The Game of Draw Poker A Brief History
In many ways, the overall game epitomizes the raw bone tenacity of the American spirit that drove the western movement from the Mississippi River in the 1800's. Life on the frontier was harsh, hazardous and full of risks - the pioneers were literally gambling on the lives each day. To both survive in the untamed west also to win at draw poker a man had to be skillful at what he did and count on lady luck to smile on him. He had to closely watch his adversaries and at times bluff his way to avoid it of a situation. The results of his actions could prove very profitable or he could lose it all, sometimes even his life. Draw poker then was an all natural choice for the men of the American west who have been used to risking it all.
The game was the result of an evolutionary process that started when poker was initially took shape in the us early in the nineteenth-century. Just when and where it was first played is subject to a continuing debate among historians, as is the game's origins. Several postulations attribute the game's lineage to a French game called "poque" or perhaps to a German game referred to as "pochspiel." British historians state that the game was a primary descendent of the English card game of "brag." Still other researchers claim that poker evolved from the sixteen-century Persian card game called "as nas" that was used a twenty-five-card deck containing five suites and has rules similar to five-card stud poker. Since exact documentation of poker's early history is impossible to find out its inception will probably remain a mystery.
Poker is considered to have were only available in America sometime in the first 1800's, possibly in saloons of New Orleans. From there it spread up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers by way of the commercial steam boat traffic. Then as the wagon trains and railroads pushed the frontier west, poker continued to gain popularity with the first adventurers. An English actor, Joseph Crowell, recorded seeing poker being played on the riverboats in his diary of 1829 and later in his 1844 book, Thirty Years Passed On the list of Players in England and America. A reformed gambler by the name of Jonathan H. Green wrote about early poker in his book, Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling that was published in 1843. playking88 described an early on version of poker that has been used a twenty-card deck (A-K-Q-J-10). Each of four players was dealt five cards and bets were positioned on these five original cards without discards or draws. When the betting was on the owner of the greatest hand won the pot - in the region of one pair, two pair, triplets, full house (one pair and a triple), and four of a sort. Because of the limits of a twenty-card deck there was just a single round of betting prior to the winning hand was declared and this made bluffing a more difficult maneuver.
Because the game evolved it moved to a thirty-two card deck and then eventually to the typical "French deck" of fifty-two cards. Sometime in the mid-1830's straights and flushes were introduced as winning hands. playking88 draw poker was created and started making the rounds of gambling halls in the west. The first mention of draw poker appeared in the American edition of Bohn's New Handbook of Games in 1850. In playking88 , wild cards were introduced to poker play.
