A brief history of hold ‘em
Unless you’re a fan of ancient Native American burial sites, or even if you are for that matter, chances are you won’t have heard of Robstown, Texas. But unless you’ve never played hold ‘em, you’ll definitely be aware of this small Texas town’s most famous export. Here at BitPoker247, we’ve done a bit of digging to find out why.
Born in Texas
Robstown (we presume a guy called Robert founded it) is the birthplace of Texas hold ‘em, the world’s most popular variation of poker. A fact validated by the Texas State Legislature whose records confirm that the game was first played here in the early 1900s.
Nobody quite remembers how it all started, but it was over a gaming table in this dusty corner of the Lone Star State that a group of unknown gamblers first developed the rules that evolved into the game we all know so well today; a poker variation where the winner is the player with the best five-card hand they can make using any combination of the five community cards dealt and the two hole cards each player receives.
Made in Vegas
But hold on. Hold ‘em hasn’t always been the poker player’s game of choice. So how did it go from humble origins to gain world domination over earlier poker variations like draw and stud?
As always, things went wild in Vegas. After the game’s slow but steady spread through Texas, reportedly being played in Dallas in 1925, it first showed its face in Sin City in 1967. This is where an enthusiastic group of Texan gamblers and soon-to-be poker legends including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim started playing it in the Golden Nugget, a rough’n’ready downtown gambling joint with cash on the table and sawdust on the floor.
The thinking player’s game
In Des Wilson’s book Ghosts at the Table, hold ‘em master Crandell Addington recalls the first time he saw the game was in 1959, saying “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.”
This crucial mix of skill, strategy and of course, lady luck soon made this game catch on fast amongst the poker community. Play moved to the famous Dunes casino on The Strip, where the heady mix of high stakes and novice players attracted the high rollers and made it the surprise hit of the burgeoning tournament scene. And back in 1970 two brothers, Benny and Jack Binion, whose outfits (and allegedly business practices) could have come straight from classic Scorcese flick Casino were the kings of these annual pokerthons.
Ladies and gentlemen…the main event
They recognised a winning format, bought the rights to the biggest poker tournament where hold ‘em was played, moved it to their Binion’s Horseshoe casino and renamed it the World Series of Poker. The Binions invited the very highest of rollers to take part and made no-limit hold ‘em the main event due the game’s interest to both players and spectators. It’s been the tournament’s premier attraction ever since.
Hold ‘em was given a further boost when it became it became the subject of two best-selling poker books; Doyle Brunson’s 1978 strategy book Super System and Al Alvarez’s 1983 book The Biggest Game in Town, a documentary account of 1981’s World Series of Poker.
Today, both forms are played in casinos and online all over the world and has outstripped seven-card stud as the most common game in the U.S., with no-limit hold ‘em played in the both the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the World Poker Tour (WPT).
Welcome to Omaha
Omaha hold ‘em, a game that’s almost identical to Texas hold ‘em, was first played in Vegas just over 30 years ago. 1982 saw this new version hit the gaming tables, with a few tweaks to the rules: The basic differences between Omaha and Texas hold ’em are that each player is dealt four hole cards instead of two; the betting rounds and layout of community cards are identical; and at showdown, each player’s hand is the best five-card hand made from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of the player’s own cards.
Got it? Then you’re ready to play. Make sure you read the full rules and then find out how you hold up in a game of the world’s favourite poker.
A group of players outside of Binion’s Horseshoe in 1974. The players pictured are (from left to right) Johnny Moss, Chill Wills, Amarillo Slim, Jack Binion, and Puggy Pearson.
Blog post originally written for BitPoker 24/7 and appeared on their website in 2015.
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