The origin and evolution of the game from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first century!
The origin of the game of poker itself:
Fifteenth century:
The origin of poker is always a topic that raises many controversies since seems to have different origins in different cultures, in the fifteenth century the Germans already played a game with a ranking of hands and bluffs called "pochspiel"! Also the Persians had a game very similar to poker called "As Nas", and there are historians with the theory that poker is directly derived from "As Nas".
Nineteenth and twentieth centuries:
Poker as we know it began to be played in America in the area of Mississippi by 1800, the development of poker through the ages has always been linked to the evolution of "commercial game", as the writer Joseph Crowell described how in New Orleans in 1829 poker was played with 1 deck of 20 cards and 4 players, in 1954 poker was mentioned for the first time in the "handbook of games".
During the civil war in the U.S.A several poker variations emerged, as the stud poker with 5 cards, the "straight" and later the "wild card" in 1875, the "spli-pot poker" appeared in 1900, the poker continues to develop in big in casinos during the 20th century until in 1970 when it comes the biggest competition in the world of Poker broadcasted live on TV the "world Series of Poker"!
There are many questions about the origin of poker until the present day, but throughout the whole evolution is notorious that it has always been a very popular game, and that in the XXI century the poker world has seen its peak through the online poker as we will see also its soucre in the continuation of this article!
Figure I - Poker game in the Mississippi in the Nineteenth Century
The origin of online poker:
Twentieth Century - 1995:
Online poker itself began in 1995 through the chat well known as "IRC", it can be confusing the idea of how a chat like "IRC" could be used to play poker, but the software itself operated by each player would typing their actions as commands, rather than pressing buttons players would write what they wanted to do and then the computer program acted accordingly.
The games offered were Texas Hold'em, Limit Omaha (Hi / Lo), No-Limit Hold'em tournaments and Multi. There were no restrictions on how many accounts a player could open each day, each new account was credited with 1,000 chips, it always play money.
Figure II - Online poker game at IRC
Twentieth Century - 1998:
The first game of online poker with real money was carried out on the January 1st of 1998 in the poker room called "Planet Poker" with "blinds" of $ 3 / $ 6, allowing just 10 players. Then it began to emerge other poker rooms to compete with "Planet Poker" as the "Paradise Poker".
Figure III - Lobby of Planet Poker in 1998
Twentieth First Century - 2001:
It was in the summer of 2001 that were founded poker sites (Party Poker, PokerStars and Ultimate Bet) that would completely change the online gaming industry by giving it a global dimension.
