Texas Holdem Poker
Poker come in many different flavors and two of the most popular variants of today are Texas Hold'em and Omaha. Both are fairly new additions to the poker family and has largely replaced older favorites like Seven Card Stud and Five Card Draw as the poker games of choice for novice players. One of the reasons why Texas Hold'em and Omaha has become so popular is probably because they involve a lot of interesting strategic decisions. Texas Hold'em and Omaha can be described as “quick to learn, a life time to master”. They come in three different variants: fixed limit, pot limit and no limit. Online as well as offline, Texas Hold'em is usually played as fixed limit or no limit while Omaha is commonly played as pot limit.
Texas Hold'em poker is believed to have been invented in Texas in the late 1800s or early 1900s, but its exact origins remains unknown. Robstown, a town in Texas, is often cited as the birth place of Texas Hold'em but no evidence exists supporting this claim. During the first quarter of the 20th century, Texas Hold'em – who was then known simply as Hold'em poker – gradually spread throughout Texas, and we know for a fact that it was played in Dallas as early as 1925. It would however take a long time before this poker variant reached the rest of the United States and poker players in other parts of world, and it wasn't offered by Las Vegas casinos until the late 1960s.
A group of successful poker players, including Doyle brunson, Crandell Addington and Amarillo Slim, can take the credit for introducing poker players in Las Vegas to the game Texas Hold'em. In 1967, this legendary group encouraged the Golden Nugget to include Texas Hold'em tables in their poker room, and two years later you could play Texas Hold'em poker at Dunes Casino as well.
In 1970, Benny Binion opened the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and took a small poker tournament named “World Series of Poker” under his wings. The tournament was invite only and consisted of a select number of professional poker players who met to play a still fairly unknown poker variant loved by the professionals - Texas Hold'em poker.
Today, World Series of Poker (commonly known as WSOP) attracts thousands of players each year and spans over several weeks. Several other poker variants have been added to the schedule, such as Seven Card Stud and 2-7 Draw Lowball, but the Main Event is still what is was over 40 years ago - No Limit Texas Hold'em poker.
No Limit Texas Hold'em is also the game of choice for the Main Event of a long row of other famous poker tournaments, such as World Poker Tour (WPT), European Poker Tour (EPT), Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) and Asian Poker Tour (APT). There are also plenty of poker tours taking place online where No Limit Texas Hold'em is used for the Main Event, including World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). All these tours online and offline have helped popularize Texas Hold'em world wide, especially No Limit Texas Hold'em.
