St. Louis Blues hockey ... r.com
Daily Kos: 'Sacked: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Rush Limbaugh'
'Sacked: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Rush Limbaugh' ... by Dave Checketts, Chairman of the St. Louis Blues hockey ... Edward R. Murrow. by SweetAuntFanny on Thu Oct 15, 2009 ...
Amazon.com: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Hockey (0021898642578 ...
Amazon.com: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Hockey (0021898642578): Mark Askin, Malcolm G. Kelly, Mark Askin Malcolm Kelly: Books
The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading...
The books in this lists come from the book The Complete Idiots Guide ... of World War II by Robert Kurson By MJ, Idiot ... Whisky Robber: A true Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey ...
Blue Diamond - The Best on the Web for the complete. Products that ...
The Complete Idiot's Guide to 30,000 Baby Names (Comple ... For all hockey fans, especially us Canadians theres ... time..hail the arrivel of the metrosexual..gone r ...
Books and Links - Backcheck: a Hockey Retrospective - Library and ...
Carroll, M. R. -- The concise encyclopedia of hockey. http://amicus.collectionscanada ... c1986]. -- 48 p. Greig, Murray. -- The complete idiot's guide to the biggest deals in hockey ...