A Brief History of Poker Time

When last I left you, we were looking at why Poker has the bad name that it has today. To understand the game and why it has the bad name that it does, I thought that a quick history of Poker would be in order.

Many areas of the world have lade claim to being the birth place of poker, however, poker most likely started in China around 900 A.D. Like so many other things it diffused across the land mass and found its way to Europe. French settlers imported the game to North America and in particularly the New Orleans area. The game spread around the Continent and by the time of the American Civil War, games of draw, and straight Poker had become popular. Soldiers on both sides played a great deal. In the newly developing Western United States it took off and from there we get many stereotypes about the game. The next great change came in the late 1800’s when the Chip was created. It made the game easy to manage and gold, coins or money did not have to be used. More terms, rules and types of games were created over time. The game spread around the world as American soldiers fought in many international wars in the 20th century. In the last few years with the popularity of Texas Hold’em (see the last blog) the game is now the third-most-watched televised sport on TV, in the states, trailing only auto racing and football.

So that is a brief history of Poker time.

Once again back to the question why do governments and people that support these governments want to stop online poker.

10 books that you should read, but you have never heard off

I just made this video blog on blogtv.
http://www.blogtv.com/People/Rob_AE

Here is the list of the 10 books:

A Road to Serfdom- F A Hayek

World War One-John Keegan

Metamorphosis and Penal Colony- Franz Kafka

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui- Bertolt Brecht

Naked Economics- Charles Wheelan

Paris 1919- Margret MacMillan

Soldiers and Ghosts a history of Battle in Classical Antiquity- J E Lendon

Mission to Asia: The Journey of William of Rubruck- Christopher Dawson

What’s Love got to do with it? - Denise Brennan

Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Stories

Feel free to leave me a comment about these books or any other you would recommend

A round of Golf with Tiger and Weir or a table with Negreanu and Brunson?

The popularity of poker has gone through the room over the last few years. This is clearly shown by the type of money that players can now win. The winner of the 2006 World Series of Poker, Jamie Gold, won 12 million dollars and Canadian Daniel Negreanu has won over 9 million dollars life time. Money is also available for anyone with 30 dollars and time to play in Casino tournaments. This popularity is due in part to a type of poker called Texas Hold em. In this game players get two cards to start and then bet and see five other cards and make the best hand. This type of poker is much more challenging than others as, Johnny Moss, a three time WOSP winner said "Hold em is to stud what chess is to checkers." This variation of poker is used for most major tournaments. The thing that I would like to talk about here is not the pros or the people who go to casinos. That is for another blog. Today I want to look at online poker. Online poker is BIG. I have been known to play online poker at a number of sites. The reason that I write here is that there is a lot of talk about sometime of regulation over it or even worst the complete shut down of it. Why is poker picked on and not other things. What is the difference between a 20 dollar golf game and a 20 dollar poker tournament?

I have blogged before, but have never kept it up. That being said I hope to keep it up this time. I will be blogging about pretty much very thing . If you can name it I hope to blog about it. If you like what you read, feel free to add you to your twitter or Facebook. Just search my name.